Data on Poverty & Income

Poverty is a women’s issue. Nearly six in ten poor adults are women, and more than half of all poor children live in families headed by women. Poverty rates are especially high for single mothers, women of color, and elderly women living alone.

In addition to the resources below, please see NWLC's detailed analysis of the 2011 Census poverty data, as well as past reports on women's income and poverty rates.

Highlights

Reports & Toolkits | Insecure and Unequal: Poverty and Income Among Women and Families, 2000-2011

September 17, 2012

This report provides a gender analysis of national Census data for 2011, released by the Census Bureau in September 2012. The National Women’s Law Center (NWLC) supplies this analysis, as it has for several years, because little information broken out by gender is available directly from the Census Bureau's series of reports titled Income, Poverty, and Health Insurance Coverage in the United States. Insecure and Unequal provides a snapshot of poverty and income data in 2011 – and changes in poverty and the wage gap from 2010 to 2011 and since 2000  - for women, men, children, and families by race, ethnicity and age.

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Fact Sheet | National Snapshot: Poverty Among Women & Families, 2011

September 13, 2012

Census data released in September 2012 show that poverty rates started to stabilize in 2011 after several years of increases, as the economy slowly recovered from the Great Recession that began in late 2007 – but that left poverty among women and children at or near historically high levels.  Poverty rates for all groups of women in 2011 were higher than for their male counterparts.

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Fact Sheet | Poverty Rates by State, 2011

September 20, 2012

Poverty rates for all groups of women were high in 2011, particularly for some groups of women of color and female headed-families. This table details the 2011 poverty rates for groups of women and children in all 50 states and the District of Columbia.

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Fact Sheet | Summary Table: Poverty Rates Among Women, Men, and Children, 2011, 2010, 2000

September 17, 2012

Census data released in September 2012 show that poverty rates for all groups of women in 2011 were higher than for their male counterparts. This table provides data on poverty rates for women, men, children, and families by race, ethnicity, and age.

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More Resources

Fact Sheet | National Snapshot: Poverty Among Women & Families, 2011

September 13, 2012

Census data released in September 2012 show that poverty rates started to stabilize in 2011 after several years of increases, as the economy slowly recovered from the Great Recession that began in late 2007 – but that left poverty among women and children at or near historically high levels.  Poverty rates for all groups of women in 2011 were higher than for their male counterparts.

 Read more...

Fact Sheet | Closing the Wage Gap is Especially Important for Women of Color in Difficult Times

April 11, 2012

American women who work full-time, year-round are paid only 77 cents for every dollar paid to their male counterparts. But the wage gap is even larger for many women of color, with African-American women making only 62 cents, and Hispanic women only 54 cents, for every dollar earned by white, non-Hispanic men. These gaps translate into a loss of $19,575 for African-American women and $23,873 for Hispanic women every year. Closing the wage gap is, therefore, particularly important for African-American and Hispanic women, who are already more likely to have lower incomes and to be in poverty than any other group.  

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Fact Sheet | Women Can't Afford Unfair Pay Today

April 11, 2012

Click HERE to download the full report.

American women who work full time, year round are paid only 77 cents for every dollar paid to their male counterparts. This gap in earnings translates into $10,784 less per year in median earnings, leaving women and their families shortchanged. The wage gap is even more substantial when race and gender are considered together, with African-American women making only 62 cents, and Hispanic women only 54 cents, for every dollar paid to white, non-Hispanic men. Although enforcement of the Equal Pay Act as well as other civil rights laws has helped to narrow the wage gap over time, it is critical for women and their families that the significant pay disparities that remain are addressed.

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Fact Sheet | The Wage Gap State by State: 2012 Fact Sheets

April 10, 2012

At the time of the Equal Pay Act's passage in 1963, women working full time, year-round were paid merely 59 cents for every dollar paid to their male counterparts. Enforcement of the Equal Pay Act and related civil rights laws has helped to narrow the wage gap, but significant disparities remain and must be addressed.

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Fact Sheet | New Census report supports NWLC’s findings that proposed Social Security cuts would especially hurt elderly women

November 18, 2011

Women are three-quarters of the very elderly (individuals 90 and older) and very elderly women are more economically insecure and more likely to have a disability than very elderly men. These facts show that changing the Social Security cost-of-living adjustment (COLA) from its current index to  the “chained CPI” will result in significant cuts to Social Security benefits that deepen over the years and dramatically increase economic insecurity among the elderly—especially women.

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