Heather Boushey writes in "Two Alternate Tests of the Wage Curve: Does Discrimination Matter?" (1998):
***** These findings show that the unemployment rate of whites and males has the strongest effect on the earnings of the aggregate population. The unemployment rate of the groups that are hypothesized to be in the reserve army of labor does not have a strong effect on the earnings of the aggregate population. These findings also point to the conclusion that the labor market is highly segmented along the lines of gender and race and that there are different dynamics for these labor markets. Increases in unemployment for discriminated-against workers lowers all earnings, but to a lesser extent than the unemployment of non-discriminated against groups. Thus, in 1994 and all else being equal, individuals who lived in large urban areas with relatively high unemployment rates for whites or males experienced lower pay than individuals living in large urban areas with a relatively high unemployment rate for African Americans or females. [1]
These findings provide empirical support for the argument that it is in the interest of whites and males to maintain their employment privilege because it sustains their higher earnings. When events are such that even whites or males lose their jobs, all groups suffer in terms of pay, but when African Americans or women lose their jobs, pay does not fall for other groups as much.
[1] This makes intuitive sense in that the unemployment of high earners has, relative to low earners, a more of a negative effect on average earnings since high earners are a large proportion of the labor market. *****
I don't think Boushey's findings "provide empirical support for the argument that it is in the interest of whites and males to maintain their employment privilege because it sustains their higher earnings." Why is it in the interest of white & male workers "to maintain their employment privilege" when the only thing it sustains is their relatively "higher earnings" than discriminated-against workers'? Her findings do not suggest that _real earnings_ of white workers go up _because_ they increase their _relative privilege_ (e.g., they are not among the "last hired, first fired") by making America _more racist_. In my opinion, _only if_ real earnings of white workers rise _because_ of racism can it be said that racism is in the real -- as opposed to perceived -- interest of white workers (in the empiricist sense).
Moreover, Boushey neglects to compare the earnings -- as well as other indices of welfare -- of white workers in the area with a higher degree of racism (the U.S. South) with those in the area with a lesser degree of racism (the U.S. North).
***** It is not accidental then, that where the Negroes are most oppressed, the position of the whites is also most degraded. Facts unearthed and widely publicized, including the Report of the National Emergency Council to the late President Roosevelt, have thrown vivid light on the "paradise" of racial bigotry below the Mason-Dixon Line. They expose the staggering price of "white supremacy" in terms of health, living and cultural standards of the great masses of southern whites. They show "white supremacy" -- the shibboleth of Bourbon overlords -- to be synonymous with the most outrageous poverty and misery of the southern white people. They show that "keeping the Negro down" spells for the entire South the nation's lowest wage and living standards.
"White supremacy" means the nation's greatest proportion of tenants and sharecroppers, its highest rate of child labor, its most degrading and widespread exploitation of women, its poorest health and housing record, its highest illiteracy and lowest proportion of students in high schools and colleges, its highest death and disease rates, its lowest level of union organization and its least democracy....
Nearly 45 per cent of sharecroppers were white in 1940....
Wages in 1938 were anywhere from 30 to 50 per cent below those of the rest of the country. In 1940 the per capita income of the southeast was only $309. Compare this with a national per capita income of $573. Containing 14 per cent of the nation's population, the region received only 7.3 per cent of the nation's wage total....
Political controls which are aimed primarily at the disenfranchisement of the Negro have also resulted in depriving the mass of the poor whites of their right to the ballot. In 1942, 6,000,000 southern whites were disenfranchised as compared to 4,000,000 Negroes.
Lynching, a device of the Bourbon ruling classes designed to keep the Negro in "his place," is turned against the white worker whenever he attempts to improve his conditions or to join forces with the Negro in the struggle for his rights....
In fact, every measure passed to curb the Negro has resulted in destroying the civil rights of the poor whites. At the bottom of the cultural backwardness and impoverishment of the southern white is the position of his black neighbor. America's Tobacco Road begins in the Black Belt....
Plainly the South can progress only by breaking the oppression of the Negro. "A people which enslaves another people forges its own chains," said Karl Marx. The same idea was expressed in colloquial language by Booker T. Washington: You can't hold the Negro in the ditch without staying in it with him. (Harry Haywood, "Shadow of the Plantation [from _Negro Liberation_] (1948)," _Black on White: Black Writers on What It Means to Be White_, ed. David R. Roediger, NY: Schocken Books, 1998) *****
I believe it is still very much true -- even after the end of Jim Crow -- that white workers in the U.S. North are much better off than their counterparts in the Southern "Right-to-Work" states. I'd like to see if anyone has newer studies that compare them.
Moreover, racism (which compounds sexism) has been one of the main reasons why it has been so difficult to create, sustain, & improve the social programs & insurances (e.g., universal health care, unemployment insurance, workers' compensation, old age pension, paid parental leaves, paid vacation, day care, decent public schooling, free tuition for post-secondary education, etc.) that lower the "cost of job loss," which Boushey, too, says plays "an important role in the determination of wages," and/or directly improve the welfare of the proletariat.
In short, I repeat my argument that racism makes white workers -- as well as workers of color -- "losers." Therefore, racism is not in the interest of white workers.
Yoshie