Intersectional Earnings Inequalities in U.S. Public Sector Workplaces and the Great Recession

Abstract

The authors examine intersectional earnings inequalities in U.S. state and local government workplaces during the Great Recession of 2007 to 2011. Corresponding to closure and exploitation mechanisms as proposed in Relational Inequality Theory, the authors decompose pay gaps into between-workplace and within-workplace segregation components and within-job disparities. Between-workplace closure mechanisms tend to be absent or weak for all comparisons, but within-workplace occupational closure and within-job pay disparities are present for all and quite large for most groups. Within-job earnings inequalities tend to be largest for Black, Hispanic, and Native American women and smallest for Asian and Native American men. During the Great Recession, organizational resources to make claims on shrank, as low-wage job layoffs surged and resources contracted. This resulted in a shrinking of within-workplace and within-job, but rising between-workplace, inequalities.