Poverty gap narrows for minorities - but not women

I just got a press release of sorts from a research team at Manchester College in Indiana. The Web site of the group is here, but it doesn't seem to be updated with the newest study, so I guess you'll just have to trust me.

Anyway, I found the study - basically an analysis of 2005 census data - interesting because many people tend to automatically think that poverty disproportionately affects minorities. (According to this, 68 percent of those in poverty nationally are white.) Well, what this press release indicates is that the "poverty gap" is narrowing for minorities, but not for women - and, as I think we all know by now, the income gap between the poor and rich is widening drastically.

Focusing on the most quickly narrowing gap, that for race, reveals that the effect is due principally to minority groups dropping in poverty rate, with white poverty remaining relatively stable (an 8.3% rate for whites in 2005 versus 8.5% in 1995, with only mild fluctuations in between, from 7.4% to 8.6%). During this same time period the Black poverty rate dropped from 29.3% to 24.9%; Hispanics from 30.2% to 21.8%; and Asians/Pacific Islanders from 14.6% to 11.1%. Generally speaking, minority groups experienced moderate to strong declines in poverty in the late 1990's followed by small increases in the new century.

Emphasis on that last part mine. Hmm, I wonder why that could be?

The poverty gap based on gender actually increased after a consistent seven-year decline. 14.1 percent of women and girls were in poverty in 2005, compared with 11.1 percent of males.  Females are now 27 percent more likely to be in poverty than males (up from 21 percent in 2004), returning to a disparity level not seen since 2000.  For females living in Black and Hispanic households the poverty rates are considerably higher, 26.9 and 23.9 percent respectively, compared to 14.1 percent overall.

How are women supposed to get ahead and take leadership positions if we keep getting left behind economically? I'd like to see a study of why this is. Is it the single-mother epidemic? Does discrimination in health care (i.e. not covering birth control in insurance plans, etc.) have anything to do with it?

According to research team statistician James Brumbaugh-Smith, Associate Professor of Mathematics, "While the closing of some poverty gaps is encouraging, in 2005 the income gap between the top 5% and the bottom 10% was the widest observed since the Census Bureau began publishing such data in 1967.  The 95th percentile income is now 14.7 times higher than income at the 10th percentile. This measure of inequality is 29 percent higher than first observed in 1967 and 14 percent higher than in 1995."

"There is some hope for the future as some demographic gaps generally narrowed over the decade, but the gaps are still there," says lead researcher Neil Wollman, Senior Fellow of the Peace Studies Institute and Professor of Psychology.  "These poverty gaps are not good for a society that holds equality as one of its important values. Happiness is affected by the ways our values play out in the world and how we feel that we stack up next to our fellow citizens."      

I couldn't agree with Wollman more.

I'll keep trying to find a link for this... if anyone's really skeptical, I'll be happy to forward you the e-mail. :)