On the heels of another dismal job report and a flaming national debate over the meaning of marriage, the Center for American Progress presents a snapshot of the unmarried in today’s economy. It turns out that single women of color, despite their vital economic contributions as consumers, parents and workers, bear the brunt of the economy’s decline and the failed policies that have deepened the recession.
According to the report, unmarried women fare much worse than married couples on nearly every measure of economic well-being, including home ownership (30 percent of unmarried women, 80 percent of married couples), household income and poverty rates.
And during lean times, “Single women have fewer savings to fall back on if they become unemployed or have their earnings cut.” The gender wealth gap turns into a yawning chasm when you factor in race, as recently detailed in an earlier report by the Insight Center showing a vast disparity in the median net wealth of women of color compared with white women.
Unmarried status, CAP says, not only means women lack the cushion of an additional household income, but penalizes them on a community level by compounding the racial wealth gap:
Unmarried women of color have even less economic security than their white counterparts. This is a particular concern because women of color are more likely to be unmarried and facing the economic insecurity associated with their marital status. For instance, 68 percent of adult black women are unmarried, as are 47 percent of Hispanic women, compared with 43 percent of white women….
What’s more, women who maintain families—the vast majority of whom are single mothers—have the highest unemployment rate of all women. Fifteen percent of black single mothers were unemployed in 2009, as were 11.6 percent of Hispanic single mothers, compared with 6.6 percent of black and 9.7 percent of Hispanic married women, the ethnic group with the highest unemployment rate for married women. This high unemployment rate for married Hispanic married women results in a smaller gap between the unemployment rates of Hispanic married and unmarried women than for blacks and whites.
Drawing from the experience of the Recovery Act, the report outlines some potential policy solutions that could turn women of color’s financial liabilities into assets. For example, targeted jobs programs that don’t just focus on male-dominated industries like construction, or reforms to welfare-to-work programs that actually move women into real careers instead of dead-end low-wage jobs.It also wouldn’t hurt to revise the tax codes that privilege married heterosexuals and unemployment insurance policies that discriminate against low-income women. And while they’re at it, Congress ought to finally begin dismantling the perverse barriers in the Fair Labor Standards Act that exclude domestic workers, a sector dominated by immigrant women of color.
Mired at the bottom of the racial wealth divide, single women of color need not just a safety net but a ladder: labor policies that respect their autonomy as workers, and social programs that enable them to strike out on their own while ensuring their families have something to lean on.
Truthout Is Preparing to Meet Trump’s Agenda With Resistance at Every Turn
Dear Truthout Community,
If you feel rage, despondency, confusion and deep fear today, you are not alone. We’re feeling it too. We are heartsick. Facing down Trump’s fascist agenda, we are desperately worried about the most vulnerable people among us, including our loved ones and everyone in the Truthout community, and our minds are racing a million miles a minute to try to map out all that needs to be done.
We must give ourselves space to grieve and feel our fear, feel our rage, and keep in the forefront of our mind the stark truth that millions of real human lives are on the line. And simultaneously, we’ve got to get to work, take stock of our resources, and prepare to throw ourselves full force into the movement.
Journalism is a linchpin of that movement. Even as we are reeling, we’re summoning up all the energy we can to face down what’s coming, because we know that one of the sharpest weapons against fascism is publishing the truth.
There are many terrifying planks to the Trump agenda, and we plan to devote ourselves to reporting thoroughly on each one and, crucially, covering the movements resisting them. We also recognize that Trump is a dire threat to journalism itself, and that we must take this seriously from the outset.
After the election, the four of us sat down to have some hard but necessary conversations about Truthout under a Trump presidency. How would we defend our publication from an avalanche of far right lawsuits that seek to bankrupt us? How would we keep our reporters safe if they need to cover outbreaks of political violence, or if they are targeted by authorities? How will we urgently produce the practical analysis, tools and movement coverage that you need right now — breaking through our normal routines to meet a terrifying moment in ways that best serve you?
It will be a tough, scary four years to produce social justice-driven journalism. We need to deliver news, strategy, liberatory ideas, tools and movement-sparking solutions with a force that we never have had to before. And at the same time, we desperately need to protect our ability to do so.
We know this is such a painful moment and donations may understandably be the last thing on your mind. But we must ask for your support, which is needed in a new and urgent way.
We promise we will kick into an even higher gear to give you truthful news that cuts against the disinformation and vitriol and hate and violence. We promise to publish analyses that will serve the needs of the movements we all rely on to survive the next four years, and even build for the future. We promise to be responsive, to recognize you as members of our community with a vital stake and voice in this work.
Please dig deep if you can, but a donation of any amount will be a truly meaningful and tangible action in this cataclysmic historical moment.
We’re with you. Let’s do all we can to move forward together.
With love, rage, and solidarity,
Maya, Negin, Saima, and Ziggy