Black And Latina Women Who Never Marry Are The Least Wealthy In The US

A recent study has found that Black and Latina women who have never married have the least amount of wealth in the U.S.

According to an analysis by the Federal Reserve Bank of St. Louis, 23% of adults who have never been married have significantly less wealth than married couples with unmarried Black and Hispanic women being the most impacted, via Bloomberg. Research found that in 2022 the median wealth of a Black woman was only 8 cents for every dollar owned by a White man, $3,300 to be exact.

Unwed moms with minor children from any racial background come in just a few hundred dollars ahead of single Black women with a median of $3,900. The racial disparities are highlighted across demographics with white women who have never been married making ten times the amount of Black women who have never married with a median wealth of $31,000.

“It’s hard to answer the gender wealth gap question with just one statistic,” Ana Hernández Kent, senior researcher with the Institute for Economic Equity at the St. Louis Fed wrote in a blog post.

But, “never-married Black women, never-married Hispanic women and never-married mothers of any race or ethnicity were the most financially vulnerable.”

White men who have never been married are trumping ahead of unwed women with a median wealth of $40,000. Research shows how gains in housing costs is helping women catch up, but only if they own real estate. All the while, never-married men had a jump in wealth in 2022 due to having less debt than in 2019.

The latest findings come one year after a Pew study found that in 2022 Black women earned 70% as much as White men and Hispanic women earned only 65% as much. The pay disparity highlights how much harder it is for certain groups to accumulate wealth over time, with never-married Black women topping the list.

The National League of Cities released a report in 2023 to identify “Municipal Strategies to Narrow the Racial Wealth Divide” with home ownership and the end of redlining strategies being at the forefront. Other suggestions provided by Brookings include increased taxation of wealth, strengthening the Earned Income Tax Credit (EITC) and Child Tax Credit (CTC), reparations, targeted homeownership subsidies, and lowering the costs associated with higher education.