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If women invested at the same rate as men, there would be an additional $3.22 trillion in global assets under management, according to BNY Mellon.
Women are less likely to invest in an employer-sponsored plan or a brokerage account, Transamerica Center for Retirement Studies found.
Closing the wage gap and making changes within the financial community are part of the solution, experts said.

Oscar Wong | Moment | Getty Images

Women don’t invest in the market at the same rate as men, and the reasons for this are more nuanced than lower earnings power.
Experts point to factors such as how women are perceived and treated by the investment community, among other hurdles for this gender investment gap.

The investing disparity is stark: If women invested at the same rate as men, there would be at least an additional $3.22 trillion in assets under management from private individuals, a report from BNY Mellon Investment Management found. The firm’s global survey, fielded in 2021, included 8,000 men and women across 16 markets. BNY Mellon also interviewed 100 global asset managers with $60 trillion in assets under management.
When it comes to saving for retirement, American women are less likely to invest in an employer-sponsored plan or a brokerage account, according to the Transamerica Center for Retirement Studies. The 22nd annual survey of workers, released in November 2022, was conducted within the U.S. by the Harris Poll between Oct. 28 and Dec. 10, 2021, among a nationally representative sample of 5,493 workers.

The result is that women, who on average live longer than men, are less likely to be prepared to retire when they want. Some 53% of women feel financially comfortable about retiring at their target date, compared with 66% of men, a survey from BMO found. The survey, conducted by Ipsos from Jan. 16 to Feb. 12, polled a sample of 3,401 U.S. adults.

Hurdles to overcome

Women face a number of barriers when it comes to investing. One is that the investment industry isn’t engaging women to the same degree as men, BNY Mellon’s research found.
According to the global survey, 1 in 10 women feel they don’t fully understand investing and only about 28% feel confident about investing some of their money. In the U.S., some 41% of women feel confident.

Yet 86% of asset managers surveyed said they are targeting a male customer, the survey found.
In fact, most U.S. financial advisors are male — just 35% were women in 2022, according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics.
Then there is the high hurdle of the disposable income women think they need to have before they invest. On average, women around the world believe they need $4,092 a month before they would consider investing any of it, BNY Mellon found. In the U.S., women, on average, think they need over $6,000 a month — or just over $72,000 per year.
On top of that, more than a quarter of the women surveyed described their financial health as poor or very poor, said Stephanie Pierce, CEO of Dreyfus, Mellon & Exchange-Traded Funds at BNY Mellon Investment Management.
“If women don’t think they have great financial health and they have this very high [disposable income] hurdle, that’s a barrier that is really going to stop people from entering the financial markets,” she said.
Lastly, 45% of the women surveyed by BNY Mellon said investing money in the stock market, through an individual security or a fund, is too risky.

The income divide

However, a Morningstar survey found the gender investing gap simply comes down to the fact that women statistically earn less money than men. The firm surveyed 907 U.S. residents, including 437 females, last year.
“Once you control for income, many of those differences between men and women and investing behaviors kind of disappear. So they either become no longer statistically significant, or they’re not practically significant,” explained Samantha Lamas, a behavioral researcher at Morningstar.
In other words, when researchers compared the investment behaviors of men and women by income bracket, they found they saved and invested similarly.
“The problem was that men just made up a lot of that higher income level bracket,” Lamas said.
In fact, the gender pay gap hasn’t moved much in the past 20 years. Women, on average, earned 82 cents for every dollar earned by men in 2022, according to a Pew Research Center analysis of median hourly earnings of both full- and part-time workers. In 2002, women made 80% of what men earned.

Yet, financial advisors still perceive women differently than men, Lamas said.
“Female investors have in the past reported that advisors assume that they have a low risk tolerance and are interested in sustainable funds, as soon as they walk in the door,” she said. “That’s a generalization that I think oversimplifies the situation. The truth is, it’s much more nuanced.”
For instance, Morningstar has found that interest in ESG — or environmental, social and corporate governance — investing was pretty widespread, with gender and age not really a factor.
However, BNY Mellon’s global survey found more than half of women would invest, or invest more, if the impact of their investment aligned with their personal values. They would also invest if the investment fund had a clear goal or purpose for good.
The firm calculated that of the $3.22 trillion that would enter the market if women invested at the same rate as men, $1.87 trillion would flow into impact investments benefiting people and the environment.

