Racial Pay Disparity of Social Workers in Nonprofit, For-Profit, and Government Human Services Organizations

PRACTICE POINTSSince NYC's nonprofit human services agencies are primarily funded by government contracts, it is imperative for the state to address the stark disparity in human services workers-pay between public and private employees.Human services organizations - nonprofit, for-profit, and government included - are obligated to address the racial pay disparity in their workplace and improve racial justice in pay.The human services field should collectively address the under-compensation of social workers, especially social workers of color. Using the American Community Survey 2015-2019 combined data, this study conducts an industry- and geography-specific analysis of annual earnings of social workers in four human services industries in the NYC metropolitan area. It specifically addresses two research questions: 1) What are the sectoral (i.e., nonprofit, for-profit, government) differences in overall pay among social workers? 2) What are the sectoral differences in the racial pay gap among social workers? The analytical results suggest that: 1) Social workers of all races employed by the government were paid significantly higher than their counterparts in the private sector. Within the private sector, nonprofit social workers were paid lower than their for-profit counterparts. 2) There were not statistically significant differences in the racial pay gap for social workers across the three sectors. In other words, nonprofit and government agencies were not more racially equitable in pay compared to for-profit organizations.