Recognizing Financial Abuse: A Growing Weapon in Intimate Partner Violence

By: Patricia Fanning  

 

K. Tony Korol-Evans HeadshotIn the painful world of intimate partner violence (IPV), money can become a weapon used by one partner to coerce and control the other, leading to desperation.  

The harm done to IPV victims — more often than not — includes economic abuse. To help survivors recover, advocates are urged to embrace best practices and grasp the extent of exploitation. Experts say the scope has widened as technology and finances intertwine.   

“Technology makes so much of this so much easier,” said K. Tony Korol-Evans, PhD, referring to economic harm suffered by IPV victims, who are primarily women. For example, she said, abusers use a smartphone to access partners’ debit and credit cards, draining bank accounts and piling up debt. “We’re seeing this more and more with younger people,” she said during a breakout session at the University of Maryland School of Social Work’s (UMSSW) Homecoming event. 

Korol-Evans, who is the training and special projects administrator of the Maryland Network Against Domestic Violence (MNADV), noted how technology and finances are bound as people handle money online. “What happens when he just Zelles himself money out of your account?” she asked hypothetically, referring to password-activated apps such as Zelle and PayPal.  

Korol-Evans was joined by Christine Callahan, PhD, LCSW-C, research associate professor at UMSSW, in leading the breakout session, “Overcoming Economic Abuse: Creating Sustainable Futures for Survivors.” They presented techniques to help female victims as well as men, 2SLGBQTIA+ individuals, and undocumented immigrants who may be vulnerable for fear of deportation. 

In tandem with physical and sexual violence, economic abuse is among IPV tactics of power and control. Yet this type of harm remains underappreciated by the public and authorities. Making matters worse is the fact that IPV victims often stay with an abuser — or return — due to financial insecurity. Three-fourths of victims in a 2012 survey said that’s why they remained. 

A partner’s manipulative behavior often undermines self-esteem. Korol-Evans described “gaslighting,” in which an abuser conditions a woman to relinquish the couple’s money management: “You may earn the money, but you’re too dumb to know how to spend it! So I’ll make all the financial decisions,” he tells her. 

In tandem with physical and sexual violence, economic abuse is among IPV tactics of power and control. Yet this type of harm remains underappreciated by the public and authorities.

Korol-Evans was joined by Christine Callahan, PhD, LCSW-C, research associate professor at UMSSW, in leading the breakout session, “Overcoming Economic Abuse: Creating Sustainable Futures for Survivors.” They presented techniques to help female victims as well as men, 2SLGBQTIA+ individuals, and undocumented immigrants who may be vulnerable for fear of deportation.

In tandem with physical and sexual violence, economic abuse is among IPV tactics of power and control. Yet this type of harm remains underappreciated by the public and authorities. Making matters worse is the fact that IPV victims often stay with an abuser — or return — due to financial insecurity. Three-fourths of victims in a 2012 survey said that’s why they remained.

A partner’s manipulative behavior often undermines self-esteem. Korol-Evans described “gaslighting,” in which an abuser conditions a woman to relinquish the couple’s money management: “You may earn the money, but you’re too dumb to know how to spend it! So I’ll make all the financial decisions,” he tells her.

Common Tactics of Abusers

Two frequently cited studies of IPV survivors show that either 99 percent or 94 percent had experienced economic abuse. In the latter, a study of 120 individuals who participated in a financial literacy program, 79 percent reported some form of economic control, 79 percent reported exploitative behaviors, and 78 percent reported employment sabotage.

How do victims become trapped? Common tactics of abusers cited in the session: preventing someone from getting or keeping a job, making the person ask for money or live on an allowance, demanding money, and withholding knowledge of family income or access to it.

Prevalence is high. Two frequently cited studies of IPV survivors show that either 99 percent or 94 percent had experienced economic abuse. In the latter, a study of 120 individuals who participated in a financial literacy program, 79 percent reported some form of economic control, 79 percent reported exploitative behaviors, and 78 percent reported employment sabotage.

Experiencing any form of economic abuse, as well as economic control, significantly predicted a decrease in economic self-sufficiency, the 2011 study found. Author Judy L. Postmus, PhD, ACSW, and colleagues concluded that advocates should assess survivors’ experiences and be prepared to offer financial tools to increase self-sufficiency.

