CUSA Salutes Women’s History Month 2025
- Circles USA
- Apr 1
- 4 min read
Circles USA often salutes group history and/or “awareness” holidays in the final days of the month rather than the first days. The reason is simple: For us, building strong relationships with the people most directly impacted by poverty is a year-round mission—not a 30-day special occasion. We uplift these holidays in order to (1) share up-to-the-moment data on poverty trends, and (2) re-dedicate our national community of practice to addressing those equity gaps for the next 11 months, year after year…or until the disparity is fixed.
This framework supports, and is advanced by, every group of people in the Circles network. But it’s especially important to center women during Women’s History Month and beyond, because women have been—and remain—the cornerstone of our organization. Women lead and serve Circles USA at greater rates than any other demographic, comprising the vast majority of our chapter membership (both Circle Leaders and Allies), staff, contract workers, and Board. Further, women and girls face disproportionate obstacles to getting and staying out of poverty, often shouldering more than their share of domestic labor while experiencing major systemic barriers in schools, in workplaces, and in our legal system.
Here, Circles marks Women’s History Month 2025 with a two-part post: in Part One, we take a deep dive into key facts and figures on core issues affecting women’s economic wellbeing.
Women and Poverty: Surveying the Field
The U.S. Chamber of Commerce reports that, as of January 2025, the labor force participation rate for women aged 16 and over was 57.6%—slightly down from 59% in February 2020. And, whereas the February 2020 rate for women's participation was 59% (compared to 71.4% for men), by May 2024, women's rate of participation had dropped to 57.6%, while men's participation remained relatively stable.
The San Francisco Fed writes that “[a] substantial and unexpected rise in women’s labor force participation rates over the past few years has been a key factor spurring rapid labor force growth. In particular,” they note, “Hispanic women have made a disproportionately large contribution to post-pandemic growth in prime-age women’s participation rates.”
Amidst this growth, women remain underrepresented in leadership roles and certain industries. Ongoing challenges according to AP News sources include addressing systemic barriers and promoting work-life balance. Still, U.S. Department of Labor projections up to 2031 suggest that the number of women in the labor force will continue to grow. This will particularly impact women aged 25 and over, with an expected addition of approximately 2.9 million workers in the prime age group of 25 to 54.
Data further shows that gendered labor inequality isn’t limited to the workplace: Visual Capitalist estimates that single-mother families constitute approximately 20% of all families with children under 18 in the U.S., and these mothers face an overall poverty rate of 28%. Among single-parent families, BIPOC women face the highest rates of poverty, with 47% of Black mothers and 25% of Hispanic mothers raising children without partners. 28.4% of these Black single-mother families, 27.6% of Hispanic single-mother families, 19.3% of white single-mother families, and 14.6% of Asian single-mother families live in poverty. [Source]
Mass incarceration, the for-profit prison boom, and America’s legally enslaved workforce further undermine women’s social and economic mobility today—and the danger is worsening. According to The Sentencing Project, the number of incarcerated women and girls in the U.S. increased by over 585% between 1980 and 2022, surging from 26,326 to 180,684; and over 60% of imprisoned women in state prisons have a child under the age of 18. Women of color are disproportionately incarcerated in ratio to the U.S. population: The Prison Policy Initiative found that BIPOC women make up 41% of the prison and jail populations.
Ableism remains a major obstacle for women and girls, with approximately 1 in 4 U.S. adults (or over 70 million individuals) reported having a disability in 2022. Per the CDC and Bureau of Labor Statistics, approximately 13% of the U.S. population (or about 42 million individuals) reported having a disability in 2024. While that demographic breakdown is not yet available, data from previous years and recent studies suggests that women are more likely to experience disability than men, with 35% of women and 29% of men aged 55 and older reporting disabilities. For example, women are more likely than men to have mobility disabilities, such as serious difficulty walking or climbing stairs; and more likely to experience cognitive disabilities, including serious difficulty concentrating, remembering, or making decisions.
Finally, gendered discrimination compounds the economic outlook for women with disabilities: In 2023, according to Statista, the employment-population ratio for women with disabilities was 19.3%, compared to 27.3% for men with disabilities. And the UNH Disability Research Center found that among full-time, full-year workers, women with disabilities had a median annual earnings of $35,000, while men with disabilities earned $40,000. While UNH’s report doesn’t break down their data by demographic, it’s reasonable to conclude that (as with every form of discrimination cited here) race, ability, and other factors compound the wage gap for certain groups.
Join us for Part Two, where we’ll spotlight some women All Stars of Circles USA: leaders at every level who have set a high-water mark for dedication and ingenuity during CUSA’s 25+ years of building community to end poverty.
Check out last year’s exciting coverage of Women’s History Month:
To learn more about the extraordinary power of women in leadership at Circles USA, visit our Lives Transformed page, or watch our complete suite of documentary film shorts on YouTube.
