The forum will feature the following guests who will discuss the gender and racial wealth gap and community solutions to move towards economic empowerment for women, girls, and families: Kelley Griesmer, President & CEO of The Women's Fund will be joined by Christie Angel (President and CEO of YWCA Columbus), Dr. Suparna Bhaskaran, (Senior Researcher at The Haas Institute for a Fair and Inclusive Society), and Dr. Darrick Hamilton (Executive Director of the Kirwan Institute for the Study of Race and Ethnicity).
The gender wealth gap, exacerbated by a deeper racial wealth gap, goes far beyond wage inequality and is a much more comprehensive framework for understanding a women’s financial security over her lifetime. This is the first time a report has looked at the gender and racial wealth gap at a local level in Ohio.
While building wealth can be a lifelong process, women, especially women of color, generally have fewer opportunities than men to accumulate wealth. Often the gender earnings gap is focused on – with women earning just 80 cents on the dollar compared with men – yet the wealth gap is even larger: single women own only 40 cents for every dollar that single men own. For Black and Hispanic women, the wealth gap is especially stark: single Black women own two cents on the dollar compared with all single men, and single Latina women own only eight cents.