ON THE COST OF BEING A MEXICAN AMERICAN WORKER.

This article presents a study, which discusses definite income differences between Mexican Americans and Anglos. Among males 14 years of age and older in 1959, for example, Mexican American income as a percent of Anglo income varied from a high of 73 percent in California to a low of 49 percent in Texas. By 1969 some progress had been made, but Mexican American income still varied between 81 percent if Anglo income in Arizona and California to 65 percent in Texas. Necessarily, part of the difference between Mexican American and Anglo income is due to educational and occupational differences, since on he whole Mexican Americans show much lower levels of educational attainment and are more concentrated in the manual occupations, particularly those requiring few skills. To what extent then are income differences between Mexican American and Anglos males due to educational and occupational differences, and to what extent are they due to minority status? The central purpose of this paper is to examine the cost of being a Mexican American male worker after taking into consideration the differentials in occupation and education.