Bias is often at the root of protracted issues in society. The insurance industry, for example, isn’t exempt from prejudicial attitudes. Salene Hitchcock-Gear, president of Prudential Individual Life Insurance at Prudential Financial, spoke on the history of exclusion in the 1940s and 1950s during the 2023 AFROTECH™ Conference. “Way back when things were first getting started, there were a lot of exclusions on who could be covered for insurance — Black Americans were part of that exclusion,” Hitchcock-Gear said on the Learning Lab stage. “There was a lot of bias around the kind of data that we actually have to use to underwrite, i ncluding race and health. There was a lot of presumption about lifestyle. A lot of things that just did not really lend itself to treating people fairly.” Because insurance products can be critical for financial stability and creating wealth, she shared that Prudential Financial continues to try to modernize and use digital tools to increase access to...

A first-of-its-kind initiative is set to support the advancement of Black wealth in Minneapolis-St. Paul, MN.

When it comes to getting your finances in order, Tierra Jae should be your girl! After the realization that there weren’t many people in the finance industry who not only looked like her but truly catered to the community, Tierra took matters into her own hands. From there, New Beginnings Community Consulting & Restoration (NBCCR) was born. “This was a personal journey for me,” she said in an exclusive interview with AfroTech. “I started NBCCR back in 2015 when I found myself helping my family and friends restore their credit. I realized that I can create a business out of this because it’s something that we needed within the community. At the time, that we launched, my sole service was credit restoration.” Along her journey, Tierra created a first-of-its-kind planner that focuses on an individual’s current credit status and goals. LivePix Media She says one of most common misconceptions that our people have when it comes to debt management is that credit cards are a bad thing....

When it comes to getting your finances together, Tiffany The Budgetnista is your girl! As the founder and creator of The Budgetnista, Aliche takes pride in educating people on how to manage their finances and has been dubbed “America’s favorite personal finance educator.” Despite the fact that Aliche is a guru at what she does, the Internet and social media provide a platform for many others like her who are well-versed in the finance sector. Not only has she managed to garner a huge following, but the New York Times bestselling author is building a community and saving people’s finances at the same time!   View this post on Instagram   A post shared by Tiffany Aliche (@thebudgetnista) She explains that when she began to let her guard down, she was able to really connect with followers. “Once I learned to let go and be myself, is when things changed,” said Aliche in an interview with Black Tech Green Money’s Will Lucas. “If you look back at any of my old YouTube videos from like 10...

St. Louis-based financial services firm Edward Jones has been ordered by a federal judge to pay a $34 million settlement for bias claims by Black financial advisors, Reuters first reported. The firm is known for serving individual investors and boasts more than 19,000 financial advisors. This settlement comes after Stowell & Friedman filed a class-action lawsuit in 2018 on behalf of roughly 800 Black financial advisors. The official complaint was “race discrimination,” states a court filing that names Wayne Bland as the main plaintiff in the class action case. The Black financial advisors accused Edward Jones of assigning them to less lucrative work, denying them working with certain high-level client accounts, and depriving them of advancement opportunities. In the case represented, Edward Jones, which Dowd Bennett denied wrongdoing, went as far as to try to get the case dismissed since it claimed that the named plaintiffs failed to provide more than speculative claims in the...

Here’s to a better future! According to PR Newswire, Next Gen Personal Finance (NGPF) has launched the Mission: 2025 Challenge with a goal of giving 100% of high school students access to a personal finance course by the year 2025. NGPF is now a “one-stop-shop” for more than 45,000 educators that are looking for an engaging personal finance curriculum to equip students with the skills they need to thrive in the future. The leader in financial education in middle and high schools across the U.S. will launch new one-semester personal finance courses in the next school year. Participating high schools will receive $1,000 grants with $1 million to be awarded. Grants are designated for exclusive use in the new personal finance courses including, but not limited to, field trips, professional development, and technology upgrades. “1 in 3 U.S. high schoolers does not have access to a personal finance course in school today,” said NGPF co-founder Tim Ranzetta.”Given the eagerness of...

When it comes to personal finance advice, it can often feel difficult to find information that is relevant to the black experience. Black Americans often face financial hurdles such as pay inequality, predatory lending and hiring discrimination, all of which have contributed to a racial wealth gap. “People are working hard, but if every part of their life is discounted, how can they catch up?” says financial educator Tiffany “The Budgetnista” Aliche. According to the most recent data from the Federal Reserve, as of 2016, the median black household net worth was just over $17,000, while for the same year the median net worth for white households was over $170,000. And while the median household income for black Americans has risen between 2013 and 2018, it is still 33% lower than the national average . Marcus Garrett, co-host of the podcast “Paychecks & Balances,” says the answer to closing the wealth gap between black and white Americans is multifaceted. “First, we must address what...