by Nicholas Mitchell, Ph.D.
In his landmark work Black Reconstruction, W.E.B. Dubois wrote about the American class structure following the Civil War, “The proletariat is usually envisaged as united, but their real interests were represented in America by four sets of people: the freed Negro, the Southern poor white, and the Northern skilled and unskilled laborer.”1 Using DuBois’s lens, this article seeks to complicate the social conversation about income inequality by examining Louisiana’s wage data intersectionally. The six intersecting racial and gender groups— white males, black males, Hispanic males, white females, black females, and Hispanic females— are categorized as belonging to one of three wage brackets: low, middle, or high.
For this report, low wages earners are defined as those whose hourly wages fall below $12 whereas middle wage earners’ hourly wages fall between $12 and $22.81 and high wage earners’ hourly wages are above $22.81. For an individual working 40 hours per week, excluding the impact of local and federal taxes, a low wage earner makes less than $24,960 a year, a middle wage earner makes between $24,960 and $47,444.80 a year, and a high wage earner makes over $47,444.80 a year.
Examined as a whole, 31.9% of wage earners in Louisiana qualify as low wage earners, 38.1% qualify as middle wage earners, and 30% qualify as high wage earners. When examined racially, the wage gap becomes evident, as shown in Figure 12.
48.6% of black workers and 41% of Hispanic workers qualify as low wage earners compared to 24% of white workers; black and Hispanic workers’ representation among low wage workers is 16.8% and 9.2% higher than the state average, respectively, while white workers’ representation falls 7.9% below the state average. Black and Hispanic workers’ representation among high wage earners is 12.8% and 14.4% lower than the state average of 30%, respectively, while white workers’ representation is 6.7% higher than the state average.