And here we go again. The New York Times is getting in on the stereotyping action this time. The article, in the Business Media/Advertising section is titled "A Community With Money? Of Course Marketers Want In on That" and it's full of the same type of mythology you might find in an opinion by Justice Antonin Scalia:
Howard Buford, the president and chief executive for Prime Access, a multicultural advertising agency, said one factor favoring the group for advertisers is two-income households where both partners are men, who still make more on average than women.
“When you have a male couple, that effect gets amplified,” Mr. Buford said.
And while more LGBT couples are having children of their own or adopting children, Mr. Buford said many couples did not have children, leaving them with more disposable income and “disposable time” for travel and entertainment. The sour economy might also prompt brands to go beyond their usual general market targets, Mr. Buford said. “The need for sales and profitability is more compelling than, ‘Hmm, I wonder if we should do this.’ ”
See? Two men make money and childless gays make even more! We're really just swimming in the money here. Seriously, you should all be gay so you can get rich, too! Except that's not the case at all:
The only valid scientific research (properly using matched pairs) I know of on the incomes and relative wealth regarding gay people and non-gay people was conducted at the behest of the State of Maryland by then-University of Maryland -- College Park professor Lee Badgett. Lee has done followup work on behalf of NGLTF's Policy Institute, MIT, and the U.S. Census Bureau, some of which expanded on her original work's holes in ignoring the effects of lack of right to marry on couples' lifetime incomes. Her subsequent work also increased the information available on gay parents' incomes.
What Lee has consistently found is that, as with every other form of discriminatory oppression, homohatred has a negative effect on income. In other words, as a people, gay people are poorer than non-gay people due to antigay oppression and that, when other oppressions such as those based on race and sex are added to homohatred, the negative effect is compounded. Lesbians are thus poorer than gay men and lesbians of color raising children are, as a group, the poorest of us all -- which is very important information given that lesbians of color are the most likely of us to raise children.
There are, of course, gay people with plenty of disposable income but they are a niche and not the norm and, even they, as a niche group, are negatively affected fiscally by antigay oppression. In other words, as a subgroup, wealthy gay men, when taken as a whole, are less wealthy than wealthy non-gay men. (Ah, the blessings of matched pair research!)
This has already been covered quite well here at DailyKos by RfrancisR, in 2010:
The reality is Gay men suffer significant job and wage discrimination, and lesbians do not earn more than straight females:
Is job-related bias a problem? A new study by economist Dr. Lee Badgett and her colleagues at UCLA indicates that it is. Their report, Bias in the Workplace: Consistent Evidence of Sexual Orientation and Gender Identity Discrimination, was released last week and is available from the Williams Institute’s web site.
Dr. Badgett and her coauthors reviewed findings from more than 50 studies that addressed employment discrimination among sexual and gender minorities. As would be expected in any such review, the methodologies and results varied considerably across the studies. The data clearly show, however, that workplace discrimination is disturbingly widespread.
Some of Dr. Badgett’s main findings:
Gay men earn 10%-32% less than similarly qualified heterosexual men. Data for lesbians don’t reveal a consistent pattern of pay differences from heterosexual women but, like heterosexual women, lesbians earn less than men.
Badgett's study goes on to say:
We find clear evidence that poverty is at least as common in the LGB population as among heterosexual
people and their families.
After adjusting for a range of family characteristics that help explain poverty, gay and lesbian couple families are significantly more likely to be poor than are heterosexual married couple families.
Notably, lesbian couples and their families are much more likely to be poor than heterosexual couples and their families.
Children in gay and lesbian couple households have poverty rates twice those of children in heterosexual married couple households.
Within the LGB population, several groups are much more likely to be poor than others. African American people in same-sex couples and same-sex couples who live in rural areas are much more likely to be poor than white or urban same-sex couples.
While a small percentage of all families receive government cash supports intended for poor and low-income families, we find that gay and lesbian individuals and couples are more likely to receive these supports than are heterosexuals.
And I've written before:
Another study notes that the government punishment of banning our marriages and government protected employment discrimination are huge factors in creating poorer gay people. Far from being white and affluent, the LGBT community is multiracial and living in poverty.
The study says, "same-sex partners are more likely to be poor than their heterosexual counterparts because they lack access to safety nets such as a spouse's health insurance coverage and Social Security survivor benefits."
Even moreso now that the economy is doing horribly. And it costs a lot of extra money to be gay. This is a direct result of the government punishing us for being gay through discriminatory laws.
The New York Times studied the costs of just being gay and found, "In our worst case, the couple’s lifetime cost of being gay was $467,562. But the number fell to $41,196 in the best case for a couple with significantly better health insurance, plus lower taxes and other costs."
Strangely, the NYT article seems to admit that this advertising strategy has nothing to do with being gay, after spending lots of paragraph perpetuating the gay wealth myth:
Joe Landry, the senior vice president and group publisher at Here Media, whose properties include OUT magazine, The Advocate and Gay.com, said the company had a base of luxury advertisers that wanted to target “affluent men with a lot of disposable income.” Mr. Landry said. “Being gay is really besides the point.”
The myth that gays and lesbians are rich harms our community in lots of different ways, not the least of which is the apathy it can create among our allies. If we're all really rich and privileged, then our gripes really don't matter. If we're seen as just seeking tax breaks or Social Security payments from deceased spouses or whatever else it makes us look worse than, say, if we're seeking jobs and the ability to not be fired on the spot for being gay. Or if we're trying to not be shot in the street just for being gay, or burned to death at a 'friend's' house. Or witch-hunted by the government.
In short, the myth helps the people who are trying to oppress us. It's strange to see the New York Times acting as if it's true. Most gays are part of the 99%. Too many gays, including gay teenagers, are actually homeless and jobless, kicked out of both because of homophobia. If we keep distorting that reality we'll never change it.