Gay People Are Smart With Their Money

The correlation between having money and being gay

Read an interesting article from the Huffingtonpost about how gay Americans are financially more secure than the average American.

(huffingtonpost.com/2012/12/06/gay-people-more-financially-secure_n_2249677.html)

gay people make more money than the average American

According to the survey of more than 1,000 gay, lesbian, bisexual and transgender people by Prudential, a financial services company, the average LGBTQ household earns $61,500 annually, which is more than $10,000 higher than the average national household income. Only 7% of respondents were unemployed, compared to the 7.9% US national average. But we all know it’s not about how much people make, it’s about how much they can save. Well gay households save on average $6,000 more than the national average. Not only that, but they also have $4,000 less in debt. Pretty impressive. But I guess it makes sense to save more money if you make more money. No wonder why so many gay celebrities are rich and awesome.

Why do gay people tend to earn more money and are better at managing their debt than the national average? I don’t really know. Of course this is only one study and results may vary by different States. Now I’m interested to see a survey like this for Canadians. πŸ˜€ I wonder if the findings will be similar or different. Have a nice weekend folks.

 

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Random Useless Fact:Β  Pugs are extremely versatile animals. They can be made to look like almost anything…

pugs can look like anything

 

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Matt
12/07/2012 2:58 am

Could it be Kids?? After all they’re pretty expensive.

Jordann @ My Alternate Life
Jordann @ My Alternate Life
12/07/2012 5:38 am

My bet is on education. Level income means a higher average level of education, which means that they are more aware of the fact that they should be saving than the average person. Interesting study!

nicoleandmaggie
nicoleandmaggie
12/07/2012 7:38 am

I’m thinking it’s a selection issue with who is willing/able to identify as gay. People with limited income of their own or who are dependent on their parents (or a spouse!) or a fundamentalist church are less likely to be able to come out. So it’s not that all gay people save better, just that we only know about the ones who do.

theoutliermodel
12/07/2012 7:07 pm

That’s interesting – I don’t really have anything to add to what the previous commenters have said, but definitely an interesting correlation.

nursefrugal
nursefrugal
12/08/2012 2:01 pm

I kind of agree with Matt….I wonder what are the statistics of how many GLBT couples have children compared with heterosexual couples.

Money After Graduation
12/09/2012 3:42 pm

Ok I just read bits of this out to my best friend and she pointed out something interesting:

How many of those couples are two men? (as opposed to two women)

If on average men earn more than women and are less likely to take time away from their career to care for sick relatives or raise children, it’s no surprise that a gay couple would earn more than a straight couple which traditionally the female partner is earning less.

Holly@ClubThrifty
12/10/2012 6:11 am

Interesting observation about gay people! There do seem to be quite a lot of successful gay couples….I guess I haven’t really thought about it much though.

John@MoneyPrinciple
John@MoneyPrinciple
12/10/2012 2:12 pm

You cannot assert that GLBT couples are better with their money without accounting for (a) children which are very rare in such relationships and in a straight relationship, will generally end up with one parent taking a work break which also means a promotion break and (b) the stability of the relationship where I suspect (without any proof) that GLBT relationships, once the couple find each other, may be more stable than heterosexual partnerships where the divorce/splitup rate approaches 30%.

Until these – and other issues that I haven’t thought about yet – are removed from the model, it is difficult to draw any conclusions.

It is an interesting question though!

Matt
12/11/2012 12:14 am

Ahh! But are they more financially secure, or better with their money? I think the report answers the 1st question nicely, i.e. yes they are, but the second question is entirely different. Kids, breaks from work etc. are reasons for the first answer but factors to be removed in the second

John@MoneyPrinciple
John@MoneyPrinciple
12/11/2012 12:52 am
Reply to  Matt

That’s my point. You need to calibrate a model – which will be very complex – and remove the effect of relationship type.

And anyway, while kids are expensive and career breaks may be conditionally dependent on them (it is possible to have a career break for other reasons of course), kids can bring great joy and fun and games into a family. Couples without kids miss out on all this, which will affect GLBT couples a lot more.

In the end it is quality of life that matters, not money. There are plenty of rich people who are miserable as sin and comfort themselves in the next Ferrari while there are poor people who have wonderful families on next to nothing. So GLBT couples may well be richer but are they happier?

Matt
12/11/2012 1:07 am

I did take your original point, but then where do you stop? People are so individual you could probably split the whole thing down into sets of 1 LOL!

You’re right about kids though. I’ve been a Dad for 2 years now, and I’m absolutely loving it. Would I swap him for a ferrari? nah! Would I swap the Mrs for a ferrari? Probably, but then perhaps that’s why homosexual people are called “gay”?? πŸ˜‰