I’ll admit that I’ve learned a lot this year. And I’ve only scratched the surface of what I don’t know. I’ve spent a quarter of my life formally studying finance, which says a lot considering that most people receive no formal education in this area. Through college, where I majored in Finance at UW Madison, the years spent taking personal finance classes to earn my CFP®, and most recently my CIMA® certification coursework at The University of Chicago Booth, one topic was never addressed: wealth gaps.
The two big wealth gaps that I’ve been working hard to educate myself on are the gender wealth gap and the racial wealth gap. To be clear, when speaking of wealth gaps, we’re talking about how much a person owns, not how much they earn… though they do go hand-in-hand. For example:
The median wealth of White households was $171K and $17,100 for Black households in 2016. That means a Black household has 10% of what a White household has.
As of 2017 women-owned only 32 cents for every dollar a man owned. So the average American woman has 32% of what the average American man has. And these numbers are closer to 1 for Black and Latina women.
One thing that I always say to my clients is "the more money you have, the more options you’ll give yourself." In a lot of cases, it isn’t that simple. It can be hard to understand why these gaps exist even if you are living with them yourself. And when it isn’t your reality, it can be even harder.
I’m a solutions-driven person, but even I realize that I can’t solve these problems. What I can do though is work hard to understand that these wealth gaps exist and as a result, and help my clients to understand the impacts on their family’s finances. I also believe that the financial decisions made by those of us impacted are even more critical since we’ve already beaten the odds and have probably worked pretty damn hard to grow the wealth we have.
At Merino Wealth we’re guided by our mission: Empowering you to reach your possibilities. Investing in Equality. If you don’t have the support you need to manage your wealth then CLICK HERE to see if we can help. My door is always open.