Racial Discrimination and Inequality in the U.S. Labor Market: Evidence from Census 2000

William Darity, Jr., University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill
Jason Dietrich, U.S. Office of the Comptroller
Darrick Hamilton, Milano Graduate School, New School University

Utilizing both the ancestry and race responses in Census 2000, evidence will be presented on discrimination and intergroup disparity for 50 ethnic/racial groups in the USA. Comparisons will be made with results from the 1980 and 1990 censuses -- where similar group classifications can be identified -- to determine the trajectory of racial/ethnic inequality in the United States over the past 20 years. In addition, by making use of the Integrated Public Use Micro-Sample (IPUMS) the paper will report on group differences in labor market outcomes across 120 years, from 1880 to 2000. Finally, updating a study the authors published in 2001 in the American Journal of Economics and Sociology, the paper will report on evidence of the effects of group based disadvantages in labor markets in the interval 1880-1910 on occupational status outcomes for descendants of the same group a century later.