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The Edge of the American West 
20 comments
March 11, 2010 at 12:12 pm
dana
Our society has so far to go it’s unbelievable.
March 11, 2010 at 12:20 pm
elizardbreath
Jesus, that’s awful. It’s worse if you think that the distribution probably (I say offhandedly without any real data) has a long tail to the right, because there’s a fairly low limit to how much debt a destitute person is going to be able to rack up — someone with $100K in assets is more common than someone with $100K in debt. Which means that the vast bulk of the single black female population has to hovering right around or slightly below zero.
March 11, 2010 at 12:24 pm
ben
Which means that the vast bulk of the single black female population has to hovering right around or slightly below zero.
Median, not mean, not that it’s much reassurance.
March 11, 2010 at 12:29 pm
elizardbreath
No, that does make a difference to what I was saying. Still awful, but even though I saw ‘median’, I was thinking ‘mean’.
March 11, 2010 at 12:46 pm
dana
The interesting comparison is with the median single white female wealth, which is ~$46,000.
!!!
March 11, 2010 at 1:11 pm
baa
Egad! Median in some sense is worse, because you know it can’t be a sub-set with high negative net worth (debt, etc.) pulling the average down. The chart at dana’s link shows 46% of black single female households with zero/negative net worth, vs. 45% for hispanics, 23% for whites.
For married/cohabitating it’s 28/31/15%.
March 11, 2010 at 1:21 pm
elizardbreath
You know what else is weird? This sentence from the article:
Women of all races bring home less income and own fewer assets, on average, than men of the same race.
I had a vague sense that African American women were more likely to be educationally/vocationally successful than African American men, largely due to things like very high unemployment and high levels of incarceration among African American men. But that effect, to the extent it exists, apparently still leaves African American women poorer on average than men.
March 11, 2010 at 1:22 pm
jim
I suspect that for most of the 50% under $5, their net worth is strongly negative. No savings, few possessions and large credit card debt. Contra LB at 12:20, it’s perfectly possible for a single woman with a job (these are 36-49 year-olds) to qualify for multiple credit cards and to rack up significant balances on each of them.
March 11, 2010 at 1:24 pm
AaLD
Maybe I just live on a lower rung of the socio-economic ladder, but I was surprised not at how low the median wealth of single black women was, but how high the median wealth of single white men and women and married white women were (if there was a figure for married white men in the article, I didn’t see it). I know lots of people who’s net wealth is at or below zero. Heck, I’m a married white man, but our net wealth is currently below zero, considering that we owe more on our house and two vehicles than they’re worth. I would have thought that situation would be far more common these days, with so many people upside-down on their homes, and a lot of people unemployed, under-employed, or seeing their wages cut and/or the out-of-pocket costs of their health benefits increased.
March 11, 2010 at 1:33 pm
dana
I’m sure it is more common, AaLD, and even with that, we’re talking tens of thousands of dollars of difference between medians.
March 11, 2010 at 2:00 pm
AaLD
I’m wondering if the SWF median might be skewed somewhat by the number of widows who own their homes outright. But that wouldn’t explain the gap between SWFs and SWMs. Again, I’m not shocked at how low the low end is, but at how high the high end is. Looks like there’s still a lot of wealth squirreled away out there. And, probably not coincidentally, it’s the group that owns the biggest share of it who are making the most noise these days.
March 11, 2010 at 2:14 pm
elizardbreath
Retirement savings probably push up the median — if you’ve been working someplace with a 401K for a decade or two, you’ve probably got tens of thousands of dollars in it. This isn’t psychologically available wealth, and it’s not all that much if you’re actually thinking about retiring on it, but it’s a factor.
March 11, 2010 at 3:54 pm
jim
Retirement savings probably create the gap. 401Ks are psychologically available. People do raid them when they need money, particularly if they lose their jobs. A single woman who loses her job may well find that unemployment doesn’t cover her unavoidable expenses. The temptation to raid her 401K may well be overwhelming. Retirement is a long way off; the kids (and single women may well have children) need shoes now. Married or cohabiting women don’t necessarily face the same degree of stress: she loses her job, there’s still his income coming in; no need to touch the 401K and pay the taxes and penalties.
March 11, 2010 at 4:18 pm
Malaclypse
largely due to things like very high unemployment and high levels of incarceration among African American men. But that effect, to the extent it exists, apparently still leaves African American women poorer on average than men.
Perversely, I’d guess that the incarceration effect skews that data positively – I doubt credit card companies or payday loan centers want an incarcerated clientele.
March 11, 2010 at 5:10 pm
Jason B.
Ta-Nehisi Coates seems to have a slightly different take on the article based on his reading of the study and a conversation with Dr. Chang.
March 11, 2010 at 6:08 pm
kid bitzer
huh. i read tnc’s account, and still can’t figure out which numbers apply to which demographic sectors.
March 11, 2010 at 7:54 pm
grackle
the actual study, linked by tnc, is clear about numbers and sectors.
March 11, 2010 at 10:02 pm
Vance
I find it hard to believe such numbers can be accurate to within $5 — that is, the value can’t really be distinguishable from $0. Somehow, though, the “higher” figure puts the point across more vividly. Christ.
March 12, 2010 at 1:56 am
kid bitzer
grackle, what are you thinking? nobody at this blog reads original sources.
March 12, 2010 at 4:44 am
ajay
Everyone notice this bit?
“Black women, in general, were more likely to have participated in the subprime loan crisis with upper-income black women being five times more likely to have received a high-cost mortgage than upper-income white men.”
Racial skew in subprime lending…
Note, also, a key point about the crisis, often forgotten: it was the loans, not the borrowers, who were subprime. A subprime loan needn’t be to a poor person buying a small house; it could be to a middle-class person buying a big house or an upper-class person buying a second house.