The Independent Investor: Do Women Have a Choice?

Income inequality between the sexes in this country has always been a problem and it does not appear to be getting any better. Critics argue that much of the blame lies in the choices many women make in pursuing their education and career goals. I beg to differ.

In my last column on the subject two weeks ago, I observed that the pay differential between men and women had finally caught the attention of national politics. The National Budget Office, for example, pointed out the biggest beneficiary of a minimum-wage increase would be women.  It is true but the real core of this issue lies elsewhere.

As most readers are aware, American society has changed. As a result of the overall income inequality in this country over the last 30-plus years, most couples are required to work full time in order to make ends meet.  Women have also spent decades fighting for that right to work on equal footing with men. Why is it, therefore, that when two people get married, pursue equal professional careers, and decide to raise children, it is the wife who is expected to sacrifice her career, take time away from the workforce and forgo income and advancement?

Who says this is the way it should be?

For me, this is the main obstacle that women face in this country. This expectation that women are required to be the primary caregivers in our society is the root cause of gender income inequality. It is an expectation so prevalent among us that only the strongest of 21st century women even question its fairness.

When a woman is expected to quit her job and raise children, several things occur. Her professional career is interrupted, sometimes for many years. Think of the "Good Wife's" Alicia Florrick, for example. This fictional lawyer dropped out of her legal profession for 13 years to raise children. In the meantime, her philandering husband cheats on her and then goes to prison. In order to support her family, she had to beg and plead simply to be offered a paralegal position at a Chicago law firm.

During those child-raising years, she did not contribute to Social Security a 401(k) plan or IRA, failed to keep up with her competition (mostly male lawyers), and when she did get a job it was at a salary far below what she should have been making if she, instead of her husband, had raised the children. What's more, from her employer's point of view, why pay her more since who's to say she doesn't take another leave of absence if she gets pregnant again?

Unfortunately in America, there is more fact than fiction in this television tale. The divorce rates in the U.S. are 40 percent to 50 percent and guess who ends up with the kids the majority of time? So not only have women given up a career, income and economic advancement, but a vast number of them now are required to support the kids while the ex goes off to prison or to enjoy his professional success with someone younger.

But let's say you are one of the lucky ones with a happy marriage. Whether you like it or not, with the kids grown, you probably still need to go back to work to make ends meet in this economy. But the chances of getting more than the minimum wage job are slim at best. It explains why women represent more than 62 percent of minimum wage workers.

Many of these women are divorced, have children to support or, just as important, they are widowed. You might find it surprising to discover that more than 75 percent of women in this country are widowed at an average age of 56. One in four of these women are broke within two months of being widowed, according to the National Center for Women and Retirement Research. More often than not, their only avenue of support is low-paying jobs with no future.

We haven't even examined the other side of women's role as caregivers to aging parents. It is the woman, once again, who is expected to provide economic and social support for aging parents at the expense of saving for retirement, Social Security benefits and income generation.

So it appears that blaming women for the choices they make as an explanation for gender income inequality would be laughable if the present state of inequity were not so serious. The solution to this injustice goes far beyond raising the minimum wage, but at least it would be a step in the right direction.

Bill Schmick is registered as an investment adviser representative with Berkshire Money Management. Bill’s forecasts and opinions are purely his own. None of the information presented here should be construed as an endorsement of BMM or a solicitation to become a client of BMM. Direct inquires to Bill at 1-888-232-6072 (toll free) or email him at Bill@afewdollarsmore.com.

The Independent Investor: What's Wrong With This Flight Plan?

The next time you board a regional airplane remember this. The co-pilots responsible for your safety are making the minimum wage. That means they are earning about as much as the guy hauling trashcans outside your local supermarket or flipping fast-food burgers and working a heck of a lot longer hours as well.

The disappearance of Malaysia Airlines Flight 370 has mystified the world. It has also brought the issue of flight safety on the front-burner again. The investigation has now centered on the possibility that someone on the flight crew tampered with or re-directed the flight path of the plane carrying 227 passengers. To me, it simply drives home the point that whether you are on an international flight or a regional puddle-jumper, your pilot is crucial to your survival.

As such, it is hard for me to accept that pilots, who are required to have a college education and countless hours of flight certification, can make as low as $22,000 a year or less and work 240-300 hours a month for that privilege.

Unlike most professions, pilots only get paid from the time the airplane leaves the gate until it arrives at its destination. So the typical pilot is only on the clock for 21.5 hours a week. That translates for a first-year co-pilot as no more than a gross weekly pay of $495. A pilot with a decade of experience might average around $1,312.

Why then does anyone want to be an airline pilot?

Many simply have a passion for it and will do anything to fly. In addition, regional airlines are considered a stepping stone to a much more lucrative job at one of the major airlines. The senior-most pilots who fly 747s or 777s can earn $200,000 or more a year. It may have required 35 years or so of poor pay and long hours to attain that level but, unfortunately, there are few such openings available given the overall number of working pilots.

The pilots of the missing Malaysian airplane are being investigated now as part of the government probe. Authorities believe that whoever disabled the plane's communication systems and then flew the jet according to a different flight path had to have a high degree of technical knowledge and flying experience. It illustrates how much control one individual can have over a great many people.

