How does gender relate to poverty status? Official data breakdown
In 2014, the overall poverty rate in the United States was
15%. Poverty rates by gender ranged from 13% to 16%.
Poverty rates by gender were:
13% for males
16% for females
Another way to think about the relationship between poverty
and gender is to look at how the gender distribution of
people in poverty compares to that of the population as a whole.
By that measure, in 2014 females comprise a greater share of the
population in poverty than their share of the general population;
while males are underrepresented.
Source:
DeNavas-Walt, Carmen and Bernadette D. Proctor,
Income and Poverty in the United States: 2014. U.S. Census
Bureau. Current Population Reports P60-252, U.S. Government
Printing Office, Washington, DC, 2015. (PDF)
Accessed 10/14/2015
The official poverty statistics, which have been in use since the
1960s, calculate poverty status by comparing a family’s or
an individual’s cash income to their poverty threshold.
