Power of the Digital Revolution to Close Income-Inequality Gap

Every year, our nation's oldest, most historical civil rights and urban advocacy organization publishes an annual report meant to shed light on the economic condition of our nations marginalized populations. This State of Black America report purpose is to promote racial equality in America in terms of economic mobility, education, healthcare, housing, criminal justice and civic participation.

However, this year's report in particular focuses on the digital revolution and how digitization affects disenfranchised communities and how it can even potentially even widen the equality gap for blacks and whites. Using data from the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission, the report highlights how out of the 41,000 employees combined at Google, Facebook and Twitter, only 758-- or 1.8 percent, are African American. This trend is omnipresent throughout the tech industry. In a majority of tech companies, less than 5% of the workforce is comprised of African Americans. To contrast, whites make up at least half of the workforce in these companies.

With the average salary in the tech sector starting at $80,000, pushing more African Americans in tech is an opportunity to advance the workforce participation of women and people of color in closing the income inequality gap. What can be done to encourage more inclusion and diversity in the tech field to widen minorities chances of securing high-paying jobs in the industry?

To read the report about how African Americans fair in the economy compared to whites, click here.

http://soba.iamempowered.com/2018-report