5 Graphs that Help Explain Black Lives Matter
By: Melissa Ingle
Tags: BlackLivesMatter, Racial Justice, Equality

On June 1, 2020, author and activist Kimberly Jones posted a now-viral speech about Black Lives Matter titled “How Can We Win” in which she brilliantly breaks down the economic conditions which have led to Black Lives Matter protests. In this speech, she likens the economic history of America to a game of monopoly and points out that for 400 turns Black people were not allowed to play at all, and then for the next 50 any money they did earn was taken from them. The whole speech is dazzling and bracing, and if by any chance you haven’t seen it, you should go watch it right now.

Jones’ speech certainly doesn’t need any help from me, a White woman, and I would never attempt to improve upon it. However, I think most people have only a vague notion of how broken the economic system she describes is, and as a data scientist, I thought I could provide a visual and statistical guide to the disparities faced by Black people in America today. All data are from the Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS); all graphics and analyses are my own.

Unemployment

Unemployment by Age and Race (2019)

As shown here, Black unemployment is staggering — nearly double White unemployment at every age group in 2019, particularly among young Black people aged 16–19 who have an unemployment rate of 22% compared to the White cohort, who are unemployed at the rate of 12.8%. This is especially troubling because of the effects of delayed entry on future wages. In a study by the Federal Reserve Bank of Boston, Daniel Cooper noted those who suffered prolonged periods of unemployment faced a significant earnings gap which could take up to 20 years to close. That’s 20 years of decreased wages faced disproportionately by Black men and women.

Annual unemployment by race (2010–2019)

High rates of Black unemployment go back quite some time. The Bureau of Labor Statistics does not publish data going back the “450 turns” Jones mentions in her speech, but the data they do have show this trend is nothing new. Although it is true that Black unemployment decreased an impressive 62.03% from 2010 to 2019, White and Asian rates saw nearly identical decreases of 64.27% and 62.24%, respectively. Put another way, Black unemployment was nearly double White unemployment in 2010 and is nearly double today.

Earnings

Salary by Age and Race (2019)

This graph, which breaks down salary data from 2019 by age, shows just how much less Black and Hispanic people can expect to earn, on average, at different points in their career compared to their White and Asian counterparts. The average annual salary of a Black person between the ages of 25–54 was $39,884. The average salary of a White person was $51,064, a difference of $11,180 every year for the prime working years of a person’s life. An interesting phenomenon of these data is the earnings of Asian people which far surpass other groups and peak between 25–54 years, to be surpassed by White people aged 55+. This is due to the fact that Asian men and women are overrepresented in the tech and finance sectors, traditionally high paying jobs, but tend to top out in middle management, being excluded from senior executive positions reserved for White people.

Annual Salary by Economic Background (2000–2019)

Salary differences are hardly a recent phenomenon either. This graph, which displays data going back 20 years, shows the pattern holds through boom and bust. If anything, the disparity is increasing. In 2000, white people earned 25.55% more than black people. In 2020, that number has increased to 28.03%.

Representation at the top

Salary and Representation by Race (2019)

This last image requires a bit of explanation, but is one of the keys to understanding economic disparity in America. Each dot in the chart represents one job title. If a lot of people from a population hold that job title, it will be higher up the y-axis in their chart. If that job pays a high salary, the dot will be farther to the right.

For all groups, the majority of dots are clustered on the left side, showing most people in America, regardless of ethnic background, have low to medium wage jobs. For White and Asian people, the trend line is moderately positive, indicating higher salaried positions are more likely to be held by these groups. However, for Black and Hispanic people, the trend lines are decidedly negative. These groups are simply not present in higher paying jobs. The chart below may help illustrate.

Top 10 Highest Paying Jobs in America (2019)

This chart lists the top 10 highest paying jobs in America in 2019, per BLS classifications for which there was also racial data. Here, White people have higher representation than the national average in 8 out of 10 jobs listed, and even in those jobs, they are nearly at that average. Asian people are overrepresented in 5 out of 10 jobs, with more than twice the representation in computer and information systems manager positions and nearly four times the representation as dentists. But Black and Hispanic people have lower representation in every single position, and in some jobs, such as dentists, aircraft pilots, and advertising managers, are nearly shut out completely.

What’s it all about?

As Kimberly Jones so powerfully stated, the question is not what the rioters are trying to gain, but rather why they are rioting in the first place. She points out that centuries of economic disenfranchisement in America has systematically stripped Black Americans of earned wealth from within their lifetimes and of inherited wealth, which many White Americans take for granted. The five graphs and one chart in this post, examining the present and recent past, show these trends continue to this day.

As a final note, this article is posted as a companion piece to my other article Evaluating economic data to reveal discrimination, which is of a technical nature. There, you can see the code I used to generate these graphs, as well as links to the data files used in the analysis.

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