What the Latest Census Data Reveal About Families, an NWLC Analysis
Families are at risk. Times are tough. That's not a newsflash, but the Census data released September 16, 2010 offer some painful clarity to this picture. The National Women’s Law Center has crunched the numbers and what they mean for parents, advocates, and policymakers alike.
Here are some key points from NWLC's analysis:
- Poverty among women climbed to 13.9 percent in 2009, the highest rate in 15 years and the largest single year increase since 1980. Rates are even higher for women of color and single mothers. More than 15.4 million children lived in poverty last year, over half of them with single mothers.
- Lack of insurance coverage among women has never been so high: 19.1 million women aged 18-64 — nearly 1 in 5 — are uninsured. Even more women would have joined the ranks of the uninsured without the safety net of public health insurance programs such as Medicaid.
- For women in the workforce, the wage gap hasn’t budged: women still make only 77 cents for every dollar their male counterparts earn. In an already down economy, women and their families remain shortchanged by an unfair wage gap.
These numbers are staggering. We can’t gloss over the stark reality of what women, children and families are facing.
