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NWLC INFO-EXCHANGE Is the Economy Really Strong If Women Are Losing Ground? Last week, the latest Census report on poverty, income and health insurance in the United States was released, revealing that millions of women and their families are worse off economically than they were in 2000. Poverty among women and their families has increased, women’s earnings have stagnated, and millions of women have lost health insurance coverage. Tax cuts principally aimed at the wealthiest individuals and corporations, purportedly to grow the economy, have not produced economic gains for most middle- and low-income Americans. Some of the most significant revelations in
the latest Census report include:
• More women were living in poverty—and extreme
poverty—than in 2000. In 2005, 14.6 million women were living in
poverty, 2.7 million more than in 2000. Of those, 6.3 million lived in
extreme poverty—defined as 50% of the federal poverty
line—up by 1.7 million since 2000. The percentage of women in poverty
increased from 11.3% in 2000 to 12.9% in 2005.
• Poverty among women of color, elderly women living
alone, and single-mother families was especially high. In 2005,
Black women were more than twice as likely to be poor as White
women, and Hispanic women were almost twice as likely to be poor as
White women. More than one in five elderly women living alone were
poor in 2005. More than one in three female-headed families with
children were poor in 2005, and fully one-half of these families live in
extreme poverty.
• The income of most families with children has
declined since 2000. The real median income of female-headed
families with children has dropped by more than $1,700, from $24,800 in
2000 to $23,100 in 2005. The median income of married couples with
children fell by $700 over the same period. • Women’s earnings since 2000 paint a discouraging
picture. In 2005, the earnings of all women in the workforce,
including those working part-time and part-year, were just $23,100,
statistically unchanged since 2000. The real median earnings of
women working full-time, full-year increased slightly over the
past six years, from $31,000 in 2000 to $31,900 in 2005. But gains in the
early part of the period are threatened by a more recent trend: over
the past three years, the median earnings of women working
full-time, full-year have been declining.
• The number and percentage of women without health
insurance continues to rise. Since 2000, an additional 2.9
million women have joined the ranks of the uninsured, including 531,000
in the last year alone. The percentage of women without health
insurance increased from 13.8% in 2000 to 15.6% in 2005, a faster
increase than for the overall population.
In an Associated Press story that appeared on
CNN.com and other news outlets, Joan Entmacher, Vice President for Family
Economic Security at NWLC, helped clarify why, despite 10 years of
“welfare reform,” the number of Americans in poverty has increased in
recent years: “Most of the people who leave welfare for work are leaving
for jobs that pay $7 or $8 an hour. Under the best of circumstances, they
are just getting by." Click here to view the full article:
For more information about the status of women's
economic security, click here to see our factsheet, Losing Ground: An
Overview of Poverty, Income and Health Insurance Trends Among
Women, 2000-2005:
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