Post-9/11 anti-Islamic and anti-Middle Eastern sentiment hasn’t just taken an emotional toll on Muslim and Arab men living in the United States. It has also put a dent in their checkbooks, a study indicates.
Arab and Muslim men saw their wages and weekly earnings drop by 10 percent after the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks, the research reveals.
The largest decreases, according to the data collected from over 4,000 men between 1997 and 2005, occurred in locations that reported higher rates of ethnic and religious-based hate crimes.
Part of the reason pay fell is that these men, mostly from predominantly Islamic countries such as Pakistan, Saudi Arabia and Algeria, found fewer opportunities and had to find work in different industries that paid less than the jobs they used to be employed in after 9/11, said the study’s co-author, Robert Kaestner, a University of Illinois at Chicago economics professor.
In addition, Kaestner said, most Muslim and Arab men, possibly wary of the reception they might receive in another state, curbed their travel within the country after 9/11, which may have kept them from seeking better jobs.
[Source: Chicago Sun-Times]
[Via: The Emirates Economist]
As a hyper-liberal American it pains me that there is still a lot of racial and religious intolerance in my country. This study also suggests that incomes are now rebounding for this group. Before anyone criticizes the U.S., ask yourselves just how tolerant your own society is. I think we all have a lot of work to do in that department.
Well said, I wonder if the study also points out that wages of hourely workers in the US dropped as well, that Mexican are suffering even more than muslims, that if the study is about muslim citizens or residents or immigrants..etc