The aim of this paper is to provide empirical evidence on the differentials between race and sexual orientations in the distribution of income/salary and the amount or public assistance received. Using data from the U.S. Census from 2013-2017, I explore different alternatives for the sexual orientation wage gap: human capital differences, industry choice, numbers of hours worker per week and other labour market decisions. Depending on the outcome, I find that people of colour face primarily face a wage penalty. White workers face a wage advantage. However, the extent of the gap is dependent on the individual's gender, racial and sexual orientation combination. To provide additional explanation, I use the Oaxaca–Blinder decomposition to examine the distributions between each racial and sexual group. The results show that there is a definite wage gap between racial and sexual orientation groups, while workers of colour face the highest unexplained portions of that gap.
