From Proprietary to Prosperous: Tracing Women's Financial Evolution
About the Guest(s):
Amy Irvine
Amy Irvine is the CEO and founder of the Rooted Planning Group, a financial planning firm dedicated to helping individuals and families cultivate a thriving financial future. With extensive experience in the finance industry, Amy is a respected voice in personal finance, often highlighted for her unique insights and practical advice aimed at improving financial literacy. As a passionate advocate for financial equality, she frequently contributes to discussions on contemporary financial issues, especially those impacting women.
Episode Summary:
In this insightful episode of Money Roots, host Amy Irvine delves deep into the intertwined history of women and money, while also exploring foundational concepts of the money supply. Released during Women's History Month, this episode provides a timely reflection on how historical gender biases have shaped financial opportunities and challenges for women over centuries. From elucidating the definitions of M1, M2, and M3 money supplies to detailing landmark legislative changes that aimed to rectify gender-based financial inequalities, Amy delivers a wealth of information meant to empower and educate listeners.
Throughout the episode, Amy Irvine sheds light on the significant historical milestones that have shaped women's financial rights and opportunities. With a nod to landmark legislation such as the Married Women’s Property Act and the Equal Credit Opportunity Act, listeners are guided through two centuries of evolution in women's financial rights. Highlighting the persistent wage gap, which has seen stagnant improvement since 2003, Amy calls for continued education and advocacy, emphasizing the role of allies in supporting financial gender equality. By understanding the past, Amy believes, we pave a clearer path for a future where financial parity can be realized.
Key Takeaways:
- Understanding Money Supply: Amy introduces listeners to the basic concepts of money supply, categorized into M1, M2, and M3, explaining their roles in economic growth and inflation.
- Historical Gender-Based Financial Inequality: The episode tracks the timeline of female financial rights, revealing the extent of historical discrimination that women faced in terms of property ownership, credit access, and professional opportunities.
- Legislative Milestones: Key legislative acts such as the Married Women’s Property Act and the Title IX are highlighted, portraying their impact on women's rights and financial autonomy.
- The Persistent Gender Wage Gap: Despite progress, there remains a significant gap in earnings between women and men, citing statistics that reveal women earn approximately 85% of what men do.
- Call to Action for Financial Equality: Encouragement is given to allies—parents, partners, and friends—to support women in achieving financial literacy and independence.
Notable Quotes:
- "The reason that I'm bringing this up is because we've been having a lot of conversations with people about money supply in general."
- "If you can't vote, you have no say over what does and doesn't happen to you."
- "So technically, women at that point in time, if they got pregnant prior to that, you could lose your job, you could lose your way of supporting yourself."
- "There's still a lot that we need to do to continue to bring parity to the way that women earn money, get paid, our relationship with money, all of that."
- "For Women's History Month, if you have a daughter, if you have a niece, if you have a wife, support her in the way that, you know, promotes this continued direction towards parity of pay."
Resources:
- Rooted Planning Group: Website
- Smart Money Mamas
Tune in to this episode of Money Roots for an in-depth exploration of women’s financial history and achieve a better understanding of how these issues continue to shape today’s financial landscape. Remember to subscribe for more enriching content that helps nurture your financial roots.
Transcript
Welcome to Money Roots, the podcast where personal finance gets personal.
Speaker A:Each week, Amy and her guests dig deep into the world of finance, making it more approachable and understandable for everyone.
Speaker A:No matter where you are on your financial journey.
Speaker A:From savings and investments to budgeting and planning, we'll bring you practical advice, inspiring stories, and expert insights.
Speaker A:We believe that everyone has the potential to grow a healthy financial future, and we're here to help you nurture it.
Speaker A:So whether you're a financial guru or just starting to plant the seeds of your financial knowledge, this is the place for you.
Speaker A:Get ready to uncover the tools and strategies that can help you thrive financially.
Speaker A:So, without further ado, let's dive into today's episode of Money Roots.
Speaker B:Hello, Money Root listeners.
Speaker B:Amy Irvine, CEO and founder of Rooted Planning Group here.
Speaker B:And since it is March, it is Women's History Month, I wanted to share with you some information that I thought you might find very interesting.
Speaker B:Before we get started about women and history around money, I wanted to first kind of give you some idea of what money actually is.
Speaker B:A lot of people don't know this unless they studied some form of economics, but money actually has.
Speaker B:Money supply actually is broken down into three categories.
Speaker B:What they call M1, M2 and M3.
Speaker B:M1 money supply is currency in circulation, it's your checking account, and it's your money market funds.
Speaker B:Money market account, excuse me, not money market funds.
Speaker B:It's what is available to spend right now.
Speaker B:M2 money supply is M1 money supply.
Speaker B:So currency and circulation, checking money market accounts plus savings accounts, investor money market accounts.
Speaker B:So now that's where our money market funds, that's where the money market mutual funds come into play.
