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Oklahoma ranks 46 (of 51) in women below the poverty line. The best-performing state is New Hampshire, with only 7.1% of its women living in poverty, and the worst-performing state is Louisiana at 20.6%.
Percentage of women ages 19-64 who live below the poverty level (for the year 2023)
Source: Kaiser Family Foundation
Women living in poverty generally don’t have enough money to meet basic needs like food, housing, healthcare, childcare, and transportation. This often means they have very low or no income, unstable jobs, or face barriers like discrimination, caregiving responsibilities, or lack of education or support.
The U.S. Census Bureau’s poverty threshold for a family with two adults and one child was $24,526 in 2023. The U.S. Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) issues poverty guidelines in late January of each year. Some programs make them effective on the date of publication, others at a later date. Therefore, the 2023 poverty guidelines are approximately equal to the poverty thresholds for 2022 (for most family sizes).
Poverty often leads to poor health outcomes. It is linked to both exposure to unhealthy environments and poor health-related behaviors, and is associated with an increased risk of chronic disease and early mortality.
Women living below the federal poverty level often struggle to meet basic needs such as adequate food, healthcare, and stable housing. They have higher rates of chronic illness, decreased access to healthy food, and an increased risk of sexual exploitation and trafficking.
Nationally, nearly one in nine women over 18 were living below the poverty line in 2023. Nearly one in three families headed by single women with children were poor.
Women are more likely to live in poverty than men – to the tune of 11% to 8.8% respectively, according to the Census Bureau’s official poverty measure (OPM). This disparity is linked to various factors, including wage gaps, limited access to economic opportunities, and other systemic challenges that disproportionately affect women.
These trends hold true in Oklahoma, where 17.5% of women live below the poverty level compared to just 12.7% of men.
While the federal poverty line (FPL) is an important measure of economic insecurity and is used to determine eligibility for many public assistance programs, it is narrow and outdated. It takes into account the cost of food as a proportion of families’ expenses but leaves out geographical differences and other essential costs of living, such housing, transportation, child care, and medical costs. One study found that more than 50 million households struggle to pay for basic necessities such as food, housing, and health care. However, only 16 million are officially classified as “in poverty.”
Women were already struggling to make ends meet before the pandemic. In 2019, nearly one in nine women – or 13.9 million – and more than one in seven children – nearly 10.5 million – lived in poverty. During the pandemic, job losses in every sector impacting women, and especially women of color, have pushed even more women closer than ever to experiencing poverty.
The American Community Survey did not release the 1-year estimates for 2020 due to significant disruptions to data collection brought on by the coronavirus pandemic. Despite the absence of 2020 data, there is an indication that women have not fully reentered the workforce, likely due in part to the financial burden of childcare.
This issue brief was written by Metriarch staff as part of our Data Lookbook. Contributions and peer review were provided by Emma Morris with Oklahoma Policy Institute.
Suggested citation
Metriarch. “Economic Factors,” Data Lookbook (2024). URL: metriarchok.org/women-experiencing-poverty.
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