ABSTRACT
In the economic sphere, black and white women share many common concerns, but there are significant differences in their employment, occupation, and income status. Some of those differences are associated with the double burden of differential treatment on account of sex and race; and other differences are attributed to dissimilar endowments of productivity characteristics. However, some differences derive from the deteriorating economic status of black males. The erosion of the labor force participation of black men, their excessively high rates of unemployment, their incapacitation because of poor health, and their incarceration in disproportionate numbers have left black families at great economic risk. Black women whether as workers and recipients of wages and salaries, as nonparticipants in the labor force and recipients of welfare payments and noncash benefits, or dual participants in work and welfare, should be the focus of a major assessment of the economic status of the black community.
