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1 Working Wives - Their Contribution to Family Income 1 (1968)

handle is hein.tera/wrkngwvs0001 and id is 1 raw text is: U.S. DEPARTMENT OF LABOR WAGE AND LABOR STANDARDS ADMINISTRATION WOMEN'S BUREAU WASHINGTON, D.C. 20210 WORKING WIVES--THEIR CONTRIBUTION TO FAMILY INCOME Nearly half of all women 18 to 64 years of age work in any one month. About 3 out of 5 of these women are married and living with their husbands. Almost all of these wives contribute to family income. It is often the wife's earnings that raise family income above poverty levels.lj In other families the wife's contribution raises the family's income from low- to middle-income levels. In fact, it is at the middle-income level that the largest proportion of wives are in the labor force. There were 42.6 million husband-wife families in the United States in March 1967. (Table 1) In 15 million of these families, the wife was in the paid labor force. In the husband-wife families where the wife was an earner, the median family income in 1966 V was $9,246 a year. In those families where the wife did not work, the median family income was $7,128. The likelihood of escaping poverty is much greater among husband-wife families when the wife is an earner than when she is not. Nearly 5 million husband-wife families had incomes of less than $3,000 in 1966. Only 5 per- cent of all husband-wife families fell into this income group when the wife was in the paid labor force; 15 percent, when she was 'not. Another 1.4 million husband-wife families, in which the wife was an earner, had incomes between $3,000 and $4,999 in 1966. Many of these families might have fallen into the poverty group except for the wife's contribution to family income. An income of about $7,000 in 1966 dollars is considered a modest but adequate income for an urban family of four. Twenty-nine percent of all husband-wife families had incomes below this mark when the wife was a worker; 49 percent, when she was not. Another 2.8 million husband-wife families in which the wife was an earner had annual incomes of $7,000 to $8,999. A large proportion of these families might have received incomes below the modest but adequate level if the wife had not been a worker. l/ For purposes of this study, families with incomes of less than $3,000 a year were considered to be living in poverty. 2/ This is the latest date for which information is available.