Why this FIRE concept, as it exists, is so difficult for minorities to achieve.

[BTDretire]

   It was suggested in another thread that this thread be started to prevent derailment of that thread.

 I'm not sure it is, although I'll admit I'm only seriously involved with one minority group.
It is Asian and many first generation. If they have any problem with FIRE it is because they don't use the stock market.
 The have real estate or a business's. The ones I'm familiar with know how to live without spending a lot of money, they are good savers. Most of all they work hard and will negotiate hard to get the sale or get a better price. Mostly they do not have a higher education, and don't make great sums of money, but they have their million dollars. The problem is it doesn't matter, work is life, they don't really appreciate leisure.
 Now the second generation is mixed, Asians generally push their children into college if they can, thus many have finished college and are making above median income and saving, others, no college, lower income and have lost the work ethic of their parents.
 On a personal note, I married into the Asian family, and adopted the frugal ways very quickly.  Neither of us has a any college degree, we may have been lucky in that our "Inflation Adjusted Income" for the first 29 years of marriage was $66,000.
 This is slightly above Median household income. It took us those 29 years to reach our first million.
  Clearly a higher income could have made RE happen in many less years.

[2Cent]

I think the problem is that in (traditional) Asian culture gaining wealth is a goal in itself. So there is no "enough". Whatever you earn more than you spend will go to the next generation so the family will grow in stature. In the west we think about mainly our own lives and thus earning more than you will spend in a lifetime is waste. Setting your kids up with large amounts of money is even seen as harmful to their character.

[Dances With Fire]

Very interesting question...(Mods please don't lock.)

I am friends with a number of Asian families and they treat me with great kindness and respect. The younger ones consider me their great uncle.

Their focus is on family, education of the younger generation, and work. Many of these families came here with little or nothing so education and work is a top priority. Leisure as we may know it is somewhat of a new concept however that is changing quickly with the new generation. Also their strong focus on family and a willingness to help financially or with the care of the elderly family members keeps them focused on work and earning more. Kind of a family insurance policy if or when times get difficult.

[Steeze]

DW is Chinese. Her family is frugal, owns thier own business and saves religiously. They are semi retired now and spend a lot of time traveling (age 55 and 60). They own thier own home in China, but no investment properties. They also do not own stocks.

Her parents ask us about buying a home at least once a week, and often encourage us to work for ourselves. When DW explained my enthusiasm for stocks to my FIL he was not supportive, and it took some further negotiations to convince DW that we should continue on our path.

In the future we do plan on investing in multifamily, and will work for ourselves after FI. We hope to support both our parents in retirement, mine financially, and both as they age. Living in a multi generational home is something we aspire to.

I can't make generalizations about others, but at least my exposure to the Chinese makes be believe that they are more mustachian in nature than most in the US, particularly her parents generation. Her parents seem to have accumulated a good nest egg despite being born into rural poverty.

[Maenad]

Some of what you're seeing may just be the "immigrant experience". From the stories I've heard, my European family a few generations back wouldn't have understood me wanting to retire in my 40s on stock market investments either. "Wealth" to them meant land, and a lot of it. It's not that far off from what you're seeing with more recent immigrants and owning small businesses.

The drive to move to an entirely different country to try for a better life usually results in a pretty intense work ethic. Additionally, owning one's own business is a great way to make good money - I'm remembering the stories in The Millionaire Next Door.

I'm guessing there are some cultural aspects in how wealth is obtained, "stored", and used, but I think that work ethic is pretty common across the board.

[Laura33]

I suspect that different cultures imbue their members with different expectations and assumptions, and that those may affect long-term financial health.  For ex., if you come from a culture that focuses on the family -- not just immediate family, but a respect for ancestors and a corresponding goal to ensure that the family line continues successfully -- then you will likely retain most of your resources as a family legacy for future generations; you earn your status within that community by how well you provide for past and future generations.  OTOH, if you come from a culture that is very community-oriented, you have likely learned that resources are to be shared, and so what comes in will go out just as quickly; these cultures are more focused on social capital than financial capital, and you can establish your status within the community by providing for others.  And then of course if you come from the great American Puritan tradition, you learn that working hard is an end unto itself.  Etc.

Also agree about the immigrant experience.  In general, immigrants from any culture are the select few who had the drive and risk threshold to leave a bad situation and start from scratch in a brand new place, usually with no resources.  So it is not surprising that first-generation immigrants work their asses off to build businesses and live frugally so they can put their assets back in those businesses, just like native-born entrepreneurs do.

[wenchsenior]

I might be misremembering, but don't Islam and some conservative branches of Christianity discourage use of borrowed money where you have to pay interest?  So  they have to save the actual cash to buy houses, cars, etc.?

That could certainly affect some subcultures' abilities to adopt some elements of the FIRE strategy.

I don't think this is necessarily a minority culture thing, though.  Half my family is as WASPy as they come, and they mostly distrust the stock market and made their money in real estate over years.  They never felt they owned enough land, but at the same time they didn't own rental properties.  Just undeveloped land, which they bought and sold. 

