U.S. Period Poverty

Because menstruating people across the U.S., as well as in many other developed countries, lack pads and tampons to maintain menstrual hygiene due to homelessness or receiving governmental assistance, they are forced to improvise with their menstrual hygiene. 

Homeless Women

Approximately 165,849 women are homeless in the U.S. Most are forced to create makeshift pads for themselves due to the lack of laws ensuring free menstrual hygiene products are provided to these homeless women. These makeshift pads include socks, paper towels, plastic bags, toilet paper, towels, cotton balls, or clothing. This often ends in women staining their clothing, which leads many to wash their stained clothing while half-naked in public places, because many homeless people own only one pair of clothing. 

In some places across the U.S., there are distributions of pads and tampons to homeless women, but the distributions are often irregular, leading to women waiting long periods of time for them. This is inadequate for women relying on the distribution, because periods don’t wait for inconsistent distributions. In addition, women often resort to stealing menstrual products because they have no other means of ensuring menstrual hygiene.

Though some homeless shelters provide menstrual products, many women avoid them because they are known to be dangerous. This means that donations of pads and tampons made to homeless shelters aren’t necessarily reaching the women who need them most.

Low-Income Women

Twelve Million women and girls between the ages of 12 and 52 live below the poverty line in the U.S., accounting for 14 percent of women and girls in that age range (compared to 11% of boys and men). Many of these girls and women primarily rely on government assistance. Without assistance covering pads and tampons, these women are forced to create makeshift pads and tampons or miss school and/or work for the duration of their period.

Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP) is a program many Americans rely on to provide food for themselves and families. Sixty-three percent of adult recipients are women. Though not all of those women experience menstruation, SNAP doesn’t include pads and tampons in their payments for those experiencing it.

The lack of menstrual resources is a health crisis, yet Medicaid, a program many Americans rely on to provide healthcare, doesn’t cover the costs of pads and tampons for women and girls, either.

Women on SNAP and Medicaid are not necessarily able to afford pads and tampons without governmental assistance, which leaves them unable to properly manage their menstrual cycle along with millions of other girls and women. Similarly to homeless women, these women resort to extreme methods to maintain menstrual hygiene.