Black men earn 74 cents on the white male's dollar, and black women earn 64 cents. For Asian males, the figure is 99 cents on the dollar, and for Asian females, it's 78 cents. Hispanic males earn 65 cents on the dollar, and Hispanic females earn 54 cents. But according to the federal Equal Employment Opportunity Commission, just 11 percent of the managers are black men or women. Fifty-six percent of the managers are white men, and 31 percent are white women.
Women comprise more than half of the employees, but just over one-third of the top echelon.
Similar gaps are apparent in academe and in government contracting. That was up from 3 percent in 1990. How those figures are interpreted depends on whether one views the glass as half empty or half full. Affirmative-action critics point out that the numbers, however unequal, indicate that the playing field is becoming more level. For instance, women have closed the earning gap with men by 15 cents since 1973.