How Single Women Are Disproportionately Affected By Recession

How Single Women Are Disproportionately Affected By Recession

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Women are on average less prepared for retirement than men and are typically affected disproportionately during economic recessions, and heres why.
Its well documented that during times of economic crisis, like that which our nation is currently experiencing, people are disproportionately affected by the recessions lingering effects on employment, savings rates, and yes, the ability to retire. Unfortunately, thats not a trend thats expected to change course anytime soon.
Women, for example, have long been more vulnerable to the consequences of a deep slowdown much more so than men. Despite drastic equal opportunity progress over the last 100 years, proponents of equal paycheck acts declare that on average, women still earn about 23% less than men (or about $.77 for every dollar earned.)
Over the long-term, that statistic carries a daunting burden for women who want to retire comfortably at the same average age of men, which is around 65 years old in the U.S. If we assume the average American works for 40 years, women will take nearly 12 years longer to accumulate the same amount of personal wealth of a man who enters retirement at 65. Obviously, increasing the retirement age for social security benefits could add injury to insult for women who want to retire at the same age as their male co-workers in many expert opinions.
But thats the very argument thats happening in our government at the moment. For the most part, social security hasnt undergone any fundamental innovation or structural change since its inception in 1935. Since then, inflation and the distribution of wealth has created a dangerous, ever increasing gap between what the government pulls in and shells out of the social security fund. By as early as 2016, according to many economists, the governments social security cash outflows will surpass inflows for the first time if no changes are made.
But thats a topic for a whole other article. The fact is that if women continue to be underpaid at the workplace, the probability that they will be underprepared and underfunded in retirement will continue to increase. These inequalities affect single women even more; single women have an average net worth of about half of single men at roughly $15,201 versus $31,150 (this data compiled and regularly released by the Federal Reserve.)
African-American and Hispanic women, according to Mariko Lin Chang, PhD, a former Harvard University professor and author of Shortchanged: Why Women Have Less Wealth and What Can Be Done About It, on average are at a severely disadvantage when it comes to retirement preparedness. According to her estimations, single black and Hispanic women have a median wealth by age 65 of only $100 and $120, respectively, while at the same time the population of black women in the US accounts for approximately 21.3 million Americans and growing.
A reverse mortgage can be a sound financial decision for single women in our country to close the gap between what is needed to retire and whats in the savings account. While a reverse mortgage does not necessarily create additional wealth, it does provide the cash many women will need to cover medical expenses and enjoy a quality of life in the Golden Years that they may or may not be able to enjoy otherwise. http://www.legacyreversemortgage.com

About the Author:
With Legacy reverse mortgage you can learn about programs to get reverse mortgage lenders . You can also find an effective way to calculate the money available to you with their Reverse Mortgage Calculator.



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