
THE NEW BATTLE IS NOT ABOUT GENTRIFICATION INCOME INEQUALITY BUT; WEALTH INEQUALITY
Headline news across the country is discussing gentrification and income inequality. Where traditional higher income earners used to live in the suburbs are now moving to urban areas across the country.
There is a lot of rift between people who have traditionally lived in those areas and the new people moving in (aka gentrifies), due to a change of culture, views and the appearance. The reason for these changes is due to WEALTH INEQUALITY. When we speak about wealth we are discussing generational money.
When I see clients who have had a leg up, its due to minimizing their student loans debt because their parents helped with paying for higher education. Compared with people who do it alone; people stack up thousands of dollars in student loans based on the belief they will move up financially in the United States with a college education.
Those people who do not have huge amounts of student loan debt have an enormous advantage. They don’t have to service so much of their debt when they get out of school. They can qualify for their first home or even a bigger home if fortunate enough. They can choose to live in a nicer neighborhood. Where their home values have potential to grow. The areas can have better schools, less violence and poverty. Compared to someone who has student loans, they can’t qualify or if they do their homes are not in the best neighborhood and low potential for growth. That’s WEALTH.
Imagine the leg up that a person in their 20’s and 30’s, if their parents bought a home they now live in 20–30 years ago. Imagine how low that mortgage payment is, if they even have one. Or how much they can save since they have so much extra cash at the end of every single month.
When people have jams and emergency if they don’t have family who can help them during tough times they will have to go to a check cashing. They can be in a potential death spiral of check cashing loans. Check cashing loans are so damn expensive. All these could be different if they had a family member who can loan them money.
In a lot of major cities there are tons of new businesses starting from people who are not originally from those cities. Why???? Because their family is the first to invest in their business. Not banks, venture capitalist, or angel investors. Family and friends!!! From that business, they can start and grow their business. That’s called WEALTH.
Not everybody is going to be a high-income earner that’s a fact of life. Our society needs teachers, social workers and other low paying high rewarding jobs. We also see that incomes have been declining in America for the last 20 years. More than ever we need to switch the conversation from “I did it on my own and you can too.” To “I did it on my own, let me help you out so it can be a bit little easier.” That’s called WEALTH. The way we get out of that is from changing our mindset from being always on survival mode to thinking how can I help my kids and my grandkids so they can live their life without just surviving check to check.
How do you build WEALTH??? By sacrificing and savings. Making sure that we put a little away every single month no matter what! I don’t care what you put your money into. If you put it up consistently for 10, 20 or 30 years you are going to have some type of WEALTH!!! That’s how it goes. If we don’t do that then we are positioning are kids and our grandkids on life of poverty.
If we think the government is going to change that you are mistaken. Under their watch they have allowed the middle class to shrink. They are going to allow it to further shrink. The discussion in America needs to be how do we grow our WEALTH!!!
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Jason Matthews
Father, baseball coach, President/CEO Matthews Financial & Insurance Solutions, President of San Francisco Bay Area Urban Financial Services Coalition
@mfisguru
matthewsfinancial@gmail.com
