As the Supreme Court appears poised to overturn Roe V. Wade, Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen testified to the Senate that doing so could have negative impacts to both patients who are denied the procedure and the economy at large.
Yellen testified to the Senate Banking Committee that access to abortion benefits the economy by allowing more women to be in the workforce and get an education—which increases their earning potential. For instance, after abortion restrictions were lifted following Roe v. Wade in 1973, Black women’s participation in the labor force increased by 6.9 percentage points, a 2000 study published in Research in Labor Economics found, though among white women it only increased by two points.
Yellen also noted abortion access helps keep more people out of poverty and in need of public assistance, and it improves children’s well-being and earning potential by extension.
A decade-long study that tracked 1,000 women—some of whom obtained abortions and some who were turned away from getting one—found those denied an abortion were more likely to experience household poverty, be unable to cover basic living expenses, have a lower credit score, have more debt and experience issues like bankruptcy and eviction — findings that were part of the Turnaway Study.
Women who were denied an abortion in the Turnaway Study experienced a 78% increase in the amount of debt they owe as compared with pre-pregnancy and have 81% more public financial records like bankruptcies and evictions, and this “financial distress” continued for at least five years after their children were born, according to a working paper from the National Bureau of Economic Data.
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