Decades of research have shown that measures of cognitive ability are the best predictor of important life outcomes, including academic achievement, earnings, job performance and crime.
Controlling for age and gender alone, US-born whites earn an average of $24,000 and $15,000 more than their black and Hispanic counterparts. However, with additional control for cognitive abilities, these differences virtually disappear.
Simply put, people with the same IQ earn roughly the same, regardless of racial background. Such findings challenge the notion that differences in outcomes between racial groups necessarily indicate discrimination.