New Study Reveals Black Women Face Biggest Struggle in Building Wealth

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A new study has revealed that when it comes to establishing wealth, black women aren’t presented with the same possibilities as their white counterparts.

The study was conducted by the Samuel DuBois Cook Center on Social Equity and Insight Center for Community Economic Development and examined how wealth (in this case meaning “what you own minus what you owe”) is distributed by race among women and the results, with regard to black women were enlightening and disturbing.

The report noted that “black women have the highest growth rate of college enrollment than any other group and are increasingly working in management, professional, and related jobs”, but still aren’t able to surpass the roadblocks in the paths to building wealth. In fact, a single white woman with no bachelor’s degree has a median wealth of around $8,000, while a single black female with a bachelor’s degree has a median wealth of $5,000. Not to mention, single white women with a bachelor’s degree have seven times the wealth of their black counterparts, $35,000 and $5,000 in median wealth, respectively.

In society, it’s thought that with education, marriage, and age come the natural building of wealth- another fact that doesn’t necessarily apply to black women. “Black women are the most disadvantaged as they show negative median wealth at different ages regardless of marital status” notes the report, while adding that “married white women without a college degree have nearly four times the wealth of their black counterparts.”

The study concluded that “neither marriage, a college education nor a lifetime of work provides the answer for equalizing opportunity between black and white women. Black and white women are positioned differently from one another largely because white women benefit more from wealth being passed down from their families.” If there is to be any hope of adjusting this example of wide-scale racial wealth inequality, it’ll take more than private action and market forces alone.

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