Although the amount of money you make does not necessarily reflect an individual's competence or sense of responsibility. I believe the airlines, in compensating their pilots, have sunk to new lows in their multiyear industry task of cost-cutting at the passenger's expense.

Like you, I have accepted most of these management changes with a modicum of grumbling. I have said nothing when, without warning or explanation, they cancel my flights (and the next one) simply because there are not enough passengers available to pack in like sardines in a can.

Although miffed, I also shelled out the extra money I'm charged to carry luggage on my trips. I had no choice. The fact that I now have to pay for seat selection as well as their lousy food and surly service, is the new normal in aviation.

But I draw the line at paying our pilots a minimum wage. After all, this is my life we are talking about. I don't like to entrust it to a young man or woman who is overworked, underpaid and probably less than motivated on a bad day. It is a wonder that we don't have more pilot safety issues already, but to their credit, these pilots, despite their slave labor, have consistently given their utmost to ferry their passengers to safety time and again in every kind of weather and obstacle.

If there was ever a reason to raise the minimum wage, this is one.

Bill Schmick is registered as an investment adviser representative with Berkshire Money Management. Bill’s forecasts and opinions are purely his own. None of the information presented here should be construed as an endorsement of BMM or a solicitation to become a client of BMM. Direct inquires to Bill at 1-888-232-6072 (toll free) or email him at Bill@afewdollarsmore.com.

The Independent Investor: Income Inequality Among Women

Today women make up about half our workforce. But they still make 77 cents for every dollar a man earns. That is wrong, and in 2014, it's an embarrassment.

— President Barack Obama, State of the Union Address

This week the president met with women members of congress to discuss income inequality among the sexes. At the same time, the Democratic Party is making the passage of a minimum wage bill part of its campaign strategy for mid-tem elections this year. It appears that how much a woman makes in this country has suddenly become important.

It's about time. This has been a pet peeve of mine for years. Some longtime readers may recall my first four-part series on this subject back in 2009-2010. At least once a year since then, I have tried to keep the inequity between the salaries of men and women on your front burner.

There is a lot of misinformation bandied about by both sides on this issue although you would think that everyone would be on the side of women making at least an equal wage with men performing comparable tasks. President Obama didn't help when he used the often-quoted but confusing "77 cents statistic" during his State of the Union address.

Detractors immediately jumped on the number arguing that the 23-cent gender pay gap is simply the difference between the average earnings of all men and women working full time. It does not account for differences in occupation, positions, education and job tenure or hours worked. They like to add that the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics found that when measured hourly, not annually, the pay gap between men and women is only 14 percent not 23 percent.

Others argue that income disparity may be linked to the field of study that women pursue. A recent survey of 1,000 adult women in higher education by Western International University found that the income gap decreases significantly in cases where women held degrees in business, technology, science and math. The American Association of University Women concurred with those findings in their study of 15,000 graduates. They found that along with science, math and some technology areas, women received equal pay with men in engineering, health-care occupations (especially nurses), life science, social services and administrative assistants.

Although it is true that women are now the majority of students pursing academic degrees, few are pursuing careers in high-paying areas such as petroleum, aerospace, and chemical or electrical engineering. Instead, female students dominate in what are considered the 10 least profitable majors like early childhood education, communication disorders, human services, community organization and so on.

All of the above seems to point to one obvious conclusion. Your income is largely dependent on what degree and profession you pursue. Women, so the critics argue, earn less money because they choose to enter careers that have built-in income disparities.

They conveniently dismiss that, even with all of the above arguments, the statistics indicate that women still suffer from a disparity of income despite degree or profession. They also assume that choice, in American society today, is a woman's prerogative.  In my next column, I will explore those issues and why and how women now represent 60 percent of minimum wage workers and 75 percent of workers in the 10 lowest-paid occupations. Stay tuned.

Bill Schmick is registered as an investment adviser representative with Berkshire Money Management. Bill’s forecasts and opinions are purely his own. None of the information presented here should be construed as an endorsement of BMM or a solicitation to become a client of BMM. Direct inquires to Bill at 1-888-232-6072 (toll free) or email him at Bill@afewdollarsmore.com.

The Independent Investor: True Confessions

Money holds a great deal of power over us. For many, it is a symbol of worth, competence, freedom, prestige, masculinity, control and security. No wonder most of us have such a hard time talking about ours.

The psychological taboo of discussing money in this country had been identified and recognized as far back as the early 1900s by Sigmund Freud, among others. He wrote that "money questions will be treated by cultured people in the same manner as sexual matters, with the same inconsistency, prudishness and hypocrisy."

Recently an article from USA Today on the subject caught my attention. It concerned the anxiety most people feel when approaching financial advisers. The article was spot on, in my opinion. As an investment adviser myself, rarely does a week go by without my sitting down with an individual or couple to discuss their finances. Sometimes I feel like a therapist.

For the most part, at the beginning of most of my meetings with new individuals or couples there are few smiles and an air of tension. By the end, however, the sun has come out and the atmosphere has radically changed.

"You are not at all what we expected," said one couple recently.

