Since the “War on Poverty” was declared in the 1960s, poverty as a social condition has evolved, and the United States has rapidly become an unequal income-attaining nation, and income attainment among Hispanic women living in the U.S. is a cause for national concern.

Severe gaps in educational attainment, weak attachment to the labor market, wage segregation, and rising income and wealth disparities have crippled Hispanic women’s ability to advance and achieve new economic security and generational wealth levels.   

Projections are that by 2060, Hispanic women will form nearly a third of the female population in the United States (Gandara, 2015), but many of these women will continue to be mired in poverty if social welfare practitioners fail to address the root causes of social and economic mobility for this group. 

Hispanic female householders are often the sole providers of their household, and financial affordability is often a barrier to securing healthcare, education, childcare, housing, and transportation. 

Financial difficulties are often compounded for Hispanic women with citizenship barriers, poor education, labor, and health outcomes, and who reside in highly unequal geographic regions that do not provide access to opportunity.  

Although Hispanic women are entering primary and secondary education at higher rates than ever before, entry into the educational system does not entirely guarantee student retention or degree completion.  Nor does it secure a good-paying job or a pathway to economic security.

The U.S. labor market has been driven by decades of public and private institutional forces, which are interrelated with the economic sector producing occupational segregation, wage inequities, and the extent and effectiveness of policy responses related to labor, all of which contribute to the decline in labor-force activity and income attainment (Groshen & Holzer, 2019).

Findings from this study suggest that ten years after the Great Recession, a representative sample of Hispanic female householders in the U.S. are still struggling to graduate from high school, get a college degree, and hold a job that secures income levels at par with men, and other women of other racial and ethnic backgrounds (Abreu, 2022).

The unequal education system has followed Hispanic women into the workforce in segregated career pathways with lower wages. Levin and colleagues (2006) computed the lifetime economic benefit to society for converting a female Hispanic high school dropout to a high school graduate at more than $171,000 per graduate.

Hispanic women in the United States have made significant contributions to society and the economy, yet they are not all faring well 10 years after the Great Recession. As the number of Hispanic female-headed families rises, so does that segment of the female population whose economic well-being and quality of life depend heavily on improving their social and economic status. The future of the United States very much depends on the future of Hispanic women.