Black women are tired of getting the short end of the stick when it comes to wealth. The American Association of University Women (AAUW) published a study that found that, “Black women were paid 63% of what non-Hispanic white men were paid in 2019. That means it takes the typical Black woman 19 months to be paid what the average white man takes home in 12 months.” What’s worse is that although Black women are among the most educated demographic among millennials, before our careers begin we are saddled with the highest student loan burden among our peers. Black women shell out a whopping $37,558 average total borrowed, as compared to $25,252 for Asian women, $27,029 for Latinas, and $31,346 for White women. Thus, the traditional paths to work and wealth are a biased minefield that some experts say is best avoided. Doing away with the burden of being a “strong Black woman,” Bold Culture connected with three experts who advocate for entrepreneurship, investing, and anti-exhaustion as tools to level set on work and wealth.
Entrepreneurship: Koereyelle “Koe” Dubose is a serial entrepreneur who, in 2011, was making $32,000 per year as a full-time school teacher. She loved her job, but never felt the love in her paycheck. Today, she has multiple streams of income, which regularly earn her $32,000 per month. She hustled to find her purpose, which took her in many different directions. Most recently, she founded WERK University, an online trade school that addresses a problem plaguing the Black community, specifically Black women: living paycheck to paycheck. WERK U is focused on enrolling Black women at a price point anyone can afford. And after a year with Koe, students are able to enhance their money-making mindset, audit their skills and generate income-producing programs, products or services. While she says that entrepreneurs certainly have to grind to get ahead, Koereyelle insists that only a purpose-driven passion will bring wealth abundance. She notes, “It’s extremely difficult to be an asset to your community when you don’t have any assets yourself. Therefore, WERK U aims to increase financial literacy by educating women on ways they can use their existing skills to develop new streams of income.”
Investing: Like Koe, Teri Ijeoma also leveraged her teaching career to become a financial educator. Instead of an online trade school, she created an online school to teach trading. Ijeoma grew up with her mother and grandmother, after her father’s deportation to Nigeria. She got a full ride to MIT and used it to become an Assistant Principal. Her success earned her $60,000 per year and a major heap of exhaustion. She started trading to buy back her time. Over a decade later, she’s now rumored to be worth seven figures and is teaching others how to do the same. She says “Once people learn how to trade for income they can make their salary from trading stocks; it frees up more time to do what they truly desire to do with their time.” Many traditional money coaches would advocate for paying off debt before investing, but with heavy debt burdens and low salaries this could turn into a never-ending rat race. To that, she says that learning the skill of trading affords people the invaluable “ability to actually be able to work from home, spend time with their families, travel more, pay off debt, or even just have the ability to provide the basic necessities without struggling.”
Anti-exhaustion: Whether in entrepreneurs or traditional employees, Dr. Tangie has seen how “success exhaustion” can deplete our health and limit our wealth. Reports since the late 1980s show that, “even though Black women participate at higher rates in the labor market than white women, they have the lowest pay and occupational status jobs of any race/gender groups…National Health Survey statistics indicate an unusually high level of emotional distress and depression among Black women as compared to White and other ethnic group women.” Dr. Tangie is a physician and life coach who specializes in working with “high achievers who have attained success but feel unfulfilled and exhausted trying to maintain it.” Her work focuses on success alignment, encouraging clients “to access the courage to negotiate for more money while working the same or less time, as well as to tap into their creative powers to give value to the world and receive money for sharing their gifts.” She acknowledged that people work really hard to attain success in their careers yet, from inside the financial grind, it can be incredibly hard to enjoy the life they have worked so hard to create.
Nafeesah is a freelance writer and independent researcher with a particular interest in race, literature, gender identity, and African and Indian diasporas in the global South. Follow her on Twitter & Instagram @theblaxpat.