Closing the gap

Luis Alvarez | Digitalvision | Getty Images

To get more women investing, a more inclusive financial community needs to be built, experts said.
“We need more women financial advisors. That is one of the easiest ways to close the gap,” said Beata Kirr, co-head of investment strategies at Bernstein Private Wealth Management and host of the firm’s “Women & Wealth” podcast.
In fact, nearly three-quarters of the asset managers in BNY Mellon’s global survey said they believe the investment industry would be able to attract more women investors if the industry had more female fund managers.
Male advisors also need to understand that their own income and economic success can be hurt if they effectively ignore women, Kirr said. More women are coming into wealth, whether it is through founding businesses, climbing the corporate ladder or an inheritance, she noted.
“One fact is very clear. Women outlive men,” Kirr said. The average life expectancy for women is 79 years, compared with 72 years for men, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.
In fact, by 2030, women are expected to control much of the $30 trillion in financial assets that baby boomers possess, according to McKinsey & Company. The firm’s 2020 report said it is “a potential wealth transfer of such magnitude that it approaches the annual GDP of the United States.”
Then there is the financial jargon that professionals tend to use. Some 31% of female consumers in the BNY Mellon survey said that overly complicated language, which can be unclear or confusing, dissuades them from investing or investing more than they currently do.
“You see language like asymmetrical risk/reward, risk-adjusted returns, alpha generation, right? Relative outperformance, tracking error, dispersion, downside protection. We use these words to describe really simple things in very complex ways,” Pierce said. “It’s not helpful, and it can put off people that don’t understand it, women included.”
The investment community should also be providing more opportunities that interest women, she added, pointing to the BNY Mellon global survey’s findings that more than half of the women are interested in impact investing.
“We do believe that a part of the call to action is to deliver solutions that meet the need for women who want to have a financial return and social impact with our money, or a socially responsible investment,” Pierce said.
To that end, BNY Mellon recently filed to launch the BNY Mellon Women’s Empowerment ETF, which will invest in companies that demonstrate gender equitable practices and/or offer products that support women’s day-to-day needs.
For Morningstar’s Lamas, the solution to eliminating the gender investing disparity is to close the gender pay gap.
“That means that we need these structural changes. To make an impact here, we need to get women to get paid more,” she said. More

Companies across the U.S. are dealing with a shortage of workers and a shortage of child care.
The U.S. could lose about $290 billion a year in GDP in 2030 and beyond if the number of paid caregivers doesn’t increase and employees leave the workforce for care duties, one estimate said.
The U.S. Department of Commerce is encouraging the semiconductor industry to offer more affordable care options for workers as a way to increase women’s participation in the workforce.

Sinem Buber is a labor economist at ZipRecruiter. She’s reviewed the data on how lack of affordable care options is affecting the U.S. labor force. She’s seen 1.2 million fewer women show up in the workforce data since the pandemic started, in part due to child-care issues.
And as the mother of two boys, now ages 4 and 6, she’s also lived it firsthand, especially when her children, as well as those of her colleagues, were sick this winter. 

“I had to work during the night, [which is] when my other colleague can work, after his son goes to sleep,” said Buber. “So it was really a hard time for us to go through this winter.”
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Buber said she’s fortunate, since her position and employer allow her flexibility to work from home. She and her husband take turns watching their boys if they’re ill or school is closed. It’s a scenario familiar to many workers, as the pandemic has led many caregivers to leave their jobs and schools and day-care centers shut down.  

The cost of care for the economy 

Sinem Buber and her husband can work from home and trade off child care duties when schools are closed.
Andy Tenke, CNBC

Companies across the U.S. are dealing with both a shortage of workers and a shortage of child care. A recent study by Ready Nation found that difficulty finding care for infants and toddlers costs $122 billion in lost earnings, productivity and revenue each year — more than double what it was five years ago. An analysis by the Boston Consulting Group forecast that the U.S. will lose about $290 billion a year in gross domestic product, or GDP, in 2030 and beyond if the number of paid caregivers doesn’t increase and employees leave the workforce for care duties. 
Two-thirds of OneMain Financial’s 9,200 employees are female. The personal lending company has workers in 44 states in corporate offices, operations centers and branches.

