WOMEN OF AMERICA

Hawke's Bay Tribune, Volume XXI, Issue 305, 9 December 1931, Page 10

WOMEN OF AMERICA

ECONOMIC STATUS. Remarkable facts have just been disclosed about the economic status of women in the United States. Women are beneficiaries of 80 per cent, of the £19,000,000,000 of life insurance policies in force. Women pay taxes on more than £650,000,000 of individual income annually, compared with £950,000,000 in the case of men. Women constitute from 35 to 40 per cent, of investment bond house customers. Women millionaires, as indicated by individual income-tax returns, are as plentiful as men Women are receiving 70 per cent, of the estates left by men and 64 per cent, of the estates left by women. Women to the number of 8,500,000 are gainfully employed. Taxes on' incomes over £lOO,OOO a year were paid last year by 139 women, compared with 123 men. Taxes on incomes over a million dollars a year were paid by 44 women, as against 42 men. Women are in a majority, or almost a majority, among shareholders in some of the largest American comporations; for instance, United States Steel, Pennsylvania Railway, American Telephone and Telegraph, Westinghouse Air Brake, National Biscuit Company. The American Telephone and Telegraph Company, in an analysis of its stockholdings made on 20th June, 1931, says that stock is held by 324,761 women, or 53.9 per cent., compared with 234,917 men, or 38.5 per cent. Women hold 6,698.173 shares, compared with 7,237,361 held by men. The Westinghouse Air Brake Company reports that on 31st March, 1931, it had 8211 women stockholders, holding 1,078,571 shares, as against 7687 men stockholders, with 1,332,286 shares. Tf women continue to maintain their present financial ascendancy, one statistician calculates that all the wealth of the United States will be in feminine hands by the year 2025.