[wordnerd]

If we agree that having a high income improves ability to FIRE (at least as quickly), it seems plausible that those less likely to attain high incomes due to systematic racism (worse educational opportunities in childhood, less likely to get an interview for a job with a less white sounding name on a resume, greater likelihood to serve jailtime for the same transgression as a white peer, fewer family resources to pay for higher education--particularly less home equity due to generations of redlining--just to name a few issues) would have more trouble attaining FIRE.

HOLY RUNON SENTENCE, BATMAN. But I think the cultural issues being discussed in this thread are a distraction from the huge systematic issues in American society. I can't speak to other countries, but imagine similar issues are at play.

[partgypsy]

I can't speak directly to African American experience because I'm white, but working with veterans, and living in the south I have heard interesting stories. The state where I live, their grandparents and sometimes parents were sharecroppers. They provided cheap labor for the farm and in exchange got a place to live and a little money. One story, his mother wanted to do better and get a job outside the farm. She was told by the farmer, if you take that job, you need to leave. The farmer was the landlord for the place they lived, and even though that was a separate transaction sure enough when she took that job they were told to pack up and move out.
For the people working on the farms there was no motivation or encouragment to finish HS let alone higher education. In fact the expectation was as soon as possible, transitioning from school to work in order to make an income and contribute to the family. And while this was definitely true in the agricultural areas, it seemed to happen in the cities as well. My ex worked in a restaurant, and at least two of the AA men working in the kitchen, were encouraged by their mother (father not in picture) to quit HS and start working asap. To be the "man" of the family.  At least one ended up having kids quite young, and that point, while they were interested in working as much hours and shifts as they could get, doing something like going back to school and getting a higher education or better job wasn't in the picture.  This isn't true in all cases, but there does seem to be more of a strain, if you are doing good, you help your family/siblings/friends.

Hopefully forum members who are part of a minority will post on this thread.

[mathlete]

Systemic racism is the short answer.

The longer answer begins by acknowledging that your parents are an excellent predictor of your economic success. ^{1, 2}

If a certain group such as black americans have been subjected to slavery (which is the theft of wealth in addition to being a grotesque and inhuman practice), FHA Redlining ³, disparity in drug sentencing⁴, and countless other historical injustices, they're probably less likely to have well off parents.

This is compounded by the fact that this plight is not well understood by people in positions of power, and thus, there is a deficit in the way of sympathy.

Of course, these are macro issues that no one in this community can solve alone. But I think we'd do well to keep them in mind. I see problems in the personal finance community, where the protestant work ethic is emphasized above all else. There's good reason for it, of course. Hard work is the one variable that you're in control of. But often I see it emphasized to the point of obfuscation, ignorance, or dishonesty.

The one example I can find of Mr. Money Mustache addressing this is a joke. Literally, it's an April Fools joke.⁵

Above-average incomes, an appreciating market for stocks and houses, an unusually cooperative girlfriend-turned-wife, and of course plenty of White Person Privilege* came into the picture.

(foot-note at the bottom of the blog post)

* OK, Mrs. Money Mustache is 50% derived from the country of India, so she only had half as much White Privilege. But that’s still better than nothing. Plus there’s Indian Privilege to account for as well – is that higher or lower than White? We need to factor this in to the amount of sympathy we demand.

Sure, privilege does exist, and it might make it easier or harder to inherit a company or win a senate seat. But it can’t control your choice to ride a bike, buy less shit, or read library books in your spare time and I argue that frugality is the most powerful factor in earning your independence. After all, most of my equally-privileged engineering coworkers are still stuck in the office to this day.

Racial disparities are framed as something that helps the super elite to "inherit companies and win senate seats". While it's good old fashioned hard work that builds wealth for those on the FIRE path. Despite the empirical fact that the lottery of birth is a more important factor.

It's not the worst thing in the world, but it rings ignorant and dishonest. And I think it falls on us (non-blogging forum members) to identify this. Bloggers are good people who are selling a good product, but they're still salespeople. You cannot count on complete honesty from them when uncomfortable truths are diametrically opposed to what makes them the most money (making FIRE as broadly appealing as possible).

¹https://www.theatlantic.com/business/archive/2014/01/economists-your-parents-are-more-important-than-ever/283301/
²https://scholar.harvard.edu/files/alesina/files/alesina_stantcheva_teso_mobility_june_1.pdf
³https://www.npr.org/2017/05/03/526655831/a-forgotten-history-of-how-the-u-s-government-segregated-america
⁴https://www.aclu.org/sites/default/files/assets/141027_iachr_racial_disparities_aclu_submission_0.pdf
⁵https://www.mrmoneymustache.com/2015/04/01/impossible-dream/

[Altons Bobs]

OP: by looking around me, I think the opposite is true.

[Zikoris]

I'm a white person with a minority partner, and for what it's worth, there has been precisely zero difference in our experiences with FIRE. We do literally the exact same things, with the same results - eating home-cooked meals, living simply, not buying things, investing. There has literally not been one single FIRE-related thing that was harder for him than me.