Speaker B:And then CDs less than 100k.
Speaker B:So that's the overall amount of money available in the economy, which can influence inflation and economic growth.
Speaker B:And then there's M3 money supply, which is M1 plus M2.
Speaker B:So just to recap, it's currency in circulation, checking money market accounts, savings accounts, investor money market funds.
Speaker B:So under a hundred K and money market funds.
Speaker B:So your money market mutual fund funds under 100k that are investor class, and then CDs that are 100k or less, plus CDs that are over 100k and institutional money market funds, usually within the US this is unpublished anymore.
Speaker B:M1 and M2 information is published.
Speaker B:So that's just a very basic understanding of what money supply actually is.
Speaker B:And the reason that I'm bringing this up is because we've been having a lot of conversations with people about Money supply in general, and what are the next courses of where do I think the economy is going to be, you know, going down the next few months?
Speaker B:So now let me shift gears.
Speaker B:Now that I've given you what money supply is, let me shift gears just a little bit and share with you some history of women and money.
Speaker B:So I did a bunch of research and I pulled from a couple different blogs, but one of the best, the best blogs I found was written by Maggie Germano on Smart Money Mamas.
Speaker B:So here's some details that come from there, and there are some other dates that come from other different places that I did some additional research on, but that's where a lot of this information came from.
Speaker B: So starting in: Speaker B:So women, they became one with their husband.
Speaker B:They only the husband was considered a citizen with legal rights and women became his property.
Speaker B:This also meant that any property or inheritance that a woman had automatically became her husband's.
Speaker B: So this is: Speaker B:So just sit on that for a minute.
Speaker B:Right.
Speaker B: And then in: Speaker B: So: Speaker B:So if you can't vote, you have no say over what does and doesn't happen to you.
Speaker B:If you're not considered enough of a citizen to at least be able to vote, you are less likely to receive any other rights like ownership over your own property, the ability to work, protection against discrimination, and more.
Speaker B: And that was back in: Speaker B: Fast forward to: Speaker B: So from: Speaker B: ing due to the law enacted in: Speaker B:Specifically, the law allowed married women to own property, keep their own income, and engage in business.
Speaker B: So that was: Speaker B: In: Speaker B:The state recognized the financial independence of women and approved a loan to a woman in the same year.
Speaker B: estead act was also passed in: Speaker B:So that was in their own names.
Speaker B: That was in: Speaker B: Not a lot happened until: Speaker B:Women became one of one with their husband.
Speaker B:I'm sorry, go forward.
Speaker B: Not a lot happened until: Speaker B:There was a woman by the name of Victoria Woodhull and her sister Tennessee became the first female stockbrokers.
Speaker B: So this was in: Speaker B: And then in: Speaker B:The first female stockbrokers opened their own brokerage on Wall street.
Speaker B:And they made millions of dollars, by the way.
Speaker B:If you ever want to read their story, it's quite amazing.
Speaker B: owever, three years later, in: Speaker B:They couldn't practice law at that point.
Speaker B:And that could be used against other professional characteristics or other professional jobs that were out there and viewed as though women weren't intelligent enough to actually practice in that kind of professional capacity.
Speaker B: In: Speaker B: ber I said to you that it was: Speaker B: Well, in: Speaker B:So almost 100 years and the ban was up with.
Speaker B:Was upheld in the supreme court.
Speaker B: So in: Speaker B:And this was an another Supreme Court case.
Speaker B:Women were found to be lesser than their male counterparts.
Speaker B:Limiting the hours that they could work made it so that they were unable to earn more money to support themselves and their families.
Speaker B:Plus, the court explicitly called a woman a woman's physical structure and performance of maternal functions like that, that they, they said that's what they're supposed to do when making decisions.
Speaker B:So they just weren't physically capable.
Speaker B:Their structure and performance of maternal functions weren't capable of making them work.
Speaker B:Have that many hours or work that many is a problem when you think about trying to support their family if they needed to, if, if they were a widow or if they were a single mom or something like that, then no, that made it very challenging.
Speaker B: So that was in, in: Speaker B: So in: Speaker B:Of course, they Were still, there were still many limitations and restrictions in place for women of color.
Speaker B:So in actuality, the 19th Amendment only really granted white women the right to vote.
Speaker B: 's when it became official in: Speaker B:So four years later, native Americans are granted the right to citizenship.
Speaker B:This legislation technically gave Native Americans the right to vote.
Speaker B:I say technically, but they weren't considered citizens before that.
Speaker B: cial growth or development in: Speaker B:So 14 years later, the Fair Standards of Labor act is passed.
Speaker B:This is where American employers adopt an eight hour workday and a 40 hour work week.
Speaker B:It set a national minimum wage for all labor.
Speaker B:It's also allow.
Speaker B:It also allowed workers to earn wages for extra hours of overtime which would be paid at one and a half times the normal hourly wage.
