Closing the Gender Gap

In 2006, there were 36.5 million people living in poverty: 21 million of them were women.  Recent studies show that 36.9 percent of female-headed, single-parent households are poor, compared 17.6 percent of male-headed, single-parent households. Women are 45 percent more likely to be poor than men and they make up 70 percent of the elderly poor population.  Three-quarters of the adult Medicaid population and more than half of the Medicare population are women.  In 2000, 84 percent of the households receiving Section 8 housing certificates and vouchers were headed by women and in FY 2006, more than 8 million women, infants and children relied on the Special Supplemental Nutrition Program for Women, Infants, and Children (WIC) every month.

The causes of these disparities and outdated measurements and standards make it more difficult for low-income women to move towards self-sufficiency. Divorce is one of the single biggest reasons that middle-class women fall into poverty. Billions of dollars of child support go uncollected every year, and the current child support system does not incorporate the costs of raising children at different stages of life or the skyrocketing fuel, food, healthcare and housing prices. Women are more likely to outlive their male counterparts, and at the same time, to contribute less to social security over the course of their lives because of their disproportionate role in raising children and the wage gap.

 

There are also many issues that make it difficult for low-income women to succeed in the workforce. Interruptions in childcare due to rising childcare costs and cuts to federal childcare subsidies make it more difficult for women to avoid missing work. If a woman needs to leave her job because of domestic violence or because her ex-partner is stalking her at work, under current law she is seen as having left her job voluntarily. Discrimination also plays a role. All things being equal, women currently earn 77 cents for every dollar earned by a man (for women of color the disparity is worse), and despite the fact that women in general have better credit scores, they are more likely to be steered towards subprime loans.

Therefore, as we seek to address gender and poverty, we must support the following policy priorities.