I'd be interested to know, among minorities who are actually interested in and pursuing FIRE, what exactly the difficulties they face would be unique to being a minority. Not just stats related to the general population, because it's not accurate to say "Look at all these people unable to FIRE" when you're talking about people who mostly have never heard of FIRE and are not pursuing it in any way.

[DreamFIRE]

I think racial and cultural stereotypes often dont stand up to statistical analysis.  Families will tend to follow the prior generation, but I believe spenders, workers and savers exist in all cultures.  Anecdodes are less useful than actual data based on statistically valid samples.

I know many examples and many exceptions in my personal experience, but regency bias tends to be very strong.

PS  FIRE people are basically an exception, so in a sense we are all `minorities.'  I think FIRE is hard for all people because it smacks against the cultural norm of almost all societies.

That pretty much sums up what I was thinking.

[Bucksandreds]

Systemic racism is the short answer.

The longer answer begins by acknowledging that your parents are an excellent predictor of your economic success. ^{1, 2}

If a certain group such as black americans have been subjected to slavery (which is the theft of wealth in addition to being a grotesque and inhuman practice), FHA Redlining ³, disparity in drug sentencing⁴, and countless other historical injustices, they're probably less likely to have well off parents.

This is compounded by the fact that this plight is not well understood by people in positions of power, and thus, there is a deficit in the way of sympathy.

Of course, these are macro issues that no one in this community can solve alone. But I think we'd do well to keep them in mind. I see problems in the personal finance community, where the protestant work ethic is emphasized above all else. There's good reason for it, of course. Hard work is the one variable that you're in control of. But often I see it emphasized to the point of obfuscation, ignorance, or dishonesty.

The one example I can find of Mr. Money Mustache addressing this is a joke. Literally, it's an April Fools joke.⁵

Above-average incomes, an appreciating market for stocks and houses, an unusually cooperative girlfriend-turned-wife, and of course plenty of White Person Privilege* came into the picture.

(foot-note at the bottom of the blog post)

* OK, Mrs. Money Mustache is 50% derived from the country of India, so she only had half as much White Privilege. But that’s still better than nothing. Plus there’s Indian Privilege to account for as well – is that higher or lower than White? We need to factor this in to the amount of sympathy we demand.

Sure, privilege does exist, and it might make it easier or harder to inherit a company or win a senate seat. But it can’t control your choice to ride a bike, buy less shit, or read library books in your spare time and I argue that frugality is the most powerful factor in earning your independence. After all, most of my equally-privileged engineering coworkers are still stuck in the office to this day.

Racial disparities are framed as something that helps the super elite to "inherit companies and win senate seats". While it's good old fashioned hard work that builds wealth for those on the FIRE path. Despite the empirical fact that the lottery of birth is a more important factor.

It's not the worst thing in the world, but it rings ignorant and dishonest. And I think it falls on us (non-blogging forum members) to identify this. Bloggers are good people who are selling a good product, but they're still salespeople. You cannot count on complete honesty from them when uncomfortable truths are diametrically opposed to what makes them the most money (making FIRE as broadly appealing as possible).

¹https://www.theatlantic.com/business/archive/2014/01/economists-your-parents-are-more-important-than-ever/283301/
²https://scholar.harvard.edu/files/alesina/files/alesina_stantcheva_teso_mobility_june_1.pdf
³https://www.npr.org/2017/05/03/526655831/a-forgotten-history-of-how-the-u-s-government-segregated-america
⁴https://www.aclu.org/sites/default/files/assets/141027_iachr_racial_disparities_aclu_submission_0.pdf
⁵https://www.mrmoneymustache.com/2015/04/01/impossible-dream/

+1 Excellent Post.

+2. I’m white and grew up with no understanding of why everyone wasn’t as successful as my parents and my conservative parents did little to educate me about it (probably because to this day they are still ignorant in many ways) I am a dentist now and live even better off than I did as a child but I’ve worked the past decade in prisons and I’ve been spending 40 hours per week amongst lower class people and it’s obvious to anyone looking that ones background is the largest factor in ones future.

[LG89]

I'm a white person with a minority partner, and for what it's worth, there has been precisely zero difference in our experiences with FIRE. We do literally the exact same things, with the same results - eating home-cooked meals, living simply, not buying things, investing. There has literally not been one single FIRE-related thing that was harder for him than me.

I'd be interested to know, among minorities who are actually interested in and pursuing FIRE, what exactly the difficulties they face would be unique to being a minority. Not just stats related to the general population, because it's not accurate to say "Look at all these people unable to FIRE" when you're talking about people who mostly have never heard of FIRE and are not pursuing it in any way.

Agreed. I was confused reading the headline and even more puzzled reading the first post. Across the board most people dont even know what FIRE is in this country. The observations made by the OP could be said of the entire US population: "If they have any problem with FIRE it is because they don't [insert xyz reasons]"

OP: by looking around me, I think the opposite is true.

