Black Workers in Dallas Are Being Left Behind, Unemployment Data Show
Economic recovery from the COVID-19 pandemic is here. It s just not evenly distributed, according to a Bloomberg analysis.
By Alex Macon
Published in
FrontBurner
May 6, 2021
9:00 am
Here’s the most damning statistic you’re going to see today, from a Bloomberg report on how the economic recovery from the COVID-19 pandemic is leaving behind minority communities in cities across the country. In March, while the unemployment rate for White workers in the Dallas metro area was at about 5 percent, the jobless rate for Black workers fell to more than 14 percent. The overall national unemployment rate is about 6 percent.
Already battered by long shifts and high infection rates, essential workers struggling through the pandemic face another hazard of hard times: employers who steal their wages.
When a recession hits, U.S. companies are more likely to stiff their lowest-wage workers. These businesses often pay less than the minimum wage, make employees work off the clock, or refuse to pay overtime rates. In the most egregious cases, bosses don t pay their employees at all.
Companies that hire child care workers, gas station clerks, restaurant servers and security guards are among the businesses most likely to get caught cheating their employees, according to a Center for Public Integrity analysis of minimum wage and overtime violations from the U.S. Department of Labor. In 2019 alone, the agency cited about 8,500 employers for taking about $287 million from workers.
May 4, 2021 Share
Already battered by long shifts and high infection rates, essential workers struggling through the pandemic face another hazard of hard times: employers who steal their wages.
When a recession hits, U.S. companies are more likely to stiff their lowest-wage workers. These businesses often pay less than the minimum wage, make employees work off the clock, or refuse to pay overtime rates. In the most egregious cases, bosses don’t pay their employees at all.
Companies that hire child care workers, gas station clerks, restaurant servers and security guards are among the businesses most likely to get caught cheating their employees, according to a Center for Public Integrity analysis of minimum wage and overtime violations from the U.S. Department of Labor. In 2019 alone, the agency cited about 8,500 employers for taking about $287 million from workers.
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How companies rip off poor employees and get away with it
Ruth Palacios and Arturo Xelo, a married couple from Mexico, work at their fruit stand in the Corona neighborhood of the Queens borough of New York on Tuesday, April 13, 2021. They worked seven days a week for months disinfecting COVID-19 patient rooms at the Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer Center in New York City, but weren t paid overtime Palacios says. The couple filed a federal lawsuit against the contractor that hired them, alleging their pay was cut without their knowledge from $15 an hour to $12.25. They re now selling fruit to make ends meet. (AP Photo/Marshall Ritzel)
US: Struggling Workers Wages Threatened To Be Stolen by Their Employers Published May 5th, 2021 - 02:00 GMT
Companies that hire child care workers, gas station clerks, restaurant servers and security guards are among the businesses most likely to get caught cheating their employees, according to a Center for Public Integrity analysis of minimum wage and overtime violations from the U.S. Department of Labor. (Shutterstock)
Highlights
When a recession hits, U.S. companies are more likely to stiff their lowest-wage workers. These businesses often pay less than the minimum wage, make employees work off the clock, or refuse to pay overtime rates. In the most egregious cases, bosses don’t