More than half of battered women surveyed stayed with their batterer because they did not feel that they could support themselves and their children.

• "27% of battered women surveyed said they were prevented from having any access to money by their abuser; 51% lacked access to charge accounts."
  
  
• Two-thirds of America's minimum wage workers are women. Only 10% of women workers earn more than $12.65 per hour.
  
  
• Women earned 70¢ for every dollar men earned in 1991. Translated to full-time annual earnings, women earned $20,553 compared with $29,421 earned by men.
  
  
• "One Massachusetts court worker reported in 1992 that in four hundred cases in which she helped women get restraining orders, only three judges ordered temporary financial support."

• In a 1988 study, battering resulted in absenteeism from work in 55% of battered women, lateness or leaving early in 62%, job loss in 24%, and batterer harassment at work in 56%. In addition, 33% of battered women in this sample reported being prohibited from working, 59% were discouraged from working, 24% were not allowed to attend school, 50% were discouraged from attending school, and the abuse prevented 21% from finding work.

• A study comparing homeless and low-income housed (never homeless) female heads of households between August 1992 and July 1995 found that "overall, 86.7% of all respondents reported experiencing severe physical violence, sexual assault, and/or sexual molestation in childhood, adolescence, or adulthood.
  
  
• "A recent survey of 12 work programs serving welfare mothers across the U.S. revealed that over half of all participants are being abused at home. ... Domestic violence is also a prime reason why women get on welfare in the first place. Preliminary research ... on a sample of Chicago welfare recipients found that nearly half mentioned abusive relationships as a factor in their need for welfare. Officials at some battered women's shelters report from 60% to 95% of the women they help spend some time on welfare as they struggle to recover from years of abuse."
  
  
• In Vermont, Project Self-Sufficiency reported: "[t]he 1989 year proved once again that the greatest barriers to employment are not necessarily the most obvious. ... Out of the 20 women who completed the program, two were raped during the course of the year while others experienced attempted assault. Fourteen of the women were in either `active' battering situations or had just left them; 15 of the 20 were survivors of incest or child sexual abuse.... As can be seen, the major crisis for the women this year was battering and sexual abuse. When one is experiencing such extreme violence it is virtually impossible to muster the self-esteem and motivation needed for career explorations."