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Women have suffered the most financially during the pandemic, but there are nascent signs the situation is improving. For example, the wage of American women rose and outpaced the wage of men in February, 4.4% to 4.1%, according to the Atlanta Federal Reserve’s wage tracker. Now, and in light of Women’s History Month, several experts are offering financial advice on how women can get raises, invest in real estate or retire early.
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Asking for a Raise
According to a Laurel Road survey, while women continue to leave the workforce, often feeling they are underpaid or undervalued, and struggling with mental health burdens related to work-life balance in higher proportions than men, many of them plan to ask for a raise in 2022 and are willing to switch jobs for the pay they feel they’ve earned.
Indeed, a staggering 73% of women say they feel they were disproportionately impacted by events from the Covid-19 pandemic, a decrease of only 4% from 2020, and 69% of women feel they are underpaid concerning their current value at their company, the survey notes. However, in an encouraging sign, 54% of women – and 59% of BIPOC women – stated they think they will ask for a raise in 2022.
Tori Dunlap, the founder of Her First $100K and host of the Financial Feminist podcast, said on The Live Richer Podcast that financial feminism should be coupled with policy change or with systemic change.
“When it comes to personal finance and personal finance decisions, 10% of it is your own choices, 90% of it is circumstantial,” she said. “I will say part of the reason why we negotiate is of course not to just get more money and more benefits right now, it’s also because you are trying to figure out if this is a company you can grow with. And you especially figure this out if you’re negotiating for a new job. You have more power negotiating for a new job than you will ever have, even if you stay and make a blood pact at a company for decades.”
Dunlap said that if you negotiate kindly, respectfully, and you present it well, and they don’t respond well to that, that’s a huge red flag, and if you’re already at that company, maybe it’s time to start looking for something else.
“If you’re asking for a raise and you’ve gone above and beyond for this company and you know that they have the money and they’re not willing to give it to you, might be …….