Gays and lesbians confronting poverty

Gays and lesbians confronting poverty
By Amy Wooten
Copyright by The Chicago Free Press
April 15, 2009
http://www.chicagofreepress.com/node/3378


A recent report indicates that gay, lesbian and bisexual individuals and families are just as likely—if not more likely—to be poor, with lesbian couples hit especially hard.

Researchers at UCLA School of Law’s Williams Institute conducted the groundbreaking study, “Poverty in the Lesbian, Gay and Bisexual Community.” It is the first analysis of the poor and low-income GLB population.

Overall, the study found “clear evidence” that poverty is just as common among GLB people as it is among straights. It also discovered that certain groups within the GLB community (there are no data sets available that include transgender people) are worse off than others. For instance, same-sex families—particularly lesbian, African American same-sex and rural same-sex families—are significantly more likely to be poor when compared to the families of straight married couples. Several groups that are typically more likely to be poor, like women, rural folks and African Americans, are even worse off if they are GLB.

At the very least, the report helps strike down stereotypes about GLBT people. Several studies and surveys done over the years indicate that gays are more likely to maintain their spending habits during hard times, leading advertisers to chase the so-called “pink dollar” under the assumption that gays and lesbians are more well off and have discretionary money to spend. But the media’s regular attention to GLBT spending habits draws attention away from their severe vulnerability due to several factors, such as increased job discrimination and the inability to legally wed.

“It shows that gays and lesbians are pretty much just like everyone else,” said Williams Institute researcher Randy Albelda, a long-time poverty scholar and economics professor at the University of Massachusetts-Boston’s Center for Social Policy.

The report aims to make low-income and poor GLB people visible. It shows, for instance, that lesbian couples are more likely to be poor than married heterosexuals. The study also found that children of gay and lesbian couples, compared to the children of married heterosexual couples, are twice as likely to live in poverty.

While the study is eye opening and helps prove that GLBT people can be found all over the economic distribution spectrum, there is even more to be learned about poverty among GLBT people. Economist Lee Badgett, research director at Williams Institute, said that a “data issue” is the biggest reason why the Williams Institute study is the first of its kind.

While the researchers involved in the Williams Institute study found a way to get a better picture of poverty among GLB people, using data on same-sex unmarried partners from Census 2000, the 2002 National Survey of Family Growth and two California health surveys, the lack of data sets that include sexual orientation creates a barrier to getting adequate amounts of information. GLBT people are essentially invisible in poverty statistics available through the U.S. Census Bureau.

Currently, researchers like Badgett are stressing the need to get a sexual orientation question on such surveys. Having more available data sets would help researchers look at poverty rates among, for example, single gay parents, a population that Williams Institute researchers were unable to include because of a lack of data.

While Badgett said that through anecdotal evidence and other studies she anticipated that GLBT people are just as likely to be poor or low-income, she was still taken aback by the results.

“When you see the numbers for the first time, it’s shocking,” Badgett said. While she and others knew that GLBT people are vulnerable because of discrimination and other issues, they didn’t anticipate just how severe the problem is. The study blows the stereotype that gays and lesbians are better off out of the water, an important finding given the nation’s current economic situation.

An October 2008 survey conducted by Harris Interactive and Witeck-Combs Communications found that lesbian adults felt more vulnerable to the economic downturn. Three out of four lesbians reported that they thought lesbians would be impacted more than any other group by the worsening economy. The Williams Institute report, while unable to show how lesbians are currently coping with the recession, indicates that they had reason to be afraid during the time the survey was conducted.

Even when gay men and heterosexual men in similar situations are compared, gay men are shown to be much worse off. Albelda said that she was quite surprised that after adjusting for other areas, “being gay still mattered,” in terms of poverty rates.

She wasn’t shocked, however, that the results showed high rates of poverty among lesbians and GLB people of color. Both women and African Americans are vulnerable populations that deal with higher poverty rates due to discrimination and other factors.

“Historically poverty rates are also gendered,” Albelda said, noting that on average women make less than men. The study found that the poverty rate for lesbian families is 9.4 percent compared to 6.7 percent of heterosexual married couple families. Also, lesbian couples 65 and older are twice as likely to be poor than married heterosexual couples.

And while African Americans historically have significantly higher poverty and unemployment rates than whites, the report found that African American same-sex couples are significantly worse off than their heterosexual counterparts.

“All factors of poverty were exacerbated for gays and lesbians,” Albelda said.

Badgett said she and others were most surprised that the study revealed that gays and lesbians with kids are even more vulnerable. She feels the data related to gay parents can likely be traced back to inequality based on sexual orientation.

“They are economically more vulnerable probably because of the conditions of inequality they live in,” Badgett said.

The data in the poverty study is pre-recession, and researchers say time will only tell how much the GLBT community is impacted by the current economic conditions.

The researchers behind the study say that because of an “unfortunate data lag,” it will be hard to discover how hard GLBT people are being hit during lean times.

Badgett said that she and her colleagues have been looking at unemployment rates to get a better idea of what’s going on.

“This is looking at a time where things weren’t so bad economically, and yet we see staggering rates of poverty,” Badgett said. “In hard times, my guess is it’s even worse.”

Albelda agreed. “The fact is we’ve always been poor,” she said. “And if you were poor before the recession? Well—if anything, the only good thing is we’ve shown we are resilient and know how to survive.”

Williams Institute researchers hope that in addition to combating stereotypes about GLBT people, the study helps shed more light on the needs of our community to lawmakers and those working directly with poor and low-income people.

“I hope that funding for anti-poverty policies are divvied up appropriately and directed towards helping GLBT people,” Badgett said. She added that she also hopes the study helps address policies that cause inequality, such as anti-same-sex marriage laws.