Equal Work: A Blog Post Inspiration
How to Shine Bright in the Dark--- African-American Women Lighting the Path to Where They Want to Be
African-American women aren’t winning in the private sector. They are winning as entrepreneurs. This is the reason why Forbes and the United States Department of Labor show that the number one demographic to open up businesses and start companies are black women. Black Women are hitting a concrete ceiling in the business world.
Imagine you have worked hard all your life and attended a prestigious university, graduated with good grades and upon graduation you are not able to get a job in your field even though you are more qualified than 80 to 90 percent of the candidates who have applied for the same job. The natural conclusion would be that the person applying for the job must be missing something, because logically why would an organization want to hire someone less qualified for the position.
This is the sad reality for many Black women who have checked all the boxes that society says you are supposed to, in order to be successful. In fact, a new study from the Center for Economic and Policy Research, finds that 12.4 percent of Black college graduates were unemployed. While the unemployment rate for all college graduates stood at only 5.6 percent.
African-Americans with college degrees are twice as likely to be unemployed as other graduates. John Schmitt, a senior economist at the Washington based Center for Economic and Policy Research who co-authored an economic study on unemployment said, "College degrees do have value, but what we are trying to show here is that this is not about individuals, or individual effort. There is simply overwhelming evidence that discrimination remains a major feature of the labor market."
The Equal Employment Opportunity Commission (EEOC) is launching an investigation into these visible trends and fining companies millions. The statistics are staggering. According to the National Women's Law Center, Black women face an unemployment rate that is nearly twice that of white men. If you have been watching the news, you have heard the President brag about the Black unemployment rate. Although the unemployment rate for Black workers was at a record low in December 2017, the unemployment rate ticked back up in January--by 13 percent! And the Black unemployment rate of 7.7 percent is nothing to brag about, especially when the overall unemployment rate has held steady at 4.1 percent for months.
When Black women do get hired they are paid considerably less, making only 63 cents to every dollar that White men make for the same work. This large discrepancy in wages makes the income gap almost insurmountable as prices increase for things in everyday life due to inflation. This vicious cycle greatly affects Black families where Black women are often the bedrock on which their children depend.
With such a dismal outlook, many Black women have started to question the traditional path society has presented them as the road to success. Many have taken stock of their predicament--examining their educational attainments, previous work experience, and desires for a better life--and have turned to working for themselves.
Although becoming an entrepreneur is a rollercoaster of its own, more and more Black women prefer it to the constant roadblocks they encounter in the corporate world. Since Black women have already had to live on less and "tough it", many have the tenacity it takes to create their own path. They often find greater success through entrepeneurship than by continuing to work for someone else. Ask Oprah.