The Reality behind the Economic Status of Gays

The Williams Institute will release a study focusing on the real economic status within the LGBT community. If you thought that we were better off than our straight fam, you would be very wrong.

NBC News reports:

The biggest issue is that LGBT people are invisible in most big surveys. The biggest surveys that the Census Bureau does have asked no questions about sexual orientation or gender identity. Every survey has questions about race, about marital status, about disability, about ethnicity, about whether people have kids – all these things that matter in people’s lives and influence people’s vulnerability to poverty – but they don’t ask whether you’re lesbian, gay, bisexual or transgender in most surveys. They have started asking about household relationships in ways that allow us to identify people who are living with an unmarried partner of the same sex. That’s created a big statistical revolution in terms of LGBT research but there still are a lot of people who are left out.

And

There are lots of people in same-sex couples who are poor, and that is an important takeaway. The gap is clear in the raw data for some of these comparisons. For example, for lesbians, if you just look at the poverty rate for women in same-sex couples (7.6 percent), it’s higher than the poverty rate for women in different-sex couples (5.7 percent). For gay men, it’s a little more complicated a story, and race plays a big part. The economic status of lesbians is quite different and often more vulnerable compared to men. It’s a reminder of just how much of an important role gender still plays in determining people’s economic outcome.

Please read the rest of the article at the NBC News link. Very eye-opening.

We are Not as Fab as You think

The myth that gays have money to burn, is really a myth.

The truth was revealed in a study done by the Williams Institute at the UCLA. They found that lesbian and gay couples are more likely to be living in poverty than other couples.

The analysis found that 7 percent of lesbian couples are living below the poverty line, compared to 4 percent of gay male couples and 5 percent of opposite-sex couples. The study also found that after “adjusting for a range of family characteristics that help explain poverty,” same-sex couples are “significantly” more likely to be poor than opposite-sex married couples.

About 24 percent of lesbians and bisexual women are poor, compared to 19 percent of straight women, the study says. About 15 percent of gay and bisexual men are living in poverty, a rate that’s akin to the 13 percent of straight men who are poor, the report says. “The myth of gay and lesbian affluence is just that — a myth,” the report says. “Lesbian, gay and bisexual individuals are as likely to be poor as are heterosexuals.”

The report also revealed a number of other findings related to poverty and gay couples:

• Children of gay couples are living in poverty at a rate that is twice as much as the children of straight married couples;

• Black people in same-sex relationships are gay couples who live in rural areas are much more likely to be poor than white or urban same-sex couples;

• Gay couples are more likely than straight couples to receive government support intended for low-income families.

So don't fooled by the Prada glasses, the True Religion Jeans or the Circuit Party trips...hopefully these folks are saving money. I know I have to for my Louis Vuitton obsession.