The growing racial pay gap is linked to rising income inequality and continued occupational segregation and discrimination.

Despite the civil rights movement of the 1960s and affirmative action policies, major pay gaps between whites and blacks persist. While the racial pay gap closed during the latter half of the 20th century, this trend reversed around 2000, and the gap has been growing ever since. In new research, Hadas Mandel and Moshe Semyonov examine a number of potential explanations for this reversal. They argue that the rising income inequality, along with continued occupational segregation and market discrimination, contributed to the enlargement of pay gaps between blacks and whites.