The National Center for Transgender Equality joins a group of national LGBT equality and labor organizations to release a groundbreaking report, Broken Bargain: Discrimination, Fewer Benefits and More Taxes for LGBT Workers. The new report is the most up to date publication on the LGBT workforce revealing:
- Approximately 5.4 million LGBT workers live in 93% of all U.S. counties.
- Thirty-seven percent of LGBT adults have a child, making family benefits a necessity.
- LGBT people are at higher risk of poverty than non-LGBT people. Fifteen percent of transgender people have a household income under $10,000, compared to 4% of the population as a whole. Same-sex couples raising children are more than twice as likely to have household incomes near the poverty line compared to different-sex parents (21% vs. 9%).
- LGBT workers are slightly more racially/ethnically diverse than the U.S. population as a whole.
NCTE Executive Director Mara Keisling noted that transgender workers face a unique set of workplace challenges that may lead to the disproportionately high rate of unemployment. “The demand for transgender-inclusive nondiscrimination laws is as much a business case as it is a moral case. Employers struggle to keep great employees, and trans employees are twice as likely as the general public to hold advanced degrees, yet have twice the rate of unemployment,” Keisling said. “Instituting laws and policies that protect highly qualified transgender workers is good for everyone–employers and employees.”