Tech progress at the end of the 20th century actually pushed Black workers into boring, repetitive jobs while white workers moved out.
March 26, 2026
Original Paper
Technological Change and Racial Wage Gaps
SSRN · 6468479
The Takeaway
While we assume automation uniformly displaces routine workers, this research shows a racial divide: routine-biased technological change led to an increase in routine-heavy employment for Black men, amplifying the racial wage gap in unexpected ways.
From the abstract
The wage gap between Black and white Americans narrowed in the 1960s-1970s but stagnated after 1980. This study argues that routine-biased technological change (RBTC) contributed to this stagnation by affecting Black and white male workers differently across the wage distribution. Using new empirical evidence on occupational patterns and wage determinants for these workers, I rationalize these patterns with a novel RBTC theoretical framework. Contrary to expectations, Black workers' employment i