Workforce stratification by Race - a #Visualization

Derek Thompson at The Atlantic as a piece up on the racial composition of the US workforce, and it is one of the more depressing articles that I have read in the recent past.  As he puts it

The numbers reveal a workforce stratified, if not calcified, by race, with whites seeing higher wages and lower unemployment, while blacks and Hispanics constantly stuck behind them. 

The following two charts pretty succinctly summarize everything wrong with our workforce today.

First, what employees make, broken down by race

Its really pretty straight forward: White > Black > Hispanic, as well as Men > Women

Add to this the next chart showing who works more often, once again broken out by race - but this time, over the last 40  years

The bottom line?

The unambiguous take-aways?

• It pays, and has always paid to be White in this country. Quite literally. Regardless of whether you are a man or a woman
• If you're a hispanic man, you have always worked more, and gotten paid less than pretty much anyone (except Hispanic women)
• Black men and women have always worked more, and gotten paid less than white women.

Mind you, this doesn't even begin to account for the 'underground economy', which almost certainly would disproportionately affect hispanic men and women.

Sigh...