Not surprising. Immigrant families do tend to be more frugal. And to the OP, at the very least, it looks like they (your observation group) at least have the option and frugal muscles to flex if they wanted to FIRE. Is that even an option for the rest of the population? Likely not.

[DreamFIRE]

The one example I can find of Mr. Money Mustache addressing this is a joke. Literally, it's an April Fools joke.⁵

Sure, privilege does exist, and it might make it easier or harder to inherit a company or win a senate seat. But it can’t control your choice to ride a bike, buy less shit, or read library books in your spare time and I argue that frugality is the most powerful factor in earning your independence. After all, most of my equally-privileged engineering coworkers are still stuck in the office to this day.

I also like this quote from MMM's blog post.  Note, the above quote and below quote were NOT part of the April fool's joke.

See, the problem occurs when you rob an individual of the belief that he is in control of his own situation. When you spread the social meme that the the system is stacked against us, and that the system needs to change in order to improve our lives. Whether or not the accusations contain a degree of truth does not matter – you train a legion of powerless people who can’t take care of themselves, you also end up with lazy voters who are easily manipulated by whichever politician will stoop the lowest to appeal to their cheapest emotions.

https://www.mrmoneymustache.com/2015/04/01/impossible-dream/

[Mezzie]

The pattern in my husband's family, both for those in the homeland and those here, is that the working age generation takes care of the elders and the youngsters until the next generation gets on their feet and does the same. Thers's no need to save for retirement per se because the next generation (whether it's your direct line of children or your nieces and nephews) will take care if you as you did them. Because of many generations living under one roof, there are paid-off houses that make it easier to pay for things like college, built-in childcare for new parents, etc.

There are also problems. Some family members take more than their fair share without contributing much (or in some cases, at all), and that can be a source of stress. For the most part, though, everyone contributes and benefits fairly equally.

My husband and I don't live with his family, but we ended up following in their footsteps when members of my family needed financial help and moved in with us. Other family members have benefitted from our financial surplus as well, and I'm not sure we would have budgeted in that way were it not for his family's example of a communal sense of resources. Does it push back the possibility of FIRE? Sure does. It also makes working that much more of a joy, though, since we can see how our work helps those we love.

My extended family has always been generous within their means, but because we're traditionally so spread out into different households and hold a cultural premium on independence, there simply haven't been as many resources to share as there are in my husband's family. I like trying to infuse the best of noth our cultures into our financial lives. That said, we don't have children, so we do need to save for our own retirement.

[boy_bye]

Mathlete, thank you for that excellent post!

The one example I can find of Mr. Money Mustache addressing this is a joke. Literally, it's an April Fools joke.⁵

Sure, privilege does exist, and it might make it easier or harder to inherit a company or win a senate seat. But it can’t control your choice to ride a bike, buy less shit, or read library books in your spare time and I argue that frugality is the most powerful factor in earning your independence. After all, most of my equally-privileged engineering coworkers are still stuck in the office to this day.

I also like this quote from MMM's blog post.  Note, the above quote and below quote were NOT part of the April fool's joke.

See, the problem occurs when you rob an individual of the belief that he is in control of his own situation. When you spread the social meme that the the system is stacked against us, and that the system needs to change in order to improve our lives. Whether or not the accusations contain a degree of truth does not matter – you train a legion of powerless people who can’t take care of themselves, you also end up with lazy voters who are easily manipulated by whichever politician will stoop the lowest to appeal to their cheapest emotions.

https://www.mrmoneymustache.com/2015/04/01/impossible-dream/

I never get why we have to push one idea (personal responsibility) OR the other (social change to even the playing field). Surely at least some of us are able to hold both concepts in our heads at the same time, and understand how both individual choices and the socioeconomic landscape both play into how our lives unfold, individually and collectively.

Of COURSE choice plays a role. So does societal conditioning. So does access to opportunity. So does history. So does ecology. So does nutrition. All of it matters. Clearly, there's no shortage of places to exert our efforts to improve our own lives and the lives of our fellow creatures on the planet.

[undercover]

FIRE itself has always been more of a generational thing than a race thing...it was much harder if not impossible to retire early two generations ago than it was for the current generation. Talking about Asian frugality and aversion to the stock market could simply be lots of correlation, not necessarily causation. After all, you can get super cash rich from starting businesses that you won't need to ever make a dime on your money. A lot of people are just adverse to things they don't understand in general. Wanting to accumulate as much money possible throughout your life isn't a minority thing...it's just a generational thing. We're waking up to the fact that a billion dollars in the bank isn't going to make you happier than "enough".

I'm definitely not saying the problems faced by the most privileged aren't sometimes amplified by being a minority...I'm just saying there's other factors here. The main underlying principle of FIRE is high income. Now of course we could go on and on about how (historically) income has had a strong correlation with race...but to me this has nothing to do with FIRE itself and is best suited for off-topic.

