[Video] Anika Rahman on GRITtv: Fighting the Womancession

On May 12, Laura Flanders of GRITtv hosted Ms. Foundation President and CEO, Anika Rahman, for a diverse conversation on the economy and women's rights. Their discussion ranged from the "womancession" now facing our nation, according to a new Ms. Foundation poll, which shows that the impact of the economic crisis on women has been particularly severe; to Anika's personal stake in the fight for women's rights nationwide; to the role that we and our grantees, as demonstrated in this year's Gloria Award winners, play in advancing the progressive women's movement. Enjoy!




[Source: GRITtv]

The Verdict Is In: Stimulus Funding Kept Rising Poverty at Bay

If there was ever any doubt that the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act (ARRA) had a positive impact on the economy and those facing grave economic insecurity, a new report indicates that those doubts can now officially be put to rest.

Recent analysis of data from the US Census Bureau shows that thanks to the temporary expansion of our social safety net under ARRA, more than 4.5 million people were kept out of poverty in 2009 -- making ARRA, "one of the single most effective pieces of antipoverty legislation in decades," according to the Center on Budget and Policy Priorities.

For those who struggled most profoundly through this economic crisis -- including women and people of color, who were disproportionately affected by the tanking economy -- we now know these funds irrefutably made a difference, putting more money in the pockets of everyday Americans to keep them above the poverty line and providing vital connections to much needed social services and work supports (think child care, early education, health care and the like). But despite the major wins that ARRA achieved, its effects may end up being short-lived -- thanks to the "natural" expiry of ARRA funds and Conservative efforts to block spending on these important services going forward.

Read more »

Upcoming Event: Program Officer Sangeeta Budhiraja Leads Conversation on Women and Economic Recovery

On Wednesday, December 15 at 2pm EST join the National Council for Research on Women and Ms. Foundation Program Officer Sangeeta Budhiraja for an important online conversation about how to build pathways to greater economic security for women and their families.

The webinar, "Women and Economic Recovery: A View from the States," will feature a discussion of the Ms. Foundation's Southern focus and provide a snapshot of our economic security work in the South, where we fund a range of organizations crafting unique solutions to the economic crisis. "Our grantees in the South are taking a holistic approach to economic security," says Budhiraja. "They're looking at the economic crisis from a perspective that takes into account the nuanced ways it has affected women -- particularly low income women of color, who have suffered greatly throughout the recession. Immigrant organizations, child care advocacy organizations, job training programs, and organizations pushing for job quality and increased social supports: these are the groups leading the way to true economic recovery -- and we're proud to be partnered with them."

Budhiraja will be joined in conversation by Randy Albelda, Professor of Economics and Senior Research Fellow at the Center for Social Policy at the University of Massachusetts, Boston, who will share research findings from the report "Women in the Down Economy: Impacts of the Recession and the Stimulus in Massachusetts."

Be a part of this important discussion about the economic future of women and girls. To participate, register today.

Ms. Foundation Grantee Speaks Out on Failure of TANF Extension

We've written a number of times on this blog about the importance of TANF (Temporary Assistance to Needy Families) and the critical need for the Senate to pass an extension to the TANF Emergency Contingency Fund, which allocated federal funds to create temporary jobs during the economic crisis. We're sad to report that last week, the Senate failed to pass the measure, falling just three votes short of the 60 needed to extend these benefits.

Read more »

We Are One Nation: Join the March for Justice on October 2

Everyone in America deserves a just and fair chance to achieve the American Dream.

If that's a notion that gets your heart beating a little faster, then make some time this weekend to join more than 100,000 progressives as they march on Washington for equality, jobs and justice.

One Nation Working Together is a social movement of individuals and organizations "committed to putting America back to work and pulling America back together." On Saturday, October 2, 2010, individuals and organizations from across America will gather in Washington, DC, at the Lincoln Memorial, to demand that government take action and implement the changes they voted for in the 2008 election:

Read more »

Ms. Foundation Grantee Leads "Recovery Tour" in New York State

Remember the $787 billion our federal government earmarked to help "jumpstart" the economy under the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act (or ARRA)? Ever spent any time thinking about what's become of that money and whether it's working? In New York State, Ms. Foundation grantee Community Voices Heard is providing some much needed answers to those questions by showing officials first-hand how federal dollars are --and aren't --helping to stimulate growth in local communities.

CVH is an organization made up primarily of women with welfare experience, working improve the lives of families and communities throughout New York State. On July 28th they led a day-long "Recovery Tour" of New York State, stopping in four communities where they have chapters to show the impact public investment under ARRA has had on low-income communities. Representatives from the NYS Senate, the NYC Housing Authority, the NYS Recovery and Reinvestment Cabinet and the NYS Department of Labor -- along with council members from a number of local districts -- participated in the tour.

