Domestic Violence Is an Economic Issue. Why Business Leaders Should Care

June 15, 2026  
By Rhanda Luna


Every time funding for domestic violence and sexual assault services is cut, the public conversation sounds very familiar. We hear about budgets. Deficits. Fiscal responsibility. Difficult choices. But we rarely hear about the bill that comes later.


Domestic violence and sexual assault do not disappear when funding disappears. The need, the danger, the consequences - don't vanish. The costs just get moved around.


Costs move to hospitals and emergency rooms, to schools trying to support struggling children, to court systems and law enforcement agencies. Costs move to families, neighbors, and communities, and they move quietly into workplaces across the country so that eventually, everyone pays.


For decades, domestic violence has been treated as a private matter. Something that happens behind closed doors. Unfortunate, certainly, but separate from broader conversations about workforce development, economic growth, and public policy.


That framing has never made sense to me. By that logic, private matters don't show up in attendance records, don’t drive healthcare expenditures, increase turnover, reduce workforce participation, or affect economic mobility. Yet domestic violence affects all of those things, which means it is an economic issue whether we choose to call it one or not.


This isn't theoretical. We can already see the strain on the systems designed to respond.


According to the National Network to End Domestic Violence's 2025 Domestic Violence Counts Survey, Texas programs served 8,933 adults and children in a single 24-hour period. During that same day, programs received 1,848 hotline contacts and were forced to turn away or otherwise leave unmet 1,957 requests for services because of insufficient funding, staffing, or resources. Approximately 28% of those unmet requests were for emergency shelter or housing-related support.


Nearly 2,000 Texans sought help in a single day and could not receive it because the system lacked capacity. The need did not disappear, nor did the crisis. The burden shifted to families, employers, schools, healthcare systems, and local communities.


This matters because the economic consequences of violence begin long before someone reaches a shelter or calls a hotline. Research has consistently found that survivors experience disruptions in employment, income, and economic stability. Violence affects attendance, job retention, career advancement, educational attainment, and long-term earning potential. By the time a survivor seeks formal services, the economic impact is often already underway.


Trauma-informed leadership recognizes that people do not leave their life experiences at the door when they come to work. The effects of violence often show up in ways organizations recognize but rarely connect to their root causes: absenteeism, turnover, disengagement, health challenges, and workforce instability. When organizations ignore those realities, they do not eliminate their impact. They simply leave themselves less equipped to respond.


People tend to think of domestic violence services as a moral issue or a charitable issue. To some extent, they are. But they are also something else: economic infrastructure. We rarely describe them that way, yet their function is similar. They help people remain housed, employed, educated, and economically engaged during periods of crisis. When that infrastructure weakens, the effects are felt far beyond the individual survivor.


When a survivor has access to safe housing, legal advocacy, counseling, childcare support, transportation assistance, or emergency resources, they are more likely to remain employed, maintain housing, complete their education, and continue participating in the economy. When the supports disappear, the outcomes do not remain isolated to that individual; the effects ripple outward.


The CDC estimates the lifetime economic burden of rape alone at more than $3 trillion. More than half of those costs are tied directly to lost productivity. These trillions of dollars are not coming from shelter operations, victim services, or prevention programs. They're coming directly from lost productivity, lost wages, lost work, and ultimately lost economic contribution.


The largest cost associated with violence is what happens when we don't help survivors.


And even those staggering figures fail to capture the full picture. Some costs are never measured at all. Promotions never pursued because someone is focused on survival instead of advancement. Businesses never started. Degrees never completed. You won’t read about that in economic reports, but employers experience those losses every day, and this is what makes current funding conversations so frustrating.


Some of the same leaders advocating for workforce development, talent retention, economic growth, and stronger communities are simultaneously supporting cuts to the systems that help people remain stable enough to participate in those outcomes.


Those positions are fundamentally at odds with one another. We cannot simultaneously advocate for workforce development while dismantling the infrastructure that helps millions of workers remain safe, employed, and productive.


It is like demanding a stronger bridge while removing bolts from its foundation.


Survivors understand this reality intimately because we are often the first to see what happens when services disappear. The burden doesn't disappear with them. It shifts to parents covering childcare, coworkers covering shifts, teachers supporting struggling students, neighbors opening their homes, and communities filling gaps with unpaid labor and personal sacrifice.


If you're a CEO, this affects your workforce.

If you're a business owner, it affects your hiring pipeline.

If you're a legislator, this affects your state's economy.

If you're a taxpayer, this affects public expenditures.

If you're a philanthropist, this affects every outcome you care about.


You may care about domestic violence because it is morally wrong (and I certainly hope you do), but even if you don't, the economics are proof that you are already paying for it.


The only question is whether we invest in prevention and support now, or continue paying exponentially more later through crisis response, workforce disruption, and lost human potential.


I know many leaders pride themselves on being data-driven, and that’s fantastic.


The data is clear. Domestic violence is not a women's issue, it is an economic issue, and whether you realize it or not, you are already paying for it.



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Rhanda Luna is a nonprofit consultant, fundraising strategist, and doctoral researcher specializing in trauma-informed leadership and organizational culture. To work with Rhanda, visit artfornonprofits.com or email rhanda@artfornonprofits.com