[EricL]

The one example I can find of Mr. Money Mustache addressing this is a joke. Literally, it's an April Fools joke.⁵

Sure, privilege does exist, and it might make it easier or harder to inherit a company or win a senate seat. But it can’t control your choice to ride a bike, buy less shit, or read library books in your spare time and I argue that frugality is the most powerful factor in earning your independence. After all, most of my equally-privileged engineering coworkers are still stuck in the office to this day.

I also like this quote from MMM's blog post.  Note, the above quote and below quote were NOT part of the April fool's joke.

See, the problem occurs when you rob an individual of the belief that he is in control of his own situation. When you spread the social meme that the the system is stacked against us, and that the system needs to change in order to improve our lives. Whether or not the accusations contain a degree of truth does not matter – you train a legion of powerless people who can’t take care of themselves, you also end up with lazy voters who are easily manipulated by whichever politician will stoop the lowest to appeal to their cheapest emotions.

https://www.mrmoneymustache.com/2015/04/01/impossible-dream/

This, I’ve found, is one of life’s great, vexing injustices. Systems of all sorts may be stacked against you to a greater or lesser degree.  You can, sometimes even should, bitch long and loud about them.  But personally getting ahead almost never benefits from that.  Personally getting ahead means ignoring those systems like the don’t make a difference to you and forging ahead anyway. 

[Catbert]

Interesting OP mentioned Asians has having a difficulty achieving FIRE.  My observation, based solely on popular blogs, is the opposite.  Most of the FIRE blogs I follow are by Asian or have Asian spouses:

MMM:  Mrs. MMM is Indian-Canadian
Retire by 40:  Joe is Thai and I believe born there although mostly raised here
Root of Good:  Justin's wife's family are immigrants (not sure when they immigrated) and she is SE Asian (Cambodian or similar)
Go Curry Cracker:  Winnie is Asian.  Taiwanese, I think
Financial Samurai is Asian of some sort.  I guess not really FIRE  .

The only other sorta-FIRE blog I regularly read is the Frugalwoods.

All these ethnicities are based on my memory.  I didn't go back and confirm that they are exactly correct.

[Telecaster]

I'm not a minority, so I won't comment on that part.  But I will say background is huge.  My parents valued education and and investments, so I figured being educated and investing  was something adults do. 

My wife's family are what you might call white trash.   My wife didn't want to end up like them so she put herself through college and has had a great professional career.  Her siblings never got the clue, have only worked menial jobs, have zero (literally) savings and will wind up living on Social Security.   Our nieces and nephews are on the same path as their parents, doing bad in school because their parents don't make them do homework, etc.  It is tragic to watch it unfold. 

[Paul der Krake]

You're going to need to be more specific.

Chinese? Black? LGBT? Muslim? Hispanic? Indian? Native American? Germans?

[swampwiz]

Not sure if I like the idea of the ethnocentric bias in this question, but I will try to answer this.

It comes down to 2 reasons:

- Minorities statistically have less savings & income than "majorities".

- New immigrants are statistically more likely to be minority than "majority" and therefore have more of a cash drag in terms of supporting family back in the old country - even though they are in all likelihood much more frugal.

[PizzaSteve]

Maybe someone should do a demographics poll on forum members and see if our racial distribution mirrors that of our country of origin.

[Zikoris]

Maybe someone should do a demographics poll on forum members and see if our racial distribution mirrors that of our country of origin.

There were a few demographics polls in the past, and they showed a couple of interesting things:

1. We're well over half female
2. Minorities are represented at a substantially higher rate than the overall populations in the countries that are the big participants here (Canada, US, UK, and Australia)

The whole thing makes me seriously consider whether the whole perception of FIRE being primarily white men is complete bullshit.

[terran]

Maybe someone should do a demographics poll on forum members and see if our racial distribution mirrors that of our country of origin.

There were a few demographics polls in the past, and they showed a couple of interesting things:

1. We're well over half female
2. Minorities are represented at a substantially higher rate than the overall populations in the countries that are the big participants here (Canada, US, UK, and Australia)

The whole thing makes me seriously consider whether the whole perception of FIRE being primarily white men is complete bullshit.

Here's one: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Race_and_ethnicity_in_the_United_States -- looks to be a little extra white and asian compared to the US population. Definitely light on african american and hispanic. There could be other polls, and maybe some of the difference could be explained by the US population being different from the other common forum participant countries?

[Rural]

Someone earlier mentioned minorities in the South and parents or grandparents being sharecroppers. My grandmother was a sharecropper; my grandfather and father were coal miners. All very Caucasian in Appalachia. It's circumstance we're talking about here, and systemic disadvantage in particular. In most of the country that's tied to race, and frankly, in Appalachia it is, too, in that the whites have deeply entrenched systemic poverty and the (relatively few in number compared to the rest of the South) African Americans have that plus systemic racism.


So, I think we on this forum and in the ER community need to talk about it, and talk about the systemic stuff. But I don't think we're going to solve it. We're really talking about solving poverty and the deep-seated tribalism of human nature. We can, I think, make improvements, and I think that's where we should aim because that's what makes an impact on real, live people - working on a part of the problem at a time.


