African-American and Latino retail industry employees earn lower wages than their white colleagues, according to a new study.
The report, released on Tuesday by public policy group Demos and the NAACP, found that retailers pay black and Hispanic full-time salespeople about 75 percent of what they pay white workers in the same positions. Meanwhile, black and Hispanic cashiers make about 90 percent of what their white colleagues earn.
The pay gap is smaller when it comes to first-line supervisor and manager positions in the retail industry, with African-American workers in those roles earning $17.31 hourly, compared to $17.43 for white supervisors and $15.38 for Latino supervisors. But the study also found that black workers represent only 6 percent of overall supervisory positions despite making up 11percent of the retail workforce.