Today is Equal Pay Day, the day when the earnings a woman makes per year officially matches that of a man. Last year, this milestone was reached on March 14, so to be fair, we’re making a bit of progress. But we still have a long way to go.
Women earn an average of 82 percent of what men earn per recent data from Pew Research Center. Black women earn just 67 cents of what non-Black men earn. What’s more the Center for American Progress says a woman may lose $400,000 to $1.2 million because of the pay gap. Black women in particular stand to lose nearly $1 million because of the wealth disparity. And guess what? It’s not our fault.
“Women are not responsible for the wealth gap,” Mical Jeanlys-White tells ESSENCE. She is the founder and CEO of the forthcoming Wealthmore, a digital financial planning platform launching this spring. “If you’re looking for whose fault the wealth gap is, it’s not women.”
She goes on to point out that despite long-held preconceived notions implying women are bad with money (see Girl Math), it’s categorically untrue.
“We need to applaud Black women for how good we are with money,” she says. “I think it is extremely important to change the narrative that we’re in any way fully responsible for this financial disparity we’re faced with, and it’s time that this conversation be purely based on facts. There are so many old tropes out there that we just need to put to bed. First and foremost, women have always been fiscally responsible. It’s only been since 1974, just 50 years into women having equal access to credit and bank accounts. And in that time, women have attained equally good credit scores as men. Women have less debt than men. The only category where we have more debt is in student loans” because Black women pursue and complete advanced degrees at a higher rate than Black men.
Jeanlys-White continues: “When it comes to spending, that old trope of women being frivolous spenders, absolutely not true. Despite making 87 cents to the dollar, or Black women making 67 cents to the dollar, our spending patterns are normal. And then lastly, when we do invest, we get better returns because we’re more disciplined with money.”
Despite this, some systemic barriers still block Black women from building suitable retirement savings, but she wants to rectify that. Her platform, Wealthmore is teaching people, especially women, how to live comfortably for the rest of their lives.
Self-advocate at work
“First and foremost, I can’t stress enough how important it is to make sure you are getting equally paid in your job, advocating for pay raises, and moving on if you need to,” Jeanlys-White says. “If you’re not being equally paid, the pay impact goes down to Social Security. It affects your 401k, because all of those things are a percentage of your pay, number one. And all too often as a hiring manager, I have seen women not negotiate their salaries. We want women to get more comfortable negotiating those salaries so that they’re equally compensated. Ideally, the best time to negotiate your salary is before you accept that role, not a moment after.”
Acknowledge you are the boss of your life
Despite the frustrating pay gap metrics, Jeanlys-White says the future is still bright.
“Women are staying in the workforce longer and getting more involved with their personal finances than ever before,” she explains. “This means they are playing the role of the bookkeeper, the accountant, the CFO in their household, and they’re getting more comfortable with financial literacy and financial products. One of the goals we have at Wealthmore is encouraging women to start investing early and continuously. It’s important to enlist the help of a professional when doing this. Finances are complicated. The notion that you can sort of DIY your way through wealth-building is a myth. And it’s one of the only areas where we are asking the average person to be both the patient and the doctor.”
Pat yourself on the back
“We took away pensions that were managed by expert pension managers and told the everyday consumer, have at it—figure it out,” Jeanlys-White says. “But what women can still do is advocate for the public policies that will help us. There are things that are sitting in Congress right now that you can advocate for like the Secure Act 2.0, so that we can actually make more contributions to our 401k. Talk to your local congressperson. Advocate for that. Things like the automatic IRA, so that as people move jobs more often, they can automatically save for their retirement. But more than anything, it’s important to give yourself credit doing the very best with what we’ve been dealt, and we’re doing a heck of a lot. It’s only going to get better.”