“We had pretty high attrition,” said Linda Martinez, a district manager for OneMain. “I feel like all companies did a couple years ago, and over the last 12 months, I feel like we’ve really gotten a handle on it.”

Addressing employees’ caregiving needs 

Heather McHale at home with her daughter.
Tara McCurrie, CNBC

The company worked to address the different needs of its workforce by adding new flexibility and care benefits. Branch employees were in the office, facing customers, throughout the pandemic, while many central operations and corporate office workers had hybrid options.
“What became apparent really early on is what we offered pre-pandemic wasn’t going to cut it moving forward,” said Heather McHale, chief human resources officer for OneMain and a member of the CNBC Workforce Executive Council. 
As a mother of three, including a daughter with special needs, McHale understands the situation personally, as well. OneMain now offers 24/7 access to care specialists, provides referrals to screened caregivers through Care.com and subsidizes up to $125 per day for seven days of backup care.

With so many children falling behind in school over the past couple of years, the company also now offers access for up to five hours a month of tutoring for K-12 students.  
“We want to meet our employees where they are; we want to give them the access to the care that they need,” McHale said. 
The Employee Benefit Research Institute found 61% of companies currently offer flexible work arrangements. While less than a quarter of firms now offer child-care referrals and subsidies, that number is expected to jump to half within the next two years.

Government urges industries to do more 

Linda Martinez at a OneMain Financial branch in Seacaucus, New Jersey.
Mark Aster, CNBC

In an effort to push employers to do more, the U.S. Department of Commerce is encouraging the semiconductor industry to offer more affordable care options for workers by requiring companies that are seeking more than $150 million in government funding for semiconductor facilities to submit workforce development plans for the workers who will build and operate their facilities.
The move is needed to help increase women’s participation in the labor force, the department said. That’s down to the fact that if women participated at the same rate that men do, there would be more than 10 million additional workers. 
“If you want to out-innovate the rest of the world, you’d better have all of our best minds, including women, working on these problems,” U.S. Commerce Secretary Gina Raimondo said Monday on CNBC’s “Squawk on the Street.” “It won’t happen without investments in child care.”
Join “Women & Wealth,” a CNBC Your Money event, on April 11 as we explore ways women can increase their income, save for the future and make the most out of current opportunities. Register at cnbcevents.com for this virtual event. 

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Total credit card debt reached a record $930.6 billion by the end of last year, according to the latest credit report from TransUnion.
As average balances tick higher, households’ finances are near their “breaking point,” a separate study by WalletHub found.

‘Increase in delinquencies is something to watch’

Delinquencies are already on the rise, TransUnion found. A delinquency is a payment that’s 60 days or more overdue.

“The increase in delinquencies is something to watch,” said Michele Raneri, vice president of U.S. research and consulting at TransUnion. As long as unemployment stays down, households are better able to pay their bills, she noted. “If unemployment goes up, and we see a spike in delinquencies, then that indicates a longer-term problem.”
For now, job openings still far outnumber available workers, according to the U.S. Department of Labor’s recent Job Openings and Labor Turnover Survey.

Credit cards are one of the most expensive ways to borrow money. Currently, annual percentage rates, or APRs, are around 20%, an all-time high.
If the Federal Reserve announces a half-point increase in its benchmark interest rate at the March meeting, those APRs will climb even higher. That will cost credit card borrowers an extra $3.4 billion in interest charges over the next 12 months, WalletHub calculated.

How to tackle credit card debt

“Something has to give,” Gonzalez said. It’s time to rein in spending, pay off debt and avoid any new debt, she added.
“Cardholders do have options, though,” said Matt Schulz, chief credit analyst at LendingTree. Zero percent balance transfer credit card offers are even more plentiful than they were a year ago and remain one of the best weapons Americans have in the battle against credit card debt, he said.
Borrowers may also be able to refinance into a lower-interest personal loan. Those rates have climbed recently, as well, but at 10%, on average, are still well below what you currently have on your credit card, according to Schulz.