I asked them why.

They confessed that they had been feeling a great deal of anxiety over revealing their finances to a stranger. It was hard enough, they confessed, to talk about money between themselves, but they worried what would happen if they shared this highly personal information with me.

"Everything you share with us is strictly confidential," I explained and I meant it. "Our privacy code is so strict that I won't discuss your information with anyone, even your spouse, without your permission."

In this case, the discussion allowed both of them to share a burden they were keeping to themselves with someone competent to help them work out their finances. We were able to pinpoint the problem areas in their finances and suggest several remedies.

Another client admitted that he feared that I would immediately judge him for either not saving enough or not making enough money. It turned out that he had done a magnificent job at both and I told him so. The point of hiring someone like me is to figure out how to save more or make more with the money you do have. There is no room in this business for judgment of any kind.

Others worry that by coming to me they will reveal their lack of knowledge of investment, finance and/or money management. No one likes to appear stupid and for many, finance might as well be written in Sanskrit. I do not expect anyone that comes through my door to be familiar with the subject. Why do some people think that because they may be an expert at whatever they do for a living, they must also be a whiz at finance?

So, how do I personally make prospective clients feel more at home with me? For one thing, I never "dress up" for my meetings. I left my three-piece suits, silk ties and wingtips behind when I left the canyons of Wall Street. It helps that I live and work in a rural community where few wear suits and ties. I dress like my client because it helps break the ice, puts me on an equal footing and dispels any image that I "come from money" just because I am a money manager. Besides, that's the kind of guy that I am, and any number of pin-stripes never helped me make money for my clients.

I also avoid "financial speak" at all costs. I talk like I write, in plain American, without pretensions or ten dollar words that no one understands. As for appearing stupid, I know you've heard it before, but in regard to your finances "there are no dumb questions except the ones you fail to ask." The moral of this tale is simple - seek financial advice at your earliest opportunity. In the majority of cases your anxiety will disappear almost immediately and the help that you may obtain will be good value for the money.

Bill Schmick is registered as an investment adviser representative with Berkshire Money Management. Bill’s forecasts and opinions are purely his own. None of the information presented here should be construed as an endorsement of BMM or a solicitation to become a client of BMM. Direct inquires to Bill at 1-888-232-6072 (toll free) or email him at Bill@afewdollarsmore.com.

The Independent Investor: How to Look at Early Retirement Offers

Buyouts and early retirement packages are increasingly becoming a part of the American landscape. Not a day goes by when some group of employees somewhere are offered financial incentives to retire early. If it happens to you, this is what you should consider.

Is this voluntary or a forced offer? If it is voluntary and you take it, you can't apply for unemployment benefits. Forced retirement is akin to a layoff, where you either accept the deal or else. Your chances of getting unemployment are higher under the latter circumstances.

Clearly, the largest single benefit of a retirement incentive is the upfront financial reward. These incentives are typically tied to the number of years of employment and can be either a lump sum or some form of annuity. The simplest rule of thumb is if you were planning to retire anyway in a year or two and the company offers you a two-year severance package that's free money and you should take it.

If, on the other hand, you were planning to work for another four or five years, you must weigh the benefits carefully. For many workers, the most important factor is whether or not the company offers health benefits. A study by Fidelity Investments found that a 65-year-old couple retiring today without employer-provided health benefits needs at least $200,000 to finance out-of-pocket medical costs. ObamaCare may reduce that number somewhat, but it will still be significant, especially when you consider things like Medicare premiums, co-payments and Medigap expenses.

Sometimes the first offer is not the final offer. If your company really needs these cutbacks, you may be able to negotiate better terms. You might be able to improve any health benefits, or include help in a job search or additional training. For some, early pension payments might be possible.

But what if you just love your job; can't imagine what you would do without it and can't afford to retire? Much will depend on whether the offer is a prelude to larger layoffs in the future or is purely voluntary.

There are risks in not taking an early retirement or incentive buyout package that readers should understand. If you have been singled out by your company, there could be a target on your back. If your company is in some financial difficulty and looking to cut back even further, your days could be numbered regardless of your decision. In which case, the first offer you receive is as good as it gets. The next wave of layoffs may find you unemployed with no incentive package at all.

This could also be a great opportunity, if handled right. You might be tired of working there and this could be your ticket to a new and better job. If so, start looking right away. The economy is picking up and job opportunities are better than they have been for several years. If you find a job quickly, this buy out could be just like a big bonus and an opportunity to invest it towards your retirement. Your new job does not even have to pay as much, thanks to your severance package.

For others, it could be the starting point for that business you always wanted to create. You may be old enough and with enough experience to become a small-business owner, even if you are the only employee. You might even offer to consult for your old company at a price. The point is that an offer is better than no offer at all. Treat this as a challenge and an opportunity, rather than the end of the world.

Bill Schmick is registered as an investment adviser representative with Berkshire Money Management. Bill’s forecasts and opinions are purely his own. None of the information presented here should be construed as an endorsement of BMM or a solicitation to become a client of BMM. Direct inquires to Bill at 1-888-232-6072 (toll free) or email him at Bill@afewdollarsmore.com.