Natural disasters tend to make low income and poor people—the majority of whom are women—even more vulnerable to physical assault as well as to greater economic challenges in the years that follow.
If we are truly committed to communities of color, it is imperative that reproductive health and justice communities work to expand access to health care for low-income people.
New Census data released this month show a “breathtaking” rise in poverty among African-American children in the nation’s capital. Three out of 10 children in the District of Columbia were living in poverty last year, according to the Washington Post.
Census data from 2008 show an increase in the number of women who have lost income, lost private coverage and are falling into poverty. The increase in the number of women without coverage stems from the continued erosion of private insurance –- primarily through the loss of job-based coverage–even before the worst of the economic crisis hit.