Otherwise, go back to the basics, advised Ted Rossman, senior industry analyst at Bankrate.
“Take on a side hustle, sell stuff you don’t need, cut your expenses,” he said. “A dollar saved is a dollar earned, and every dollar of credit card debt that you pay down has an average guaranteed tax-free return of about 20%.”
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Several large companies have announced significant job cuts in recent months: Google, Microsoft, Amazon and other tech companies collectively laid off more than 70,000 employees in the last year and there are no signs of that trend slowing down.
Given current economic conditions and a potential looming recession, experts say more layoffs are imminent, if not expected. But regardless of your age, job, industry and other personal circumstances, there are things you can do at work to prevent yourself from being the next person to receive a pink slip.

Career expert Suzy Welch has tips for employees who want to do everything they can to avoid being laid off from their job.
Watch this video to learn what you can do.

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In the last 50 years, working women have made strides in wages and savings compared with previous generations.
However, their married heterosexual counterparts have seen their retirement security decline because their husband’s fortunes have suffered, research shows.

Willie B. Thomas/Hinterhouse Productions | Getty Images

When it comes to retirement security for women, marriage may not give them the leg up it once did.
Women who have spent the majority of their adult life single — whether due to divorce or never marrying — are now generally as well prepared for retirement as married heterosexual couples, according to a study from the Center for Retirement Research at Boston College. 

“Women have made a lot of progress over the last 50 years,” said Laura Quinby, one of the researchers for the study. “They’ve made enormous strides in the labor market, are more likely to get a college degree and have careers.”
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Title IX of the Education Amendments of 1972 ushered in mandated gender equity in education programs or activities that received federal financial assistance. While the law is often associated with advances in women’s sports, it also contributed to more females going to college and into better-paying professions they previously may have been unable to access.
For example, the share of baby boomer women born in the early 1960s who hold a college degree is about 33%, compared with 15% among females born in the 1930s, the research shows. 

For married women, it’s a different story

However, part of the increased parity in retirement security is due to a decline in such security among married women, Quinby said.

That’s tied to the stagnating fortunes of men married to women, with the Great Recession hitting them harder than their female counterparts, the researchers said. For those who were in their prime working years, high unemployment and slow wage growth affected their ability to save for retirement.
“It’s really reflecting the impact that the Great Recession had on their husbands,” Quinby said.

The amount of wealth held at age 59-60 by a typical married woman’s household has decreased 23% to $446,000 from $579,000 for those born in the 1930s. For single women, it has jumped about 28% to $290,000 from $227,000.
While those amounts are far apart, the researchers translated the wealth into a retirement-income replacement rate for single and married women — that is, the share of earnings from their working years that will be covered by Social Security and their savings.
Among baby boomer women who were born after the mid-1950s who have spent their adult life mostly married, that income-replacement rate is 35%, down from 44% among those born in the 1930s. For those who have been mostly single, the rate is 33%.

At the same time, retirement security overall peaked for “war babies,” those born in 1942-1947, Quinby said.
“It’s primarily driven by the fact that wealth in defined contribution plans [i.e., 401(k) plans] is lower than the wealth in pension plans used to be for those older cohorts,” she said.

1 in 5 women ‘very confident’ about retiring with enough

Meanwhile, only 1 in 5 women feels “very confident” about being able to retire comfortably, according to a study from the Transamerica Center for Retirement Studies. More than half say they have too much debt or not enough income to save much, and 4 in 10 expect to retire after age 70, or not at all.
Additionally, there is still a gender wage gap. In 2022, women earned an average of 82% of what men earned, according to a new Pew Research Center analysis.
And, whether the retirement security gains by single women will continue is questionable.
“A lot of the gains that women made have largely played out,” Quinby said. “Absent any structural change, I think we won’t see the gains we have in the past.”

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President Joe Biden this week called for higher taxes on wealthy Americans to extend Medicare funding as part of his 2024 budget.
The plan would increase the net investment income tax to 5%, from 3.8%, for earnings of more than $400,000, including regular income, capital gains and so-called pass-through business income.
However, the plan is unlikely to pass in the Republican-controlled House of Representatives.

