Narrowing the Disability Employment Gap

01/10/23 • 28 min

1 Listener

The barriers to entering and staying in the workforce are complex for disabled people, and magnified for disabled people with additional marginalized identities. This results in long term impacts to their household wealth: in the United States, the median net worth among households with adult members with a disability is $33,318 less than the national median, according to a report from Prosperity Now.

On this episode, we learn how unemployment drives the disability wealth gap and how advocates and entrepreneurs are working to drive change for the betterment of the disabled community. First we hear from disability scholar and advocate D’Arcee Charington Neal, who draws on his lived experience as a disabled Black person in order to advise companies to reduce ableism and racis in the workplace. Then, host Carla Harris speaks with Inclusively co-founder and CEO, Charlotte Dales, about how their technology is making it easier for companies to hire disabled people.

https://www.morganstanley.com/what-we-do/inclusive-innovation-and-opportunity

Disclaimer text

The guest speakers are neither employees nor affiliated with Morgan Stanley & Co. LLC. (“Morgan Stanley”). The views and opinions expressed herein do not necessarily reflect those of Morgan Stanley. The information and figures contained herein has been obtained from sources outside of Morgan Stanley and Morgan Stanley makes no representations or guarantees as to the accuracy or completeness of information or data from sources outside of Morgan Stanley. Morgan Stanley is not responsible for the information or data contained in this podcast.

This podcast does not provide individually tailored investment advice and is not a solicitation of any offer to buy or sell any security or other financial instrument or to participate in any trading strategy. It has been prepared without regard to the individual financial circumstances and objectives of persons who receive it.

https://www.morganstanley.com/what-we-do/inclusive-innovation-and-opportunity

Disclaimer text

Previous Episode

Building Credit for Immigrants

A recent survey commissioned by Nova Credit found that nearly half of immigrants said a U.S. credit card is hard to obtain. Without a credit card or any type of credit history to their name, immigrants are likely to find themselves identified as “credit invisible” and unable to establish their financial identities. On this episode, we learn from those with firsthand experience navigating the American credit system as immigrants and how they’re channeling lessons-learned into solutions that are making the pool of creditworthy people more inclusive.

Host Carla Harris is in conversation with Wemimo Abbey and Samir Goel, two business partners who were inspired by their own immigrant-centered upbringings to break down the barriers that not having a credit score poses. Through their company Esusu, Wemimo and Samir developed technology that shares monthly rent payments with the three major credit bureaus, expanding the types of reportable data used to help immigrants build their credit score.

https://www.morganstanley.com/what-we-do/inclusive-innovation-and-opportunity

Disclaimer text

Next Episode

Leading to Execute: Mielle Organics’ Monique Rodriguez

An extreme funding gap exists for Black female entrepreneurs who, in 2021, received merely 0.34% of the total venture capital spent in the U.S. in the first half of the year, according to Crunchbase. And while more concerted efforts to diversify capital allocation have come out of these jarring figures, the community of adequately funded Black female founders remains incredibly small.

On this episode, we speak with one of the select few Black female founders who got her funding. In 2021, Monique Rodriguez, founder and CEO of Mielle Organics, broke the glass ceiling for Black female founders, inking a nine-figure, non-controlling investment deal with Berkshire Partners. She shares how she turned her passion for women’s health and a nursing background into a global beauty business, and discusses how her atypical path into entrepreneurship became her biggest asset. Then, host Carla Harris sits down with Monique to discuss the obstacles and opportunities that lie ahead for her as a leader at this pivotal juncture of scaling Mielle. And Carla draws upon leadership insights from her latest book, Lead to Win.

https://www.morganstanley.com/what-we-do/inclusive-innovation-and-opportunity

Disclaimer text