Summary
This report from The Williams Institute of UCLA School of Law uses data from the California Health Interview Survey (CHIS) to examine and compare lesbian, gay and bisexual (LGB) poverty rates with poverty rates among heterosexual people.
Among the findings, the authors note that one-third of lesbian couples and 20.1 percent of gay male couples without a high school diploma are in poverty, compared to 18.8 percent of different-sex married couples; African American same-sex couples have poverty rates more than twice the rate of different-sex married African Americans; and, among women 18-44 years old, more than a quarter of bisexual women are poor (29.4 percent) and more than 1 in 5 lesbians are in poverty (22.7 percent).
The data "help to debunk the persistent stereotype of the affluent gay man or lesbian…[and] are consistent with the view that LGB people continue to face economic challenges that affect their income and life chances, such as susceptibility to employment discrimination, higher rates of being uninsured, and a lack of access to various tax and other financial benefits via exclusion from the right to marry," the authors note.