President Joe Biden delivers remarks on his plan to protect Americans access to affordable health care in Virginia Beach, Virginia, on Feb. 28, 2023.
Saul Loeb | AFP | Getty Images

President Joe Biden this week called for higher taxes on wealthy Americans to boost Medicare as part of his 2024 budget, aiming to help fund the program for at least 25 years.
The plan would increase the net investment income tax from 3.8% to 5% for earnings of more than $400,000, including regular income, capital gains and so-called pass-through business income, which flows to individual tax returns, according to the White House.

Enacted through the Affordable Care Act, the net investment income tax currently applies to earnings above $200,000 for single filers and $250,000 for married couples filing together.
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“Since Medicare was passed, income and wealth inequality in the United States have increased dramatically,” the White House said in a fact sheet. “By asking those with the highest incomes to contribute modestly more, we can keep the Medicare program strong for decades to come.”
The plan also aims to expand Medicare’s ability to negotiate prescription drug prices beyond the measures enacted through the Inflation Reduction Act.
Biden’s plan, however, is unlikely to pass in the Republican-controlled House of Representatives.

The full budget will be released Thursday.

The future of Medicare and Social Security

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Bond yields surged Tuesday as Federal Reserve Chair Jerome Powell said interest rates may have to remain higher for longer to quell inflation.
In particular, the 3-month Treasury yield leapt over 5%, touching levels last seen in 2007.
For investors hoping to put idle cash to work, there’s an opportunity to snap up short-term Treasurys and earn an attractive risk-free return.

Traders work on the floor of the New York Stock Exchange (NYSE) in New York City, U.S., March 3, 2023.
Brendan Mcdermid | Reuters

The latest spike in bond yields was enough to spook the stock market into a sell-off Tuesday, but there’s a silver lining for fixed income investors: Short-term Treasurys are now touting a risk-free return of 5%.
The latest action follows comments from Federal Reserve Chair Jerome Powell, who said Tuesday that interest rates are “likely to be higher” than previously expected. “If the totality of the data were to indicate that faster tightening is warranted, we would be prepared to increase the pace of rate hikes,” he said.

related investing news

The yield on the 3-month Treasury touched a high of 5.015% on Tuesday, the highest level since 2007. (Note: that yield is annualized, not what you would get in just three months.)
Rates on the 1-year bill and 2-year Treasury note – the latter of which is most sensitive to the Fed’s policy – also popped more than 5% on Wednesday morning, reaching levels last seen in 2006 and 2007, respectively. Bond yields move inversely to prices.

Stock chart icon

Treasury rates have popped higher as the Fed continues its rate-hiking campaign.

A piece of the action

Short-term Treasurys are a great way to put idle cash to work, and you can also “ladder” them to get a little interest on your money over a certain term. This means you build a portfolio of issues with different maturities and reinvest the proceeds as they mature.
Investors can get in on the action in a couple of ways.
First, they can purchase Treasurys directly from the U.S. government via TreasuryDirect.gov. They will have to set up an account on the site and link their bank to it. For short-term investors, 4-week, 8-week, 13-week and 26-week T-bills are auctioned every week. Two-year notes are auctioned monthly, and 10-year Treasurys are auctioned every quarter.

If you hold the Treasury to maturity, you aren’t subject to market risk. The bonds generally pay interest twice a year, but for T-bills, the interest you get is the difference between what you paid and the face value you receive at maturity.
Another way for investors to buy Treasurys is through a brokerage firm. This makes record-keeping easier for investors, especially if they already have an individual retirement account at a given firm.
The issue is that you may be subject to fees and minimum purchase requirements if you buy Treasurys through a brokerage account. Consider that you can buy Treasurys directly from the government with a minimum purchase amount of $100, but a brokerage firm can charge you for broker-assisted trades. Others require that you buy at least $1,000 in Treasurys.
Though Treasurys are considered risk-free because their payments are backed by the full faith and credit of the United States government, investors should be aware that the real rate of return they’re earning could be eaten away if inflation rises at a pace greater than the yield. A further risk is they may also miss out on investment opportunities in other assets like stocks.
These bonds may be a great way to get some interest on otherwise idle cash, but they shouldn’t make up the entirety of your portfolio.
— CNBC’s Michelle Fox and Gina Francolla contributed to this story.

