A surprising number of women lack basic money skills but groups are trying to change that.
SEASON 4: EPISODE 37 | Airdate: 3/25/2022
An alarming number of local women, looking to get out of deep debt, has prompted one organization to take action.
Jewish Nevada, Nevada’s Jewish federation, hosted screenings of the new documentary “$avvy” in both Las Vegas and Reno.
The documentary investigates “the historical, cultural and societal norms around women and money”
Robin Hauser is the director and the producer of the film. She told Nevada Week that she wanted to do the film because she found that many women and millennials were not taking an active role in their finances.
Instead, they were abdicating their role to others, mostly the men in their lives.
Hauser understands the problem intimately. After 25 years of marriage, she divorced her husband six years ago and became solely responsible for her money. She said she was surprised by the situation and what she hadn’t paid attention to during her marriage.
She realized her experience was not unique and there were likely people in far worse situations than her own.
“Women make 80 cents on the dollar to what men make,” she explained, “We earn less. We spend more time out of the workplace to care for children and elderly parents. So we have less social security and we live longer. So, we have less money to afford a longer life and that is why women 65 and older are 80 percent more likely to live impoverished than men of the same age.”
She said many women stay in situations – whether it’s a job or a relationship – that aren’t healthy for them but they can’t leave because they don’t have the financial independence to go.
Hauser said addressing the wage gap between women and men and between women of color and white women would help.
There also needs to be more stand-alone personal finance classes and information for women.
Kelly Mizrachi is the legacy and philanthropy manager for Jewish Nevada. She said her organization learned about the problem while running a program called Hebrew Free Loan. It provides interest-free loans to people in the Jewish community.
After looking at the data among their applicants, they found women were applying for loans for debt consolidation from high-interest credit cards and payday loans. They wondered why and heard about the documentary and decided it was worthwhile to bring it to Nevada.
Emily Stevens is the director of community engagement at SCE Federal Credit Union. She agreed that many of the women she works with are getting loans from her credit union to pay off high-interest loans from payday lenders.
She said she often sees it among single moms who don’t know how to properly manage money and are living paycheck to paycheck. Stevens said when an emergency situation arises they are often too busy to find a better solution so they end up getting a payday loan, which is supposed to be paid off when someone gets their next paycheck but that is not what happens.
Stevens said people can get into more trouble with payday loans than they expect.
Shanta Patton is focused on helping people, particularly women of color, get out of that cycle of debt so they can get into a home. She’s the co-founder of the group Make Homes Possible.
She said many women of color get into trouble with debt because they decide to get an education and rack up a lot in student loan debt. That debt to income inequity makes it more difficult to get conventional home loans.
She said the disparity in pay is even more troubling with communities of color because they make even less than women do for every dollar made by a white male. Patton also noted that a lot of times African American women are the primary breadwinners for their families which means the pay gaps make a big difference.
Another problem with women in finances is divorce. A women’s standard of living can drop by 73 percent after a divorce. Steven said women turn to their significant other to take care of finances because and they don’t know what their family finances look like until after they are divorced.
“It changes things very dramatically for these women. It’s very hard,” she said.
Patton noted it happened to her when she got divorced. She also said that getting divorced can hurt a women’s credit because of the debt they often get into.
Steven’s credit union offers several different programs to help women not only get out of debt in the right way but also better understand investing and retirement planning.
While financial education is not often taught in public schools, it can be found in outside programs like Girl Scouts.
The Girl Scouts of Southern Nevada recently wrapped up cookie-selling season, but their entrepreneurial skills are still in use as cookie CEOs.
As part of the cookie CEO program, this group of Girl Scouts has spent a couple of hours every Monday for the past seven weeks preparing for a pitch to a local business for a gift of caring donation.
“It’s a way for people to donate to the Girl Scouts even if they don’t want cookies,” said Aimee Romero, chief communications and development officer for Girl Scouts of Southern Nevada.
The cookie CEO program caters to Girl Scouts in middle and high school.
“This is a higher level entrepreneurship program for girls who already have an exposure to business but really want to level that up and learn that “Shark Tank”-type style of pitching,” Romero said.
The Nevada Week team meet up with a particular group that was at the cadet level, meaning they’re sixth through eighth-graders; however, their level of knowledge about money surpasses that of some adults.
“Through just this class, like I’ve heard IRAs mentioned but like this class, bankers came into talk to us and they were talking to me, answering all my questions,” said Regan from Troop 514.
And Girl Scouts can start selling cookies as young as five-years-old says Donna Namchek, COO of Girl Scouts of Southern Nevada.
Her daughters did and are now 15 and 20 years old.
“They’re very mindful of money. They are very good at setting a goal and working toward it much better than I was at my age,” Namchek said.
In addition to money management, Girl Scouts learn confidence.
“Going through these years of being with my sisters and my troop, let me know that I can be myself around people and if they dislike me for who I am then I shouldn’t be hanging around them,” said Aubree of Troop 671
It’s a trait the cookie CEO program reinforces.
“The entire purpose of this kind of pitch in a board room with executives is we wanted them to feel a little bit rattled,” Romero said, “That is really the essence of being an entrepreneur and having that confidence that if I can just get through this to the end I have accomplished so much.”
