Gay and Lesbian Couples Experience Higher Poverty Rates

While just people in Delaware celebrate the recent defeat of SB 27, the bill that would have amended Delaware’s constitution ban all legal unions between same-sex couples, HB 5 yet to be considered in the state senate. HB5 would

prohibit discrimination on the basis of sexual orientation in housing, employment, public works contracting, public accommodations and insurance. (link)

One of the arguments frequently cited by opponents of past legislative iterations of HB 5 is that there is no evidence of harm or discrimination that comes from sexual orientation. Not so says a recent a study:

A study released on Friday (PDF) by the Williams Institute at the UCLA College of Law found that gay and lesbian couples face higher rates of poverty than heterosexual married couples.

“The myth of gay and lesbian affluence is just that – a myth,” said the study’s authors. “Lesbian, gay and bisexual individuals are as likely to be poor as are heterosexuals, while gay and lesbian couple households, after adjusting for the factors that help explain poverty, are more likely to be poor than married heterosexual couple households.” (link)

Children living same sex households are greatly affected:

Children living in a same-sex household had poverty rates that were twice as high as those of married couples. One in five children in same-sex families was poor compared to one in ten for married families.

Homosexual and bi-sexual persons experience higher poverty rates across the board:

The poverty rate for lesbian families is 9.4 percent compared to 6.7 percent for those in married families.

Twenty-four percent of lesbians and bisexual women faced poverty compared to 19 percent of women nationally.

Gay and bisexual men had poverty rates of 15 percent compared to 13 percent of all men.

The reasons why higher poverty rates occur among homosexual and bi-sexual persons ought to be intuitively obvious. But for the intuitively challenged:

“The social and policy context of LGB life provides many reasons to think that LGB people are at least as likely — and perhaps more likely — to experience poverty as are heterosexual people: vulnerability to employment discrimination, lack of access to marriage, higher rates of being uninsured, less family support, or family conflict over coming out,” the study concluded. “All of those situations could increase the likelihood of poverty among LGB people.”

Only a troglodyte doesn’t think this happens in Delaware. Only a sociopath knows that it happens but doesn’t care.