Millennial Women are Taking Charge—at Work and at Home
According to a recent report from U.S. Trust, women at the top of the earnings ladder are not only making strides in the workplace, but they’re also taking charge of their households’ finances at higher rates.
The national survey of 640 adults found that among high-net-worth individuals—defined as those with at least $3 million in investable assets—30% of Gen Y women are breadwinners in their households, and another 21% contribute the same amount of income to the household as their partners.
Perhaps even more surprising? That’s true for Millennial women more than any other demo.
Related: How Millennials Could Damage the U.S. Economy
Compare that to the 11% of Gen X women and 15% of Baby Boomer women who earned more than their husbands.
Likely a result, young women have a greater influence over their family’s money decisions than ever. Among today’s high-earning female Millennials, 31% are the primary decision-makers when it comes to their household’s wealth and investment planning. That’s considerably more than the 11% of Gen Xers and 9% of Boomer women who can say the same.
Of course, these role changes don’t just affect women. As moms continue to earn more, about one in four Millennial fathers are more likely to be the primary caretakers of their children—a striking difference from the 7% of Gen X and 3% of Boomer dads who’ve undertaken the same responsibility.
Stat of the Day: 0.2%
The New York Times’ Jim Tankersley tweets: “In order to raise enough revenue to start paying down the debt, Trump would need tariffs to be ~4% of GDP. They're currently 0.2%.”
Read Tankersley’s full breakdown of why tariffs won’t come close to eliminating the deficit or paying down the national debt here.
Number of the Day: 44%
The “short-term” health plans the Trump administration is promoting as low-cost alternatives to Obamacare aren’t bound by the Affordable Care Act’s requirement to spend a substantial majority of their premium revenues on medical care. UnitedHealth is the largest seller of short-term plans, according to Axios, which provided this interesting detail on just how profitable this type of insurance can be: “United’s short-term plans paid out 44% of their premium revenues last year for medical care. ACA plans have to pay out at least 80%.”
Number of the Day: 4,229
The Washington Post’s Fact Checkers on Wednesday updated their database of false and misleading claims made by President Trump: “As of day 558, he’s made 4,229 Trumpian claims — an increase of 978 in just two months.”
The tally, which works out to an average of almost 7.6 false or misleading claims a day, includes 432 problematics statements on trade and 336 claims on taxes. “Eighty-eight times, he has made the false assertion that he passed the biggest tax cut in U.S. history,” the Post says.
Number of the Day: $3 Billion
A new analysis by the Department of Health and Human Services finds that Medicare’s prescription drug program could have saved almost $3 billion in 2016 if pharmacies dispensed generic drugs instead of their brand-name counterparts, Axios reports. “But the savings total is inflated a bit, which HHS admits, because it doesn’t include rebates that brand-name drug makers give to [pharmacy benefit managers] and health plans — and PBMs are known to play games with generic drugs to juice their profits.”
Chart of the Day: Public Spending on Job Programs
President Trump announced on Thursday the creation of a National Council for the American Worker, charged with developing “a national strategy for training and retraining workers for high-demand industries,” his daughter Ivanka wrote in The Wall Street Journal. A report from the president’s National Council on Economic Advisers earlier this week made it clear that the U.S. currently spends less public money on job programs than many other developed countries.
