Do we need statistics to prove the truth of lived experiences?
Research and stats have their place in making change, but we have to start by listening to the stories people are telling us.
One positive bit of feedback I’ve gotten from several readers as I’ve worked on You Don’t Need a Budget is that the book is well researched.
I’m delighted by this and proud of it. As a non-academic person with on-the-job training in journalism, I’m always proud to show off the integrity of my work. And as an outsider in these establishments who’s quite fond of listening to her gut, I’m sometimes irked by the level of third-party support people need to see to consider my claims legitimate.
Sometimes I think, Don’t we already know this is true, if we’re paying attention?
LGBTQ+ people are twice as likely as non-LGBTQ+ people to feel anxious, overwhelmed or depressed about their finances.
Women are four times as likely as men to feel like their competency at work is questioned because of their gender.
The greatest predictor of whether you’ll be rich or poor as an adult is whether your parents were rich or poor when you were growing up.
Financial education doesn’t close racial income and wealth gaps.
Who are the statistics for?
Any queer person could tell you how social and professional discrimination, family estrangement and exclusion from health care squeezes their finances and causes daily stress.
Every woman you meet could share her story of being asked to take meeting notes, plan birthday parties, clean the kitchen or entertain the boss’s kid well outside of her job description while the men in her office are getting promoted after having lunch with the CEO.
Your working class colleagues and classmates can tell you how much more debt they’ve accumulated, how much less pay they’ve settled for, how much further they are from owning a home, how much less they’ve saved for retirement — even if they’re ostensibly in the same position as someone from the middle class.
Black people everywhere have been trying to tell us for decades that financial literacy isn’t their struggle; it’s financial access and inclusion.
We don’t need statistics to know these things are true. We just need to listen to the stories people are telling us.
The statistics are included for the people who aren’t willing to listen to the stories. When you’re not willing to believe someone’s lived experience, a statistic can shock you out of your disbelief. If a researcher — maybe someone who looks more like you? shares your class background? meets your academic standards? — can confirm it, it must be true.
What if we started from a position of believing people’s stories?
Believe the stories
I’m not completely ridiculous. I respect research and I appreciate skepticism. (After all, my book is, and I quote, “well researched.” 😏) I question everything and I love diving down a rabbit hole.
But sometimes I find myself reaching for a study to back up something I already know to be true because so many people have shared their stories. I understand “people have told me” won’t be a sufficient answer to the question How do you know this is true?
Sometimes, I think, this should be the answer.
Sometimes the story gives you all the information you need. You don’t need proof; you just need to listen to what someone in front of you is telling you.
Statistics help us understand how a person’s experience fits into a larger context, and research and education help us understand why their experience is what it is. We need those things so we can effect lasting change. But the story gives us all we need to believe the truth.
Don’t wait for a shocking statistic to move you to action. Let the story be the catalyst. Just listen. Learn from the experiences of people whose perspectives are different from yours, and act on what you learn.
🧑🏫 Are you a fellow financial educator, coach or advisor ready to have a more expansive conversation about money with your clients? My Budget-Free Fundamentals series gives you everything you need to help participants gain a fresh perspective on their relationship with money.
So much of this hits that I think I might have to answer with a piece of my own. But when I was at WPR (for a short stint), this is what I would argue - that we needed to talk to people about their lived experiences, not just experts. I was told that would be biased. Unless they were callers, we couldn’t reach out to people.
Last year, I did a podcast on reproductive justice. One of the topics was race bias in medicine. People told their stories. My uncle, who is a scientist at Hopkins, told me I was biased because I didn’t get the other side. And I’m like, the medical professionals in question need to listen not reflexively defend themselves.
I’ve also written before about people who understand nuance and people who don’t. If you are the kind of person who understands the world from the inside out - meaning, you are even aware of your gut - then your piece makes sense. If you are someone who gets cues for who they are or should be from outside yourself, then your suggestion is baffling.
“Bias toward the status quo.” Exactly!
I’ll read Tara’s piece.