Talk:Racial pay gap in the United States

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Article Proposal
I propose to create an article on the "Racial wage gap in the United States" for 4 reasons:

1. A racial wage gap exists in America and has been documented by many scholars and written about in many journals. Research includes the wage gap for various minority races in the United States, its presence across various occupations and industries, and possible causes and solutions. There is thus ample evidence for the racial wage gap, and this collection of research merits an article to summarize and combine it.

2. The racial wage gap is important topic because inequality in wages is especially detrimental because they are the means by which individuals and families procure food, shelter, healthcare, and other necessities. Differing wages therefore lead to differences in these necessities which they procure, which puts racial ethnicities in America at a disadvantage. Opportunities are thus limited because of the racial wage gap.

3. The racial wealth gap in the United States is something that is not commonly understood amongst American citizens. While some deny its existence altogether, some also attribute it to things such as differences in education or skills. Research shows, however, that these differences cannot account for all of the difference that is observed in wages. Thus, this article is invaluable in combating misconceptions about the racial wage gap as well as for further informing those who already know of its existence.

4. As the racial wage gap has been verified through research, there has also been discussion on possible ways to eliminate it. Thus, I intend on making a section on these solutions and welcome other contributors who know of other ways that have been proposed. In this way, this article will serve to inform and also to provide a space for collecting of ideas to eliminate the racial wage gap.


 * You don't have to propose an article - just create it (which I will now do). The subject is most certainly notable and important enough for its own article. The only thing I'm wondering right now is whether it should specifically refer to "wage gap" or "income differences" since the two are not the same.   Volunteer Marek   19:52, 15 October 2011 (UTC)

NPOV, GA
The first sentence of the lead should prevent this article as being considered for a GA. The relationship between slavery and wages is WP:FRINGE with the exception of African-Americans, and a minority position even then. It should not be in the lead. I'm not saying there is anything else appropriate or inappropriate about the article, just that the first sentence is inappropriate anywhere in a lead on Wikipedia.

(I found this article while looking for a place to put an addition made to Wealth inequality in the United States, which clearly doesn't belong there. — Arthur Rubin  (talk) 18:27, 6 May 2014 (UTC)
 * An anonymous editor added another NPOV tag to this article in February 2016. Are there any other sections in this article that need improvement? Jarble (talk) 03:07, 19 April 2016 (UTC)
 * The first sentence of the last paragraph of the lead is problematic:
 * Knowing the inequalities in the wages of various races is useful for understanding the overall racial inequality in the United States because of the integral role that wages play.
 * It almost qualifies as content-free, but to the extent it means something, it takes a strong POV. I haven't looked at this article in some time, and I don't intend to, now.  I don't see anything else obvious in the lead, and I don't want to get back in to the morass that editing this article has proved to be.  — Arthur Rubin  (talk) 19:00, 19 April 2016 (UTC)


 * Wow, this article is heavily slanted to push current political views on discrimination and inequality - at least the few sentences I read before bursting out laughing.
 * One extra laughable comment is, "The history of Black Americans in the United States is one characterized by social control and domination. The disparity in wealth between Black and White America has a history as long as the relationship between the two groups. Across the country, white Americans benefitted from not being required to pay enslaved Africans for more than four centuries"
 * Good to know that we didn't have to pay slaves for more than four centuries, despite USA slavery only lasted 245 years (according to a quick Google)! Our nation was only colonized by the British in 1607, meaning that according to this article, slavery was only abolished in 2007. Of course, that leads to the even more unpalatable fact that President George W. Bush is responsible for outlawing slavery. =P
 * ComServant (talk) 04:53, 22 November 2016 (UTC)
 * These disparities are also described in a related Wikipedia article about wealth inequality in the United States. Jarble (talk) 05:44, 22 November 2016 (UTC)
 * @Jarble That other article also looks pretty opinionated! =) Also, I'm think I'm missing what you are saying - are you saying the claimed "four centuries" is explained in the other article? ComServant (talk) 08:28, 22 November 2016 (UTC)
 * Ah, I see, they are taking the start of European enslavement of Africa to the end of United States slave trade to get four centuries, but mis-applying all four centuries to the United States directly ("White Americans ['in the United States', as previously mentioned] benefited from four centuries..."), and broadly applying it to everyone who lived in the United States, whereas obviously the economic gain of Slavery benefited some areas more than others - primarily (but not exclusively) the South, of which any economic benefit was destroyed during the Civil War, where the South had pretty much suffered economically. So, despite the economic gain being mostly destroyed, the gain is being applied to areas like the modern-day wealth of California, which is highly speculative. Anyways, my point is opinions in the article are being treated like facts, and viewpoints are being implanted in the article through phrasing and word choices. ComServant (talk) 09:30, 22 November 2016 (UTC)
 * As I said above, I only came to this article because of statements made in Wealth inequality in the United States, which, if they should be anywhere, should be here. Looking back of them, they clearly shouldn't be anywhere, for the reasons  gives above. — Arthur Rubin  (talk) 21:54, 22 November 2016 (UTC)