It's why I won't make FIRE, or at least not very E at all - I've chosen to be a professor at one of the lowest-cost/lowest paying colleges in the country because it helps exactly the kids I used to be, at a price that Pell grants will cover completely. It's why all of my freshmen read The Shockingly Simple Math and learn a little about compound interest in their first semester even though I don't teach anything to do with finance or economics. They may not FIRE, heck, they may not want to. But they'll go into things armed with a little information, and many of them will make better choices just because they know which is the better choice. That's how we help: incrementally, one person (or 30 if you have a classroom) at a time.

Edit: spelled "compound" wrong

[SwordGuy]

If someone grows up in a family that has no concept of savings, or investing, or working hard at education or careers to "better one's prospects", then they are far more likely end up poor.

If they have a better example, they're more likely to end up well off.

Some cultural groups reinforce one set of tendencies, others lean the other direction.

That's part of the equation.

The other part of the equation is that some cultural groups cause problems for other cultural or racial groups.   Some of those problems were in the past, but recent events in politics have shown that there's no shortage of jackasses who still want to cause problems for folks who "aren't like them."


MMM's has shown that people who can get and stay in the middle class, and avoid catastrophic medical or legal issues, can end up wealthy if they choose to do so.   

The social injustices perpetrated on some cultural or racial groups impact the ability of people to get into the middle class at all or to stay there.   
We should all fight to level the playing field and get resources properly apportioned so society has done its part to provide a workable success path for everyone.

And anyone who wants to succeed shouldn't hold their breath waiting for that to happen.   It will take several more generations - at the best - to make that happen.   I'm ashamed of my fellow Americans for that being true, but it's still true.

In the meantime, individuals who are the innocent victims of societal prejudice will just have to work harder.  It's not fair.  It's not just.  It just is.

For those of us who want our society to do better, we just have to actively take steps to move our children, spouses, siblings, parents, friends, colleagues and fellow citizens in that direction.   And we have to recognize that the more we do so, the the jackasses who like mistreating cultural or racial groups will double-down on their jackassery.   We'll need to triple-size our efforts to get their hearts in the right place, or if time and circumstances don't allow it, put their asses in a sling until they stop misbehaving.

That's my 2 cents.

[akzidenz]

I'm—amused, maybe?—at how the title of this thread (and several responses) lump "minorities" together as one group. Do you mean nonwhite? The experience of being black / Latinx / Asian (and even East Asian vs Southeast Asian) differ tremendously, both in terms of the cultural context you grow up in, and the ways in which society responds to you (e.g. in terms of any prejudice, discrimination, or difficulty you might face).

I'm Southeast Asian, so I'll speak to that. My parents immigrated here and are both very close to FIRE. Once my youngest sibling graduates college—which they're paying for, as they did for me—they'll leave their jobs and travel. They've saved aggressively and were incredibly frugal, and put most of the money into real estate in their home country and in a home in the US that's now worth 4x what the mortgage cost was. (I don't expect to ever get that lucky with real estate!)

To generalize broadly, a lot of East/Southeast Asian cultures seem much more motivated to save money. People also tend to prioritize buying property a bit more than investing in the market. I have more Asian friends with similar financial outlooks (trying to save as much as possible, not buying things just because we can "afford" it, saving for a down payment as soon as we got our first jobs) and we get a lot of advice from our parents about trying to buy a home as soon as possible. So I think my cultural background helped a lot in preparing me for FIRE.

Aside—my parents are a certain kind of immigrant success story. You know, the whole "came to the US with nothing, worked their way up to the middle class" one. But that's not the whole story. My parents came to the US with no economic assets, but they were both highly educated in STEM fields, so it was easier for them to break into the middle class here. That had an immense impact on their ability to pursue FIRE and achieve it. In contrast, a close friend's parents immigrated to the US and were largely working class. They wouldn't have been able to achieve FIRE, but they built a life so that their daughter can.

I want to be careful about not lumping all immigrant experiences together, just as I want to be careful about not lumping all minority experiences together

I also like this quote from MMM's blog post.  Note, the above quote and below quote were NOT part of the April fool's joke.

See, the problem occurs when you rob an individual of the belief that he is in control of his own situation. When you spread the social meme that the the system is stacked against us, and that the system needs to change in order to improve our lives. Whether or not the accusations contain a degree of truth does not matter – you train a legion of powerless people who can’t take care of themselves, you also end up with lazy voters who are easily manipulated by whichever politician will stoop the lowest to appeal to their cheapest emotions.

https://www.mrmoneymustache.com/2015/04/01/impossible-dream/

My own take on this—on an individual level, it's tremendously valuable to believe that you have agency over your life. It's also valuable to not constantly despair over the things you can change. To surrender agency in your own life can be toxic and prevent you from improving things.

