Non-Hispanic whites account for roughly 63% of the United States population as of 2013, and likely closer to 61% as of 2019 as other racial groups grow at a faster rate. Below is a more detailed racial breakdown by the Census Bureau with estimates on racial makeup through the year 2060.
Average Net Worth And Income For White People
According to the Urban Institute, Whites have on average $130,472 in average family liquid retirement savings as of 2013 compared to $19,049 for African Americans, and $12,329 for Hispanics.
Now let’s look at the Economic Policy Institute data for median and average wealth for Whites and Blacks. The average wealth for Whites is $678,737 and the median wealth for Whites is just $134,230.
Now let’s look at the income by race data provided by the Census Bureau. Asian median household income leads the way at roughly 30% higher than White median household income. African American income is the lowest at roughly $38,000 and Hispanic income is at roughly $45,000 which correlates with the retirement savings by race chart and wealth charts above.
A 100% difference between the highest income ($78,000) and the lowest income ($38,000) is significant. What is going on?
Racial Makeup Of Personal Finance Readers
What’s interesting to note is that based on my survey of roughly 3,000 readers of Financial Samurai, one of the largest personal finance sites in the world with over 1 million pageviews a month, there is roughly a 30% overrepresentation of Asian readers (35% FS readers vs. 5% of US population), a 5.3% underrepresentation of African American readers (7% FS readers vs. 12.3% of US population), a 11.3% underrepresentation of Hispanic readers (5% FS readers vs. 16.3% of US population), and a 15.7% underepresentation of White readers (48% FS readers vs. 63.7% of US population).
Click to fill out the survey at the bottom
As Black and Hispanic Financial Samurai personal finance readers appear underrepresented and correspond with Census Bureau-provided lower income and wealth figures, and as Asian readers appear overrepresented and correspond with higher income and wealth figures, it seems clear there’s a correlation between higher income/wealth and reading personal finance articles.
Savings survey of personal finance readers with a median age of 34-39 are much higher than the median American household savings of ~$17,000 – $50,000 depending on survey
The Solution To Improving The Financial Health Of Our Country
Read more personal finance sites. It’s that simple.
Anybody who started reading Financial Samurai since its 2009 beginning has probably crushed the average American in terms of wealth creation because we’ve been talking about investing in the stock market, bond market, and real estate market all this time.
Even as the stock market marched to new record highs, you could read articles talking about investment ideas at the top of the market to let you make even more money. You would have likely also started building your passive income portfolio to give yourself more options versus others who just rely on a day job income.
If you bought property in SF, NYC, Denver, Vancouver, Toronto or most big cities in 2012 with a 20% downpayment, your equity is up over 300%. Meanwhile, the S&P 500 is up over 70% during the same time period. You could have also learned to save a lot on mortgage interest expense by not taking out a 30-year fixed mortgage as we enjoy a permanently low interest rate environment.
The same cannot be said for everyone who disagreed with my 1/10th rule for car buying. You can literally read hundreds of comments from people who missed out on investing in this massive bull run because they had to drive a $50,000 truck that equaled 100% of their annual gross income.
Yes, we can hypothesize that those who are already financially savvy care more about financial information than those who aren’t. But we should also conclude that over time, those who read personal finance websites tend to get richer than those who do not.
Education Will Improve Financial Health
A strong correlation with education and wealth
You don’t have to be rich to get a great education because access to information is now free. Soak up as much information as you can and share your favorite articles with as many people as possible. If so, I’m absolutely positive we’ll see a tremendous improvement in our finances over the next generation.
Once you have your finances sorted out, you can focus your attention on more important things such as family, health, and happiness. And when your finances are really good, you can even spend your time and money helping other people.
Wealth Building Recommendation
Manage Your Finances In One Place: The best way to build wealth is to get a handle on your finances by signing up with Personal Capital. They are a free online platform which aggregates all your financial accounts on their Dashboard so you can see where you can optimize. Before Personal Capital, I had to log into eight different systems to track 33 different accounts (brokerage, multiple banks, 401K, etc) to track my finances. Now, I can just log into Personal Capital to see how my stock accounts are doing, how my net worth is progressing, and where my spending is going. You also get your net worth amount sent to your inbox weekly.
One of their best tools is the 401K Fee Analyzer which has helped me save over $1,700 in annual portfolio fees I had no idea I was paying. You just click on the Investment Tab and run your portfolio through their fee analyzer with one click of the button.
They’ve also come out with their incredible Retirement Planning Calculator that uses your linked accounts to run a Monte Carlo simulation to figure out your financial future. You can input various income and expense variables to see the outcomes. Definitely check to see how your finances are shaping up as it’s free.
Are you on track? Sign up for free to plan for your retirement future
About the Author: Sam began investing his own money ever since he opened an online brokerage account in 1995. Sam loved investing so much that he decided to make a career out of investing by spending the next 13 years after college working at two of the leading financial service firms in the world. During this time, Sam received his MBA from UC Berkeley with a focus on finance and real estate.
In 2012, Sam was able to retire at the age of 34 largely due to his investments that now generate roughly $200,000 a year in passive income. He spends time playing tennis, hanging out with family, consulting for leading fintech companies and writing online to help others achieve financial freedom.
FinancialSamurai.com was started in 2009 and is one of the most trusted personal finance sites today with over 1.5 million organic pageviews a month. Financial Samurai has been featured in top publications such as the LA Times, The Chicago Tribune, Bloomberg and The Wall Street Journal.
