Race and Gender in the US Economy is the first economic and legal analysis of the status of women and Asian, Black, and Latinx Americans in the United States. Gerald Jaynes argues that changing antidiscrimination laws had an undervalued impact on behavioral norms as Americans fought to end discrimination in the country’s institutions. These fights often happened outside the economic marketplace and yet improved the economic status of people of color and women. 

Building on his decades of expertise, Jaynes blends economic reasoning and data with bold historical narrative to examine how developments in constitutional law, extending from the Thirteenth Amendment’s abolition of slavery to and beyond the Civil Rights Act of 1964, changed the economic status of minoritized groups. He provides readers with an insightful new way of looking at the effectiveness of political action in determining economic gains.