Exam 7: Income and Labor Market Inequality

Since the late 1960s, the average pay for low-skilled workers has been decreasing. One reason for the decreases is:

How does the human capital advantage of work experience differ for unskilled White, Hispanic, and African American women? What are the implications of this finding?

During the 1980s, wages increased for high-skilled jobs, government sector work declined, many unionized jobs went overseas, and part-time and temporary work rose. These are all _________ explanations for labor market inequality.

The United States has one of the highest levels of income inequality among all advanced economies in the world. How might you argue that this extreme inequality poses a severe problem for communities of color? Support your answer by drawing on two findings presented in Chapter 7.

Compare and contrast individual explanations of racial disparities in earnings and employment (i.e., human capital and employer discrimination explanations) with structural explanations of these disparities (i.e., deindustrialization, skills mismatch, and split-labor market explanations). Which of these explanations do you find the most persuasive? Why?

Compared with similar nations, the United States ranks the best in terms of child poverty rates and has the smallest difference in ratio between the richest 10 percent and poorest 10 percent.

Although measures of wage differentials and the earnings gap provide an understanding of inequality in the labor market, this understanding is limited because these measures do not take into account:

Asian American men do not face discrimination in the labor market.

The median income of White workers in the United States is higher than that of Black workers. This difference in earnings by group is an example of the:

What is the relationship between incarceration and racial differences in men's earnings?

In the United States, the difference in earnings between the richest and poorest people has been slowly decreasing over the past few decades.

Why are human capital explanations not sufficient to fully explain racial and gender inequality in the labor market?

As of 2013, the United States had more income inequality than Mexico.

White women are more likely to attain highly paid positions and thus gain more than their Black counterparts.

Explain how audit studies are designed to reveal the presence or absence of labor market discrimination. How do audit studies differ from, yet complement statistical analyses of racial discrimination in the labor market?

Incarcerated people are not included in the unemployment rate.

What is an implicit bias? How does this concept help us understand discrimination in the labor market?

One in three Black men born in the twenty-first century can expect to spend time in prison during his lifetime.

Describe the split labor market and explain how affirmative action is intended to address this labor market dynamic. In light of the findings presented in Chapter 7, do you think affirmative action has effectively addressed the split labor market? Why or why not?

The deindustrialization of the U.S. economy is a consequence of which of the following factors?