Topic 11: Assets, Liabilities, & Net Worth

Asset Debts Activity (.docx) (Reach CDC): An activity for participants to learn how to differentiate an asset from a liability and to calculate net worth. (Assets, Liabilities, Net worth)

Asset Building Sheets (.docx) (Reach CDC): Worksheets to help participants work through their current assets (financial and otherwise) to be able to plan for the future. Participants can work through education/employment, Home ownership, starting or expanding a small business, building emergency savings or securing new rental housing. (Asset, Building, Goals, Obstacles, Education, Employment, Home ownership, Debt repayment, Rental Housing, Savings)

Personal Finance Spreadsheet (xlsx): Amazing excel spreadsheet with financial goals, monthly income, expenses, unsecured debt, net worth, bottom line, amortization table, (personal budget tracking, weekly, balance, extra payment)

The Growing Divide (Training Guide) (United for a Fair Economy): Workshop: Review trends in income and wealth distribution through participatory “human graph” activities and examine the rule changes that fuel inequality. The workshop also offers a range of strategies and steps we can take to reverse the growing gap between the rich and everyone else, and set us on a path of broadly shared economic recovery. (living wage, principles of a Fair Economy, wheel of Shared Prosperity, Wheel of Misfortune, Student Debt, Mortgage Debt, Net Worth Inequality, top 1%, corporate welfare)

The Racial Wealth Divide (Training Guide) (United for a Fair Economy): Workshop: Explore how our current economic inequality has been and continues to be shaped by racialized policies and behavior from the past to the contemporary. The workshop focuses on the role of government policies and reveals how critically important it is for us to abolish racial wealth inequality and the society that creates and maintains it. (unemployment, prison population, median family income, and poverty by race, historical boosts and blocks to a middle class path, deep roots of inequity, building an equitable economy)

Examining the Black-white wealth gap (Brookings) (article) close examination of wealth in the U.S. finds evidence of staggering racial disparities. At $171,000, the net worth of a typical white family is nearly ten times greater than that of a Black family ($17,150) in 2016. Gaps in wealth between Black and white households reveal the effects of accumulated inequality and discrimination, as well as differences in power and opportunity that can be traced back to this nation’s inception. The Black-white wealth gap reflects a society that has not and does not afford equality of opportunity to all its citizens.

9 charts about wealth inequality – Why hasn’t wealth inequality improved over the past 50 years? And why, in particular, has the racial wealth gap not closed? These nine charts illustrate how income inequality, earnings gaps, homeownership rates, retirement savings, student loan debt, and lopsided asset-building subsidies have contributed to these growing wealth disparities.

Discuss how Communities of Color have built thriving local economies, which were subsequently stripped from them. The theft of land from Native Americans, the internment of Japanese Americans, Portland’s Albina District and Tulsa Oklahoma’s “Black Wall Street” are a few examples from history.

No resources submitted. Please consider submitting resources to share.