Market Watch reports:
“New research from the Williams Institute estimates 1 in 5 LGBTQ Americans (21.6%) lives in poverty. The estimate compares to a 15.7% poverty rate among their cisgender straight counterparts.”
“Being LGBT increases the risk of poverty overall,” the study’s authors wrote. But not everyone in the LGBTQ community experiences the same hardships.
For starters, transgender people’s poverty rate (29.4%) towers over other groups, as does the poverty rate of bisexual cisgender women (also 29.4%). Bisexual cisgender men are also more likely (19.5%) to live in poverty than other groups, according to the study. To put that in context: Both lesbian and straight cisgender women (17.9% and 17.8%, respectively) are more likely to live in poverty than gay and straight cisgender men (12.1% and 13.4%, respectively).
“This report also identifies a range of contributors to elevated rates of poverty among LGBT people, including lower educational attainment, unemployment, poor health, and disability,” the authors of the latest study wrote. “Addressing these differences, as well as ensuring access to employment through legal protections, may serve to reduce poverty among LGBT adults.”