The Importance of Honest Conversations around Wealth Disparities & Wealth Building

The Importance of Honest Conversations around Wealth Disparities & Wealth Building

As part of our Women’s History Month series, Cinneah (the founder of Flynanced) and I co-hosted a series of incredible roundtable discussions with some of our favorite women in the personal finance space with the goal of fostering rich intersectional conversations around money.

Kara Perez is the founder of Bravely Go, a feminist financial education company. She shares about the need for financial education AND policy change, as well as shares her own personal experience with family around wealth building and wealth disparity.

The gender and racial wealth gaps are an important part of the conversation around investing and wealth building. Here’s what Kara had to share. (You can watch the full recording of the roundtable discussion, Closing the Gaps, here.)

Financial Education isn’t Always Enough

When we think about moving women forward, there absolutely needs to be financial education. We need to talk about how individuals can make money moves and can grow their own financial lives. 

We also need to talk about bringing everyone else up with us. I often say, “I don't want to just get to the top of the mountain and be alone up there. I don't want to be the only woman on the top of the mountain - everyone needs to come up.”

That is policy. People who don't discuss policy in their financial education are missing the forest for the trees. Frankly, I think they’re unhelpful. It’s really, really important to see both sides of this and to move on both sides.

Yes, you need to save an emergency fund on your own, but we also need to advocate for a higher minimum wage. Both are true!

Racial Wealth Disparities in my Family

My dad is originally from the Dominican Republic and he moved here when he was 18. My mom is white. 

The disparities between my white family and my Brown family are shocking. This past Christmas, I sat down with one of my cousins who's 26. She has her first “real paying” job - the first job where you think, “Technically I'm making money, but I'm not really making money.”

I told her that she needed to start investing and open an IRA. As I was helping my cousin open this IRA, my aunt (who is 50 years old) told us that she didn’t invest. She's been a stay-at-home mom for the last couple of years, but before that, she worked for 20 years. 

She had $19,000 in a fixed IRA, which in case you don’t know what a fixed IRA is, it's a f*cking scam. It’s an IRA that is not growing with the market, so it’s not getting that 12% or 15% that we've been seeing the last couple of years. It's stuck at one fixed rate.

She had $19,000 that had been locked up at this fixed rate since she left the office. She was missing out on a bunch of money. Then, her husband came in and told us that he never finished setting up his retirement plan. 

My cousin's parents couldn't help her because when they first moved to the United States, they thought they were doing all of the right things by becoming citizens and going to college. Financial literacy wasn’t a part of their lives. It was something they felt like they couldn’t access or do.

Meanwhile, my white family, all of whom are the same age, have parents who talk about money. They can pay for college so they don’t have to take out student loans. They have a net worth that I cannot even comprehend. I can't even tell my Brown family about this because of the disparity. I see it so clearly in my own life. It's heartbreaking because it's not that my aunt and uncle are not smart or not capable, it’s just that the knowledge wasn't there. 

Making Money Moves

We got all of my family invested. We got IRAs for everybody and got their money rolled over, but they’ll never get that time back. They still have a lot of time to invest. Hopefully they'll live for another 40 years and can invest for 30 years, but there are still many missed opportunities for so many different communities, especially Black communities. For people who live at intersections of race and gender, the losses can be compounded so drastically. But, these opportunities can be compounded as well moving forward. 

These honest conversations are so important. I want to get to the top of the mountain and bring people with me, like I did with my cousin. That’s how we move.  

Next Steps


About Kara: 

Kara Perez is the founder of Bravely Go, a feminist financial education company. Bravely focuses on bringing actionable, intersectional and accessible financial education to people via pop up events and online community. Additionally, Kara co-hosts the award winning podcast The Fairer Cents, which has been named the top money podcast for women by Forbes and The Balance. Kara has been featured in the New York Times, Forbes, NPR, Glamour, ABC Nightline News, and US News and World Report as a financial expert.