UMSSW Dean Postmus is the co-author of “Building Financial Empowerment for Survivors of Domestic Violence: A Path to Hope and Freedom,” along with Amanda M. Stylianou, PhD, LCSW, leader of an anti-trafficking organization. Their book, published by Rutgers University Press in 2023, was among the resources cited during the breakout session.

Other resources are available through the National Network to End Domestic Violence (NNEDV), an advocacy group that is an umbrella organization for state coalitions such as Korol-Evans’ employer, MNADV. An online resource library, created with the support of The Allstate Foundation, includes toolkits and financial literacy instruction called “The Moving Ahead Curriculum.” The curriculum is in the process of being updated by a multicultural, national work group, but the current information is available on the NNEDV website and in multiple languages on The Allstate Foundation website.

Financial Education Much-Needed

A lack of financial know-how deepens victims’ vulnerability, Callahan cautioned. She chairs UMSSW’s Financial Social Work Initiative, which aims to improve individuals’ financial well-being and communities’ economic strength. It also does research around financial empowerment and provides education and training on financial social work and financial capability in graduate and continuing education programs. 

Research shows that financial education is “a really useful part of intervention,” Callahan said. Perhaps the person has reached adulthood lacking knowledge of such things as banking, budgeting, and taxes. Even worse, the person might have been a target of financial abuse, financial fraud, or identity theft or had credit opened in their name without their knowledge. It’s empowering to learn the basics and how to take control, perhaps for the first time.  

Korol-Evans and Callahan spoke of the need to explore the scope of financial harm. Some types of abuse are typical: depleted assets, ruined credit. Other forms of abuse are more distinctive, as in the case of a woman whose job performance was undermined by constant interruptions at home. 

Her former partner took advantage of their remote-activated smart home. He set off an oven alarm and manipulated appliances and other household controls, Korol-Evans recalled. To confront abuse through the Internet of Things (IoT), NNEDV’s website offers an IoT toolkit. The website also provides privacy and “quick exit” safeguards to thwart abusers who might interrupt or track partners going online. 

That employment sabotage was tech-enabled, but it shares a common purpose with more ordinary tactics intended to keep someone from earning a living. A different abuser relocated to a part of rural Maryland with few job options for his partner. Others have taken away car keys or sold or damaged the partner’s car. 

IPV in all its forms, including economic abuse, causes U.S. women to lose nearly 8 million days of paid work a year, according to the most recent figures available. Still widely cited, that estimate for women 18 and older is from a 2003 federal report. 

Patience and Persistence

Economic abuse can be a double whammy for victims who have already lived through financial hardship; research shows connections between a background of poverty and psychological distress. People may suffer depression, anxiety, and post-traumatic stress disorder.

Callahan said helpers may encounter societal taboos on talking about money. Her advice: Be patient yet persistent in coaxing people to disclose facts. It may be the first time they are encountering such help, but on the other hand they may be very grateful that a helper is asking them about financial stressors and cannot wait to talk.

To help survivors regain their footing, Korol-Evans said, “Let’s not assume that we know what they need.” She suggested this open-ended question to start the conversation: “What is your biggest financial concern right now?”

Korol-Evans told the story of an advocate who was surprised by a survivor’s request. The woman told the advocate that she and her children needed clean clothes. Not a new wardrobe, but a washer. Their daily schedule was tight, and she had to change buses to get to a laundromat. “I really need a washing machine,” she pleaded. A path to recovery began with its purchase.

Economic abuse can be a double whammy for victims who have already lived through financial hardship; research shows connections between a background of poverty and psychological distress. People may suffer depression, anxiety, and post-traumatic stress disorder. Callahan described “intense hurt, financial and otherwise” that can have profound effects, “making a person feel so overwhelmed, so hopeless, and so lost.”

In addition to financial social work, Callahan recommended financial therapy, an emerging intervention that builds competence and confidence. The Financial Therapy Association publishes the open-access Journal of Financial Therapy on methods, research, and therapeutic models to help individuals address financial trauma and more. Its multidisciplinary practitioners intervene with all types of financial stress and interpersonal disagreement around money.

According to the association, a series of sessions that combines financial counseling and therapeutic intervention enables people to “think, feel, and behave differently toward money.” Such counseling helps replace desperation with a feeling of control over their money — and their lives.

Learn more about our Financial Social Work Initiative to advance the economic stability and financial wellness of individuals, families, and communities, with particular attention to vulnerable populations. 

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