Black Women’s Top Jobs Pay Half What White Women’s Do

On average, a black woman in the U.S. has to work more than eight additional months to earn what, on average, a white man does in one calendar year. Tuesday, Aug. 7, marks this ignominious milestone: It’s what’s known as Black Women’s Equal Pay Day. It also falls four months after the same marker for white women, who experience a smaller wage gap than African American women do.

A major factor in the black-white gap is what’s known as occupational sorting—the clustering of demographic groups into certain jobs and fields. Women tend to cluster in lower paying jobs than men, ...