Section blanking
In this revision, several paragraphs were removed from this article. I don't understand the purpose of this edit. Why was this content removed? Jarble (talk) 04:59, 1 December 2014 (UTC)
 * I don't remember doing that.. It must have been on accident. Sorry! Prcc27 (talk) 21:19, 1 December 2014 (UTC)
 * The deleted content has not yet been restored to this page. Will you be able to repair it? Jarble (talk) 06:36, 7 December 2014 (UTC)
 * ✅ Prcc27 (talk) 09:53, 7 December 2014 (UTC)

Peer review
Should we subject this article to peer review? Lbertolotti (talk) 15:26, 12 August 2015 (UTC)
 * That would be a reasonable action. The lack of peer review in this article makes it vulnerable to conflict-of-interest editing and vandalism. Jarble (talk) 14:44, 23 August 2016 (UTC)

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Latinos?
Why are latinos mentioned. The ref in the opening states correctly that these are ethnic groups, not races. ♫ RichardWeiss talk contribs 10:17, 24 October 2018 (UTC)
 * The solution is to move to Ethnic wage gap in the United States. Any objections? ♫ RichardWeiss talk contribs 12:31, 24 October 2018 (UTC)

Reference to Occupational Segregation
Hi all. I will be expanding the article on occupational segregation in the next few months and will add a link to it in the occupational distribution disparities section of this page. Since currently Occupational segregation only talks about gender segregation, I will make the page more relevant to this article and discuss causes and effects, as well as possible solutions to racial occupational segregation. If you have any questions, feel free to check out my user page or sandbox! -Angelalin79 (talk) 01:32, 30 September 2020 (UTC)

Requested move 31 October 2020

 * The following is a closed discussion of a requested move. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made in a new section on the talk page. Editors desiring to contest the closing decision should consider a move review after discussing it on the closer's talk page. No further edits should be made to this discussion. 

The result of the move request was: moved. (non-admin closure)   Bait30   Talk 2 me pls? 22:18, 10 November 2020 (UTC)

Racial wage gap in the United States → Racial pay gap in the United States – To make this consistent with Gender pay gap in the United States, which is a more widely discussed topic. feminist (talk) &#124; free Thailand 09:02, 31 October 2020 (UTC)
 * Support as consistent with other article. Free1Soul (talk) 18:00, 8 November 2020 (UTC)


 * The discussion above is closed. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.

Study Reliable?
In Section Specific Groups In Subsection African American In Paragraph 6, Sentence 6.

It States "When no factors other than race are considered"
 * Wouldn't excluding factors other than race make this study unreliable?

Eisforbiggayapples (talk) 00:32, 24 September 2023 (UTC)


 * What does the rest of the paragraph say? Hint: this is called controlling for various factors. It's how scientists figure out which factors are determinative. Generalrelative (talk) 00:36, 24 September 2023 (UTC)

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