My career in philanthropy started at the Charles Stewart Mott Foundation in Flint, Michigan. While Flint has been in the news lately for its water crisis, it was once a thriving area, with a reputation as the most affluent city in Michigan. Its local economy was powered by General Motors (GM), which employed about half of the population. In its heyday, GM accounted for roughly 90 percent of income from wages, salaries, and shareholder holdings. But Flint’s fortunes eventually took a dramatic turn. By the time I arrived in the late 1990s, economic misery and social decay characterized the city, disproportionately impacting the Black population.

Economic Winners And Losers

“Automation in the economy could replicate past patterns and disproportionately expel Black workers.”

Flint’s economic narrative is a common one for many American cities, and particularly for those with Black populations. It’s marked by economic highs of job growth, improved access to goods and services, enhanced buying power, and improvements in quality of life. And on the flipside, it creates extreme wealth inequality and increased economic insecurity.

For Black workers, economic booms have historically brought less robust returns in employment rates, earnings and job security than for their white counterparts. And economic busts have hastened the return of these workers to the ranks of the unemployed and financially fragile.

Black Workers Continue To Be At Risk

Given the nation’s history of slavery and financial apartheid, economic transformations—such as the adoption of automation—exacerbate past wrongs and deepen income inequality. For example, during the Great Migration of the early 20th century, millions of Black Americans fled the terrorism of the South for sanctuary and opportunity in northern, midwestern, and western cities. While many found work, they also faced unsafe working conditions, low wages, limited mobility, and harmful practices like hiring discrimination and labor union bans.

According to the Wall Street Journal, the current rate of Black participation in the labor force is as high as it has been since the middle of the 20th century. While this seems like good news, it rings hollow when we reflect on the continued racial gaps in income and wealth. These disparities are driven by the dramatic differences in the employment experiences of Black workers. Recent research by McKinsey & Co. explains the contrasts and how automation in the economy could replicate past patterns and disproportionately expel Black workers from the labor market.

The findings indicate that Black Americans are overrepresented in low-wage, service jobs with little or no room for growth. These jobs are more likely to be automated—reducing or eliminating the need for human workers—and could hit Black workers the hardest, as in the past. Compounding the matter, Black workers are underrepresented in job categories most likely to grow, offer higher wages and be performed by people. If we act now, we may be able to stem the most harmful effects of the next major shift in the economy.