100th Blog Post !!!

Wahoo !!!!
This is my 100th blog post.
I can't believe I've written a hundred blog posts in just a little over a year.
Oh, my.

So, what shall I write about? I promised myself that I would not focus on boys for this momentous occasion. It's hard because I have some boy news for you, and you guys seem to really like the boy news.

But it will have to wait. I want my 100th blog to be about something important: our finances. Ladies, we are not doing well.

First, let me clear up a huge mistake that was in the media a few months ago: The median wealth of Black women is not $5. It's not.

The truth is the median wealth of MINORITY women (Black and Hispanic) between the ages of 36-49 (considered the prime working age) is $5. For White women in the same age group, the median wealth is $42,600.

Did you get that?

This is all according to a study by the Insight Center for Community Economic Development . Their report, "Lifting as We Climb: Women of Color, Wealth, and America's Future," looked at the wealth gap between White women and minority women. And what a gap ! The study found that minority women have only a fraction (a fraction !) of a penny for every dollar of wealth owned by single White women. Wealth is defined as the value of one's assets (real estate, savings, checking, stocks, bonds, etc.) minus debts.

Let's look at some numbers:
Single Black and Hispanic women have a median wealth of $100.
Single White women have a median wealth of $41,500.
Nearly half of all single Black and Hispanic women have zero or negative wealth.
Most of the wealth owned by Black and Hispanic women come in the form of vehicles - a depreciating asset. (There goes my BMW).

*** Never-married women of color experience the largest wealth disadvantage and — according to the report — Black women are less likely to marry and remain married. (Ouch!)
Never-married women of color have a median wealth of zero.
Never-married White women have a median wealth of $2,600.
Divorced women of color have a median wealth of $4,200.
Divorced White women have a median wealth of $52,120.

Depressed yet?

Let's look at some more numbers:
Minority women between the age of 50-65 have a median wealth of $56,980.
The median wealth of White women in this age group is $111,400.
Interestingly, the median wealth of Black women drops after the age of 65 to
$46,800. But it increases for White women to $191,070.

Retirement:
Women of color had the highest poverty rates for people over age 65.
Nearly 40 percent of Black women age 65 and older who lived alone were poor compared to only 16 percent of White women.
More than 60 percent of White women age 65 and older receive income from assets compared with only a quarter of Black women.

Assets:
About one-fourth of Black women do not have a bank account.
Only a third of Black women own homes compared with 57 percent of White women.
45 percent of White women own stock compared with only 23 percent of Black women.

So, what does this all mean?
Well, for me it means I need to marry a White man.
(I'm too old -and ugly- to have a baby by a rapper or athlete).

But seriously, we just have to take better care of our finances. We have to spend less and save more. We need to have assets so we won't be struggling during our retirement years.

I encourage you to read the entire report. It's quite interesting. It gives a number of reasons why there is such a huge wealth gap between White women and women of color including historical and institutional reasons as well as our own cultural obligations to family that keep us in debt.

Any thoughts?