Can Data Drive Racial Equity?

The summer of 2020 saw an unprecedented number of corporate leaders publicly acknowledge and condemn institutional and structural racism, as part of a national reckoning on racial injustice. Issued in response to widespread protests against police violence, these statements called for an end to racial disparities across all systems, including health care, education, housing, criminal justice, and employment. This movement emerged at a moment when people of color were more likely to be working on the dangerous front lines of a pandemic, for low wages and with scant protective gear, while higher-wage earners sheltered at home. Businesses claiming to support racial equity are, in reality, committing to change facts such as these: Black workers are more likely to work in low-wage industries with high turnover, earn less than their white counterparts, and report a median net worth of one-tenth that of whites. This fixed inequality holds even for Black college graduates, whose households report a lower net worth than those headed by white high school dropouts.