Young women ages 18-35, whether white or non-white, are beginning their adult years with a median wealth of zero, meaning that at least half of women in this age group had no wealth or had debts greater than the value of their assets (see Table 3). However, while white women in the prime working years of ages 36-49 have a median wealth of $42,600 (still only 61% of their white male counterparts), the median wealth for women of color is only $5. Prior to age 50, women of color have virtually no wealth. Moreover, in comparison to their same-sex white counterparts, women of color in the two youngest age groups, have less than 1% of the wealth of white women whereas men of color in these same age groups under 50 have 18% and 16% of the wealth of white men.
See anything wrong? No? Let me point it out.
Notice that at the beginning of the paragraph the authors state that women 18-35 have a median wealth of $0. The explicitly state that "at least half of women in this age group had no wealth or had debts greater than the value of their assets (see Table 3)"
But later in the paragraph they change the language. They say:
"Prior to age 50, women of color have virtually no wealth."
If they had used the same language as they did in the beginning of the paragraph they would have written:
Prior to age 50, at least half of the women of color of this age group have virtually no wealth.
So clearly the authors wanted to make a point exaggerating the levels of wealth (or lack thereof) of black women. Why? the sentence as written implies that women of color age 50,have no wealth. But the actual data shows that half the women of color have $5 median wealth.
This is clearly a case of "massaging" the info to make a statement. That paragraph ought not to have made it past editorial review.