Speaker B:And children were also protected by these laws.
Speaker B: So this was in: Speaker B: Wasn't until: Speaker B:It outlawed discrimination based on race, color, religion, sex or national origin.
Speaker B:So that helped theoretically say that, you know, if I have the same skill set as a white male, then I should be hired just as much as they should be hired.
Speaker B:So technically that law that was passed was meant to do that.
Speaker B:About 12 years later, Title 9 is passed, which outlawed education discrimination on the basis of gender, opening up more education to women.
Speaker B:This also applied to any activities or programs that received federal financial assistance two years later.
Speaker B: So this is: Speaker B: put in context, I was born in: Speaker B: So Title IX was passed: Speaker B:So all of this that I've shared with you in the history, when we think about this, this law, and this is a big one to me, this law is only 51 years old, but the Equal Credit Opportunity act is passed.
Speaker B:This legislation made it illegal to deny credit on the basis of sex or marital status.
Speaker B:So prior to that, it wasn't an issue.
Speaker B:It also was based on race, color, national origin, religion.
Speaker B:But up until that point, an organization could technically discriminate based on your gender.
Speaker B:The law applies to banks, real retailers, bank cards, finance companies and credit unions.
Speaker B:It also prohibits asking about marital status and whether or not the borrower has or plans to have children.
Speaker B:Now, I will tell you that this continued well beyond this, although it was not supposed to, it did.
Speaker B: Four years later, in: Speaker B: So: Speaker B:The Civil Rights act was amended to include the Pregnancy Discrimination act.
Speaker B:And this statute explicitly prohibits discrimination on the basis of pregnancy, childbirth and related conditions.
Speaker B:So technically, women at that point in time, if they got pregnant prior to that, you could lose your job, you could lose your way of supporting yourself.
Speaker B:1978 it became illegal to discriminate.
Speaker B: In: Speaker B:2009 this amended the Civil Rights act and stated that 180 day statute of limitations for filing an equal pay lawsuit regarding pay discrimination resets with each new paycheck affected by the discriminatory act.
Speaker B:This gives people more time to file their claims complaints so they don't miss the opportunity just because they waited too long.
Speaker B: th of: Speaker B: % since: Speaker B:Now, there is some good information out there and hopefully this trend continues, but based on the age, the number looks to be a little different.
Speaker B:So when we're looking at the age of a 25 to a 34 year old, it's only.
Speaker B:And be sure if you're just listening to this, you understand I say that with great sarcasm.
Speaker B:A 5% gap.
Speaker B:There shouldn't be any gap, but there still is a 5% gap.
Speaker B:So by age 25 to 34, the gap is 5% versus 15% on average.
Speaker B:The studies have shown that they believe that the gap increases above that age group because of a motherhood penalty and that there is statistic information that shows there is a 15% reduction in pay for women having children.
Speaker B:They call that the motherhood penalty.
Speaker B:15% reduction.
Speaker B:There's still a lot that we need to do to continue to bring parity to the way that women earn money, get paid, our relationship with money, all of that.
Speaker B:But it all starts with education and being aware of what the differences are in the history that we've experienced and standing on the shoulders of the women that have walked before us.
Speaker B:We've had great allies along the way and we need to continue to lean on those allies.
Speaker B:And by allies, I mean those wonderful men that do support women having great financial knowledge and earning equal parity to what they're earning.
Speaker B:But we need to work together to improve this.
Speaker B:And for Women's History Month, if you have a daughter, if you have a niece, if you have a wife, support her in the way that, you know, promotes this continued direction towards parity of pay and therefore equal retirement savings, equal opportunity to increase their own knowledge around finance and to be able to protect and take care of themselves if, God forbid, something should happen to a partner.
Speaker B:Thank you everyone for listening to this particular session.
Speaker B:And by the way, not all women have partners, so that's an important reason to be an ally to support your friends and your family members that have it.
Speaker B:And again, thank you everyone for listening to this podcast.
Speaker B:We hope that you've enjoyed this walk down memory lane and this history behind women and money and what money actually is.
Speaker B:Money Supply thank you everyone.
Speaker A:You've been listening to Money Roots, your Go to podcast for making personal finance accessible and approachable.
Speaker A:Thanks for joining us today.
Speaker A:Amy and her guests have enjoyed guiding you through the roots of your financial journey.
Speaker A:Remember, whether you're planting new seeds of financial knowledge or nurturing the growth of your existing financial plans, Money Roots is here to support you every step of the way.
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Speaker A:And of course, subscribe to Money Roots wherever you get your podcasts so you never miss an episode.
Speaker A:A big thank you to the sponsor, Rooted Planning Group, for making this show possible.
Speaker A:At Rooted Planning Group, they're committed to helping you cultivate a thriving financial future.
Speaker A:Until next time, keep growing your Money Roots.
