Black women work more than other women, and they’re more often heads of households. But they’re often caught in jobs that pay lower wages.

Black women have had the highest levels of labor market participation since the US started counting—regardless of age, marital status, or presence of children at home.

And that participation is crucial to Black households: as of 2020, nearly 75% of Black mothers with children under 18 are key breadwinners for their families, compared to 45% of white mothers.

“Black families often rely on more than one generation to work and contribute to household finances,” says Joi Owens, Oxfam’s Program Lead in the Gulf Coast. “When one person loses a job, it shakes up the whole family structure.”

Moreover, for centuries discriminatory public policies have reinforced the view of Black women as workers rather than as mothers. As the Economic Policy Institute reports, up until the 1960s, caseworkers excluded most poor Black women from receiving cash assistance because they expected Black women to be employed—not stay-at-home moms like white women.

Women's labor force participation rate by race. Courtesy US Department of Labor

Black women are more likely to be in jobs that pay less.

Gender segregation of the workforce in the US is profound, and women are concentrated in jobs that pay lower wages. Occupations that can be characterized as “women’s work”—cleaning, cooking, childcare—usually offer few rewards and paths to advancement. Even jobs that may require an advanced degree (such as early childhood educator) may pay less than jobs considered “men’s work” (such as security guard). (For more on the gendered labor market, see Oxfam’s Undervalued and Underpaid.)

Add to that layers of systemic racism that have funneled Black women into low-wage service jobs. Today, 28 percent of Black women are employed in service jobs—vs 20 percent of white women—and they tend to be concentrated in the jobs that offer the lowest pay and sparsest benefits.

State labor laws have created a patchwork of inequality.

Labor laws and policies play a huge role in setting the floor on wages, and in securing rights and protections in the workplace. State laws across the country vary dramatically, and working families face wildly disparate conditions.

Unfortunately, states featuring the highest concentrations of Black residents are also states that have unfavorable labor laws: low minimum wages, scant workplace protections, and limited rights to organize. Moreover, they lack laws to protect women workers, such as accommodations for pregnancy. (For more on state labor laws, see Oxfam’s Best and Worst States to Work.)

As a result, in these states a disproportionate number of Black women are paid very low wages and face the greatest pay gaps. The map below illustrates the percentages of Black women in each state who earn under $15. The dark blue indicates more than half; in several states it tops 60 percent.

The state that has the highest percentage of Black residents—Mississippi—falls near the bottom of the state index and is the only state in the country without an equal pay law. Oxfam participates in a coalition that introduces this legislation every year.

Joi Owens, who partners in the Gulf Coast with the Mississippi Women’s Economic Security Initiative, says that the equal pay law is central to the effort not only to raise women’s pay, but to educate and galvanize Black women to take action. The Initiative encourages Black women to run for office, and to organize against voter suppression.

The dark blue on this map indicates states where more than half of Black and Latina women earn under $15 an hour. (Oxfam map)

When the federal minimum wage does not rise, it depresses the wage floor, and impacts Black women workers. It’s been stuck for 12 years.

The wage has been $7.25 an hour ($290 a week) for over a decade; in that time, all costs of living have climbed. Black women are disproportionately represented in low- and minimum-wage jobs.

A bump to $15 would immediately decrease the pay gap by gender and race, lift millions of families out of poverty, reduce hunger and food insecurity, and strengthen our economy. (For more on the impact of the minimum wage, see Oxfam’s interactive map.)

The federal tipped wage

The tipped work force is disproportionately Black and brown women; and the subminimum wage has been $2.13 an hour for 30 years.

The first minimum wage law excluded restaurant workers; when the tipped wage was created in 1966, it formalized the idea of the “subminimum,” and created a dangerous dynamic for servers.

Before the pandemic, Black women restaurant workers earned on average nearly $5 an hour less than white male counterparts. This reflects both the fact that they are segregated into more casual restaurants, as well as customer bias in tipping.

Millions of workers are excluded from federal labor protections

When federal labor laws were passed (especially the NLRA and FLSA in the 1930s), they deliberately excluded certain workforces--especially farmworkers and domestic workers—in large part to get support from Southern lawmakers. Not surprisingly, most of these workers were and are people of color; and a substantial number are Black women.

To this day, domestic workers are excluded from overtime pay and protections around minimum wages; and most lack protections around sexual harassment or workplace safety. (Read more on Oxfam’s blog.)

The pandemic hit Black women hard

On top (and as a result) of all these realities is the fact that when economic crises strike, Black women often feel the sharpest blow.

Half a million Black women lost their jobs in 2020, according to the Department of Labor; by percentage, the losses were nearly double those of white women and men over the same period.

Moreover, Black women who kept their jobs are overrepresented in frontline occupations that are experiencing the greatest dangers of exposure to the virus (such as cashiers, teachers, cleaners, healthcare aides).

It took ten years for Black women to recover from the Great Recession in terms of employment; now, they are practically back to where they started when the bottom dropped out of our economy.