Logica Research & Commonwealth Release Insights on Investing Personas of Lower and Moderate Income (LMI) Black and Latina Women

Study conducted to understand the financial and investing behaviors, needs, wants and aspirations of LMI working women

San Francisco—October 26, 2021—Logica Research and Commonwealth have released insights into understanding the investment behaviors, perceptions and financial engagement of working women with low-to-moderate incomes (LMI). The findings are from the study “Invest Forward: Closing the Investing Gap for Black and Latina Low to Moderate-Income Women,” which surveyed 1,500 LMI working women with a focus on Black and Latina women. The survey results provide a deeper understanding of their investing personas—including behaviors, perceptions and engagement.

“Advancing racial and gender equity requires addressing the enormous and persistent wealth gaps in the United States,” said Lilah Raynor, founder and CEO of Logica Research. “This study sheds light on how the dramatically lower wealth holdings of working women with lower to moderate income—particularly Black and Latina women—reflect long-standing systemic racism and sexism that excludes them from traditional pathways to wealth.”

Key findings uncovered three distinct personas encompassing a diversity of perspectives:

• The Confident Investor: Of the women we surveyed, 23% fit this persona, 62% are Black women and 38% are Latina women. Confident investors have greater exposure to financial tools, accounts, and investing. They enjoy a higher level of financial well-being and have positive attitudes toward investing, perceiving it as providing better opportunities for financial well-being. They strongly disagree that investing is more for men than for women or that there are no opportunities for people like them.
• The Discerning Investor: This group comprised 36% of the respondents in our sample: 53% are Black women and 47% are Latina women. The financial well-being of Discerning Investors is moderate, and they have moderate exposure to financial tools, accounts, and investing. Their attitudes toward investing and opportunities in capital markets are neutral.
• The Potential Investor: This persona constituted 41% of the working women we surveyed: 41% are Black women and 59% are Latina women. Potential Investors do not currently invest, and they experience lower financial well-being. They are particularly unlikely to recall their family investing when they were growing up. They are not sure where to start in investing (feeling they need to know a lot) and are significantly more fearful of losing money. They lack exposure to financial accounts, brands, or tools.

You can access a copy of Commonwealth study “Invest Forward: Closing the Investing Gap for Black and Latina Low- to Moderate-Income Women” here.

About the Study
This online survey conducted in the first-quarter of 2021 included a target sample of 1,500 working women aged 18 to 65 with annual household incomes between $30,000 and $80,000 (about 45% and 120% of national median income, respectively) and oversampled for Black and Latina women with a total of 405 in each category.
It describes the investing gap among the LMI working women surveyed and then turns the focus to Black and Latina women. To better understand the opportunity for greater capital markets participation by Black and Latina working women, we used the survey data to uncover three potential personas to guide further research and foster innovation in a changing investment ecosystem: Confident Investor, Discerning Investor, and Potential Investor.

Logica Research
Logica Research excels in creating customized marketing research solutions for complex business questions. Logica provides financial services companies, fintech companies, and growing organizations the insights they need for product development, service enhancements, and communications that will improve people’s financial lives, deepen brand engagement, and drive business growth. Research studies that Logica® has conducted for clients have been published in the largest media outlets in the world including the New York Times, The Financial Times, The Wall Street Journal, CNN, Newsweek, Time, and USA Today. www.logicaresearch.com

Commonwealth
Commonwealth is a national nonprofit building financial security and opportunity for financially vulnerable people through innovation and partnerships. Black, Latina and female-led households disproportionately experience financial insecurity due in large part to longstanding, systemic racism and gender discrimination. Addressing these issues is critical to Commonwealth’s work of making wealth possible for all. For nearly two decades, Commonwealth has designed effective innovations, products, and policies enabling over 1 million people to accumulate more than $4 billion in savings. Commonwealth understands that broad changes require market players to act. That’s why we collaborate with consumers, the financial services industry, employers, policymakers, and mission-driven organizations. The solutions we build are grounded in real life, based on our deep understanding of people who are financially vulnerable and how businesses can best serve them. To learn more, visit us at www.buildcommonwealth.org.

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Media Contact: Michelle Andre, michelle@andremktg.com, 415-577-8634