But inequality isn't something that exists in one's head, and it's not an individualized anxiety to exorcize. Inequality is present in the world and real, and it sets limitations on how much someone's hard work can change their life. So on a social level, we do need to recognize that the system is stacked against some individuals. Like madgeylou said, it's possible to believe in the necessity of personal responsibility and social change.

[Rural]

Just ran across this by way of Captain Awkward, and I think it's a great reminder that social class exists in America and is less fluid than we'd like to tell ourselves, and that in intersects with power and cultures and minority status in all kinds of complex ways that often serve to keep if from being fluid. It's also just an incredible piece.


http://tigerbeatdown.com/2011/10/08/the-percentages-a-biography-of-class/

[Imma]

Someone earlier mentioned minorities in the South and parents or grandparents being sharecroppers. My grandmother was a sharecropper; my grandfather and father were coal miners. All very Caucasian in Appalachia. It's circumstance we're talking about here, and systemic disadvantage in particular. In most of the country that's tied to race, and frankly, in Appalachia it is, too, in that the whites have deeply entrenched systemic poverty and the (relatively few in number compared to the rest of the South) African Americans have that plus systemic racism.


So, I think we on this forum and in the ER community need to talk about it, and talk about the systemic stuff. But I don't think we're going to solve it. We're really talking about solving poverty and the deep-seated tribalism of human nature. We can, I think, make improvements, and I think that's where we should aim because that's what makes an impact on real, live people - working on a part of the problem at a time.


It's why I won't make FIRE, or at least not very E at all - I've chosen to be a professor at one of the lowest-cost/lowest paying colleges in the country because it helps exactly the kids I used to be, at a price that Pell grants will cover completely. It's why all of my freshmen read The Shockingly Simple Math and learn a little about compound interest in their first semester even though I don't teach anything to do with finance or economics. They may not FIRE, heck, they may not want to. But they'll go into things armed with a little information, and many of them will make better choices just because they know which is the better choice. That's how we help: incrementally, one person (or 30 if you have a classroom) at a time.

Edit: spelled "compound" wrong

It's really great that you try to educate your students not just in your field, but in certain life / financial skills that they haven't heard about before. I wish I had had a mentor at that age. I followed my mum's advice but I later found out the hard way that she wasn't right. I was always told to start working fulltime as young as I could, while earning a degree parttime. Work your way up from the reception to the board room. If you work hard and cause no problems, you'll be noticed eventually and given a chance. Real life wasn't like that. Looking back I wish I had spent more time in fulltime education, networking and doing internships and learning more soft skills  - but realistically I'd have ended up with massive student loans, so who knows if that would have been worth it?

I'm not from the US, but from a similar rural and poor background. My family have been trying to break out of the lower classes for a few generations. It is hard, even if you are very consciously trying as my family has been. We are the most ambitious branch of my family, many other relatives lack this strong internal drive and try to live like previous generations. The economy is different now, so many of them are unemployed and unskilled, not only poor but also have substance abuse issues, debts, etc. I'm trying to take a clever but uneducated young niece under my wing right now and hopefully get her on the right track.

My grandfather only had a few years of elementary school but he learned a trade and became a socialist at a young age - the type that believed in uplifting the working classes. He was a very intelligent man and was very well-read for a man of his background. All his children went to highschool, including the girls, which was not common in the 60s in working class families in this country. He worked as a foreman in a factory and pulled strings to get his kids jobs in the office. Not all of them made it, but my mum was able to buy her own home and eventually progressed in the office. I was the first to go to university. I'd love to progress further and reach FI someday. I'm not a high earner, so I'm fairly sure I won't RE, but I hope to be able to quit working (or continue for fun, not necessity) at the age of 50, which will be 2 decades earlier than my parents.

I do notice that it's hard for me and other family members to get a really good, high-paying job. We lack connections and soft skills. We are still noticeably working class and it works against us sometimes. The company my mother works for was recently looking for someone to fill a special role where you deal with lots of rich people. They selected high achievers from their system and asked them to apply. She had one of the best performance records, all the certifications necessary, and three recommendations. The job didn't go to her, because they felt she wouldn't be able to "connect" with rich people. Job went to a coworker/friend of hers with lower perfomance, no certifications and a rich dad. Even he said it was unfair (but still accepted the offer). Those class difference won't be gone anytime soon, no matter how much we talk about "meritocracy" in the media.

[BTDretire]

Interesting OP mentioned Asians has having a difficulty achieving FIRE.  My observation, based solely on popular blogs, is the opposite.  Most of the FIRE blogs I follow are by Asian or have Asian spouses:

  I'm not sure that's what I said,

"It is Asian and many first generation. If they have any problem with FIRE it is because they don't use the stock market."

 I should have emphasised the IF.
 I say  IF, because you can be FI with Real Estate as your income producer, but you have a job, if you have a business as your income producer, you have a job.
 If you invest in the stock market you have income, but no job.
   My wife is first generation Asian, we have a business, but also have invested in the stock market, we have way more than 25x, but I can't get my wife to sell, close or stop working the business. I say I retired, but I still give her a day off and I work one day, also help out 1/2 a day on the weekend.

