The pay gap continues to widen for Black Americans, making it an ongoing and disturbing issue.
A new study by Real Estate Witch reveals 26% of Black workers are two times as likely as white workers to report poor salaries. Many shared this same disturbing information with BLACK ENTERPRISE in the Bad Bosses Are Destroying Employee Happiness: 2022 Data Study.
Last month, some 1,000 full-time American employees were surveyed and asked about their biggest workplace frustrations. The study included 127 respondents who self-identified as Black. The data was part of an online survey paid for by Real Estate Witch.
There were many intriguing discoveries. Overall, 56% of workers would take a salary cut if it would guarantee they would be happy at work. This number included 16% who would take less pay of $20,000 or greater. Around 61% cited good leadership as the No. 1
cause for job satisfaction, and 75% of employees were dissatisfied with managers. About 31% said unclear communications; 27% said micromanagement, and another 27% said favoritism of other employees are leading reasons workers are not pleased with managers.Job discrimination appeared to be a persistent obstacle. Some 46% report discrimination is a workplace problem. Black employees were 19% more likely than white employees to recognize it as an issue. Some 35% of workers pointed to pay gaps, 33% pointed to racism, and 30% pointed to sexism as the most common issues.
Jamie Seale, the study’s author, disclosed that Black Americans experience more microaggressions than their white peers. That may make it more challenging to form workplace friendships, which 130% of Black employees were more than twice as likely to say are absent from their workplace.
Seale added Black workers were 31% more likely to say their workplace doesn’t have many opportunities for career advancement. This statistic is supported by other studies showing Blacks are underrepresented in senior roles.
“As a result, Black employees are 47% more likely to say that important benchmarks for job satisfaction are missing from their workplace, and they are 58% more likely than white workers to report that their workplace doesn’t value diversity, equity, and inclusion,” Seale shared.