NEXT AVENUE SPECIAL SECTION
Exploring Diverse Paths to Retirement By Olga Lucia Torres
My immigrant Latino parents never spoke to me about money. Their emphasis was always on education. I had to go to college, end of discussion. But when I got to college, I knew nothing about savings accounts or high-interest-rate credit cards or how debt can ruin your life. I'm in my early 50s and have only recently paid off my decades of accumulated debt and started saving for retirement. We need to learn about money and what to do with it, but the purveyors of such wisdom are a rare commodity in Black, indigenous, people of color (BIPOC) communities. Information about saving, investing and retirement needs to be passed down from generation to generation, according to Mark Willis, a retired Morgan Stanley financial executive. "If you don't have that resource of historical knowledge within the financial markets, you're prone to operate on whatever information you hear on the media outlets you use," he says. One-third of Black investors said they invested in something based on information they saw on social media, compared with 20% of white investors. According to the FTC, financial scams, including cryptocurrency schemes, cost consumers $3.8 billion last year just in the U.S., twice as much as in 2021. The U.S. Federal Reserve's latest Survey on Consumer Finances showed that 57% of white families had savings in retirement accounts, compared with only 35% of Black families and 26% of Latino families.
"Growing up in the projects, there wasn't anyone really saving or investing for retirement," says Joanne Garce-Rodriguez, director of diversity initiatives at New York University. "It was really just surviving the month with the income you would receive either through low-wage work or public assistance. If you did have a job with a pension, that was retirement for those few. Everyone else just expected Social Security." The reliance on Social Security and other government programs for retirement income can differ among races and ethnicities. Historically marginalized communities may depend more on these programs due to limited employer- sponsored retirement plans and/or personal savings access. Understanding the impact these programs have on retirement security is essential in addressing disparities.
Read more of this story on NextAvenue.org
20
SEPTEMBER 2024
NEXTAVENUE.ORG
Made with FlippingBook Ebook Creator