MMM:  Mrs. MMM is Indian-Canadian
Retire by 40:  Joe is Thai and I believe born there although mostly raised here
Root of Good:  Justin's wife's family are immigrants (not sure when they immigrated) and she is SE Asian (Cambodian or similar)
Go Curry Cracker:  Winnie is Asian.  Taiwanese, I think
Financial Samurai is Asian of some sort.  I guess not really FIRE  .

The only other sorta-FIRE blog I regularly read is the Frugalwoods.

All these ethnicities are based on my memory.  I didn't go back and confirm that they are exactly correct.

[Abe]

I'm South Asian so will throw my anecdote into the ring (but clearly my ethnic group hasn't faced the same type of economic racism that others in the U.S. have, including certain other East Asian ethnic groups). My parents won't retire even though their pensions alone (independent of their 401k) are enough to sustain an upper middle-class lifestyle indefinitely (or until the state of NC goes bankrupt). Similar thing applies to my wife's parents, who are Chinese. Both sets can't stand the idea of not working.
   Whether or not this is fear of being poor again is hard to determine, but I think that is a major part of their concern about early retirement. One of the big differences between immigrant minorities that have made it into the upper/middle class and non-immigrants in that demographic is more of the former has seen true, deadly poverty (i.e. living in ramshackle houses/huts without clean water, variable access to food, and no government safety net). Most of the latter were born at least into the lower middle class in the US, which is much better than the poverty seen in poorly developed countries. This fear of returning to how they lived in the "old country" probably drives a lot of the continued working well past FIRE criteria, at least in my and my wife's family.
   The other aspect is the social prestige that comes from working in a high-paying profession. (Both within the minority community and more importantly from the majority community that often only sees you as a "immigrant terking er jerbs!" rather than a person). A certain amount of that dissipates as you get further into retirement, and that dissipation occurs much faster outside of the immigrant community. This gets back to the rich = good = non-threatening but poor = bad = threatening anti-immigrant bias prevalent in our parents' part of the country.

So at least from this perspective, FIRE is achievable but the RE part is not desirable in certain minority groups. For what it's worth, my parents are bemused by my goals, but not against them. They're convinced I won't want to retire early either. After our kid was born, my wife and I moved away from them and my wife's family to live in California where the anti-immigrant bias is not as strong. We are much more likely to retire early because we did not experience severe poverty since moving to the US as children, and we're not concerned about the perceptions of a bunch of old anti-immigrant people since our state is much more diverse.

[partgypsy]

I'm South Asian so will throw my anecdote into the ring (but clearly my ethnic group hasn't faced the same type of economic racism that others in the U.S. have, including certain other East Asian ethnic groups). My parents won't retire even though their pensions alone (independent of their 401k) are enough to sustain an upper middle-class lifestyle indefinitely (or until the state of NC goes bankrupt). Similar thing applies to my wife's parents, who are Chinese. Both sets can't stand the idea of not working.
   Whether or not this is fear of being poor again is hard to determine, but I think that is a major part of their concern about early retirement. One of the big differences between immigrant minorities that have made it into the upper/middle class and non-immigrants in that demographic is more of the former has seen true, deadly poverty (i.e. living in ramshackle houses/huts without clean water, variable access to food, and no government safety net). Most of the latter were born at least into the lower middle class in the US, which is much better than the poverty seen in poorly developed countries. This fear of returning to how they lived in the "old country" probably drives a lot of the continued working well past FIRE criteria, at least in my and my wife's family.
   The other aspect is the social prestige that comes from working in a high-paying profession. (Both within the minority community and more importantly from the majority community that often only sees you as a "immigrant terking er jerbs!" rather than a person). A certain amount of that dissipates as you get further into retirement, and that dissipation occurs much faster outside of the immigrant community. This gets back to the rich = good = non-threatening but poor = bad = threatening anti-immigrant bias prevalent in our parents' part of the country.

So at least from this perspective, FIRE is achievable but the RE part is not desirable in certain minority groups. For what it's worth, my parents are bemused by my goals, but not against them. They're convinced I won't want to retire early either. After our kid was born, my wife and I moved away from them and my wife's family to live in California where the anti-immigrant bias is not as strong. We are much more likely to retire early because we did not experience severe poverty since moving to the US as children, and we're not concerned about the perceptions of a bunch of old anti-immigrant people since our state is much more diverse.

My Dad is a first generation immigrant, is 86, and STILL works part time. He did NOT grow up in deadly poverty, and does not see himself as poor, because he had one regular pair of shoes, while the poor kids made sandals for themselves out of parts of tires. (at the same time, he grew up without running water, electricity, or indoor toilet). But yes there was definitely a fear of "failure", as in going back to the old country, was NOT an option. My Dad will never understand why I don't strive to make as much money as a possible and are not ambitious and achieve in that way. OTOH my mother and her family are proud of me because I have a PhD and multiple publications, because in her side of the family, education and self-improvement (music, learning multiple language, the arts) was important.