A financial disadvantage

There is a persistent stereotype of the affluent gay male couple. But the numbers suggest otherwise. A report published by the Williams Institute of UCLA in 2019 suggests that LGBT individuals consistently experience higher poverty rates than their straight counterparts. The authors state: "LGBT people collectively have a poverty rate of 21.6%, which is much higher than the rate for cisgender straight people of 15.7% (Badgett, 2019, p. 2)."

LGBT individuals are poorer than their straight counterparts overall, but some sub-groups face greater challenges than others. For instance, poverty rates are highest for transgender persons and bisexual women (29.4%), while cisgender gay men having a poverty rate that is slightly lower (12.1%) than cisgender straight men (13.4%) (Badgett, 2019, p. 2).

Additional factors, such as race, age, and disability, as well as geography, further affect the financial position of LGBT adults, with white LGBT individuals experiencing a poverty rate of 15.4%, as compared to 30.8% for Black LGBT individuals and 37.3% for Hispanic LGBT persons overall (Badgett, 2019, p. 13).

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Learn more about the financial challenges faced by LGBT adults, including into old age. Check out the full report from the Williams Institute.

LGBT Poverty in the United States

References:

Badgett, M. V. L., Durso, L., & Schneebaum, A. (2013, June). New patterns of poverty in the lesbian, gay, and bisexual community. Williams Institute, UCLA School of Law. https://williamsinstitute.law.ucla.edu/publications/lgb-patterns-of-poverty/

Gender Identity Gender identity icon Our core sense of who we are as a man, a woman, a mixture of both, or neither.

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