The racial and gender wage gap in the United States persists, with Asian men earning the most of all groups in average hourly earnings in 2015, according to Pew Research Center Bureau of Labor Statistics data released Friday.
With the exception of Asian men, who earned $24, white men out-earned every other group with $21. Black and Hispanic men earned $15 and $14, respectively, in comparison.
While Asian and white women, at $18 and $17, respectively, earned less than their male counterparts, they made more than both black and Hispanic men and black and Hispanic women, who earned $13 and $12.
The gender wage gap has, however, continued to decrease, though the rate differs by race — black women have only incrementally narrowed the gap, from earning 56 cents for every dollar earned by a white man in 1980 to 65 cents in 2015, and Hispanic women fared worse, narrowing the gap by only 5 cents, from 53 cents to 58 cents. Meanwhile, Asian women earned 87 cents for every white man dollar last year, and white women were up 22 cents, to 82 cents, since 1980.
Data showed that, while college-educated adults earned more on average, the wage gaps by gender, race and ethnicity still remained. Black and Hispanic men with college degrees earned $25 and $26, respectively, to white college-educated men’s $32.
Among the college-educated, Asian women earned $27, compared with $25 for white women, $23 for black women and $22 for Hispanic women.
Pew attributed wage gaps to differences in education, labor force experience, occupation or industry and factors like discrimination.
