Women are more vulnerable as we age because we have 5 very unique money issues:
- Lower earnings
- Work patterns
- Health status
- Life expectancy
- Marital status
Talking points:
- Lower earnings: work in different, often less lucrative occupations and sectors.
- Work patterns: on average work 13 years less than men and during our time away not increasing our earning power, not vesting in pensions and lifetime earnings for Social Security income are lower; women on average about 11 ½ years off the job; men only about 16 months.
- Health status: the system sees us differently as our illnesses frequently result in the need for long term care and other needs often aren't covered by many insurances or Medicare.
- Life expectancy: on average 5 years longer than men but our income at age 65 is half that of men.
- Marital status: widowed and divorced women are three to four times more likely to be poor than women in couples.
- What you know you know.
- What you know you don't know.
- What you know you should know.
- What you don't know you don't know (most problematic)
Valerie Coleman (now Valerie Coleman Morris) was a Bay Area native when it comes to television news. She began her career in the early 70s in San Francisco at KRON-TV as a reporter and then KGO-TV as a long time anchor.
She was part of the Van Amburg/Jerry Jensen/Pete Giddings news team that branded "happy talk" as a new news genre.
Valerie's the former Business Anchor for CNN domestic and international - her dozen daily reporters were seen every day by more than 290 million households, businesses and airport networks.
She still appears on CNN as a personal finance guest expert but now focuses her works as a financial journalist/educator with a unique point of view about money. Her "mind over money matters" approach gives the thought process for a behavioral change: re-calculating your relationship with your personal money.
Valerie's mantra: "It's your money, so take it personally."
Valerie's blog site "Women and Money:" Posts domestically, internationally every Thursday -- thethinpinkline.com
Valerie's daily podcast "Valuable Money Tips" For professional women -- www.napw.com
CBS Network Radio "With the Family in Mind - Money Matters:" Three times a week syndicated radio column