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Supreme Court Justice Amy Coney Barrett is the conservative justice who seemed the most unconvinced by the plaintiffs challenging student loan forgiveness.
Even if Barrett finds that the plaintiffs don’t have standing to sue, she’d have to convince another conservative justice to come to her side for Biden’s student loan forgiveness plan to survive.
Barrett may be able to convince Justice Brett Kavanaugh or Chief Justice John Roberts.

U.S. Supreme Court Associate Justice Amy Coney Barrett.
Evelyn Hockstein | Reuters

The fate of the Biden administration’s sweeping plan to cancel $400 billion in student loan debt for tens of millions of Americans may hinge on the newest conservative member of the Supreme Court: Justice Amy Coney Barrett.
Barrett was the conservative justice who seemed the most unconvinced by the plaintiffs challenging student loan forgiveness, said Jed Shugerman, a law professor at Fordham University. Specifically, Shugerman said, Barrett didn’t seem to agree that they’d proven they have standing to sue.

“Barrett was vocally and deeply uncomfortable about ruling that any of the plaintiffs had standing,” Shugerman said.
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As a rule, plaintiffs must prove that a policy would cause them injury in order to challenge it in the courts.
That requirement, which has long been defended by conservative justices, especially former Justice Antonin Scalia, is meant to avoid people using the legal system to fight policies they do not like or agree with.
The six GOP-led states that brought a lawsuit against President Joe Biden’s plan argue that the debt cancellation for up to $20,000 per borrower would decrease profits for companies in their states that service federal student loans. That argument has become focused on the Missouri Higher Education Loan Authority, or MOHELA.

Nebraska’s solicitor general, James Campbell, who argued on behalf of the states in front of the justices on Feb. 28, said Biden’s plan threatened to eat away at MOHELA’s operating revenue by as much as 40%.

Barrett seemingly unsatisfied by plaintiff arguments

But Barrett asked Campbell why MOHELA itself was not suing to block the plan instead of Missouri.
Officials at MOHELA recently said it had no involvement in Missouri Attorney General Eric Schmitt’s decision to sue against the program.
“Do you want to address why MOHELA’s not here?” Barrett asked.
Campbell replied, “MOHELA doesn’t need to be here because the state has the authority to speak for them.”
Barrett wasn’t satisfied by that answer.
“Why didn’t the state just make MOHELA come then?” she asked. “If MOHELA is really an arm of the state … why didn’t you just strong-arm MOHELA and say you’ve got to pursue this suit?”

Many commentators were asking, ‘Where is the Missouri SG?’ It’s like, Where’s Waldo?”

Jed Shugerman
law professor at Fordham University

Campbell answered: “Your honor, that’s a question of state politics.”
Shugerman, the law professor, said Campbell fumbled to explain how a loss in revenue for MOHELA would harm Missouri.
“The Nebraska solicitor general was unconvincing,” Shugerman said. “It was a mess.”
Shugerman also criticized the decision to have Nebraska’s top state attorney argue the case in front of the justices as opposed to the solicitor general of Missouri. He said that would have been appropriate because Missouri is the state with the best claim of an injury.
“Many commentators were asking, ‘Where is the Missouri SG?'” he said. “It’s like, ‘Where’s Waldo?'”

Plan’s survival depends on 2 conservative votes

Barrett alone can’t save the program.
The liberal justices — Elena Kagan, Ketanji Brown Jackson and Sonia Sotomayor — are almost certain to vote in favor of the plan, Shugerman said.
On the other hand, three conservative justices, Clarence Thomas, Neil Gorsuch and Samuel Alito are likely to vote against it, he said.
Because of that, the Biden administration will likely need to convince not just Barrett but at least one of the other two conservative members of the court, Chief Justice John Roberts and Justice Brett Kavanaugh.

“If she is a fourth vote, the question is, can she convince a fifth?” Shugerman said.
If the justices ignore the states’ lack of standing, they risk allowing any state or individual to challenge almost any federal program, said Steven Schwinn, a law professor at the University of Illinois Chicago.
“This is no way to run a federal democracy,” Schwinn said. “If the plaintiffs have a problem with loan cancellation, they should take it up through political processes.”

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