Wealth matters. It provides material, social, civic and psychological benefits, not just for individuals and families, but also for communities and the nation. Yet, wealth disparities in the United States are dramatic and growing. Staggering gaps in wealth by race, ethnicity, and gender are particularly profound, and these gaps especially disadvantage Black and Latinx women. Commonwealth and the Aspen Institute Financial Security Program have taken a hard look at the gaps in wealth and capital market participation among women of color and identified four key barriers: resources, actionable knowledge, market access, and investor identity. Drawing on over three decades of work to enable household financial security and opportunity for lower-income people, Commonwealth and Aspen FSP understand firsthand how important it is to ensure that all people have access to the tools and systems that enable wealth creation.

This report emphasizes the importance of opening up participation in capital markets to all Americans and especially women of color. It looks at today’s wealth and market participation gaps by race and ethnicity, by gender, and by the intersectionality of these for women of color, and it highlights the significant role of recent social disruptions in shaping the current environment. The report breaks new ground by identifying four distinct but interrelated barriers to opening up capital markets for women of color: resources, accessible knowledge, accessible market processes and products, and investor identity. The report concludes with a new, unified analytical framework for understanding the barriers holistically and articulating how the nation’s public, private, and social sectors can use this framework to pursue promising actions to help narrow the nation’s wealth gaps.

This report was made possible by a grant from the Nasdaq Foundation.