Traveling from New York City, through Yonkers, on to Newburgh and then Poughkeepsie, participants visited public housing developments, transitional jobs programs, soup kitchens, road reconstruction projects and the site of a future transportation hub -- all sustained through the allocation of ARRA funds to these communities.

However, the visit also made clear just how much work is left to be done, and how many communities continue to struggle under the weight of the continuing recession. In Newburgh, residents pointed out how a "home rehabilitation" loan program had failed when few applicants were approved for loans. "Some of the money definitely could have been spent differently [here]," noted CVH leader Brenda McPhail.

CVH board member Agnes Rivera underscored the need for continued, strategic investment in these communities if any version of success is to be forthcoming. "Low-income communities have been suffering long before the current economic downturn and the first round of stimulus funding wasn't even enough to fill the gap of what the recession created," she said. "We are going to need more substantial public investment in job creation and funding for critical programs if all of our communities are going to recover and New York State is going to get on safe footing."

CVH members didn't let the day end without taking direct action to ensure that federal government continues to invest in struggling communities in New York State: the group placed a number of calls to US Senator Chuck Schumer's office, encouraging him to sign on to the Local Jobs for America Act, which would bring upwards of 50,000 jobs to New York State. (Senator Kristen Gillibrand has already stepped up as a co-sponsor of the bill.)

Talk about democracy in action!

For more information about how Community Voices Heard is helping to empower underserved communities, please visit their website.

Economy Worsens for Single Mothers, Women of Color

New numbers on the economy are proving that when times get hard, women are hit hardest.

The Obama Administration is busy touting that overall unemployment held steady in July, at 9.5% (or 14.6 million Americans). [The New York Times's Bob Herbert reports that even these numbers vastly understate the proportions of the crisis.]  But that number masks some troubling facts about who's continuing to lose jobs, even as others gain them. The ones losing out, in this case, happen to be women -- particularly single mothers and women of color.

On their Womenstake blog, Ms. Foundation grantee the National Women's Law Center reports:

Unemployment for women who head families shot up to 13.4 percent in July from 12.1 percent in June. This marks the highest unemployment rate for this particularly vulnerable group since the recession began in December 2007 and the highest rate in over 25 years.
Unemployment among African-American women jumped from 11.8 percent in June to 12.9 percent in July. The situation was similar for Hispanic women, whose unemployment rate increased by 1.1 percentage points to 12.1 percent in July, marking this group's highest unemployment rate since 1986.

Notably, 62 percent of the jobs lost in July were lost by women. (There's that pesky "mancession" for you again.)

Though government officials are likely to avoid discussing these facts, the people withing these communities have long known how precariously placed they are. As our Community Voices on the Economy Poll found in June, two-thirds of Latinas say that their personal situation has been affected by the country’s economic situation, and more than half report that they or someone in their household has lost a job in the past year. Meanwhile, 55% of African-American women report that they've been worried about the economy for five years or more.

If only the people actually running the economy had been worried for that long.

Cruel and Clueless: Conservatives on Vacation

In case you missed it this weekend, take a moment right now to read Paul Krugman's latest column in the New York Times, which looks at the current situation with joblessness in America, and the cruelty -- and "cluelessness" -- implicit in Congress' unwillingness to extend unemployment benefits for the millions who now are living without paychecks.

As Krugman points out, when it comes to alleviating the dire impact the economic crisis has had on millions of Americans, the conservatives have gotten it dead wrong, espousing beliefs that are both heartless and confused. Leaving town, refusing to pass extended unemployment before vacationing -- whether these moves were the result of cynical political calculations or a consequence of being completely out of touch with the terrible reality that millions of Americans now face, conservatives have clearly lost their moral compass.

Krugman cites some simple truths, which most Americans understand intuitively. First, cutting off benefits to the unemployed may make them increasingly desperate for work -- but they can't take jobs that aren't there (at present, there are five unemployed workers for every one job opening in the US economy).

Moreover, in Krugman's estimation, the amount of money these extensions would add to our national debt amounts to what he calls "penny-pinching" relative to the other issues that that have sunk us so far in the hole (see wars in Afghanistan and Iraq to start).

All of this refusal on the part of conservative lawmakers, as most of us can surmise, has a great deal to do with the fact that there's an election season looming in the near future. And many conservatives may be betting that saying "no" to more spending will cast them as the good guys in voters' eyes. But as our recent Community Voices on the Economy poll with the Center for Community Change makes clear, the majority of Americans aren't really thinking about the deficit. They're thinking about how to put food on the table. Our polling [pdf] shows that Americans are less concerned about the federal budget issues than they are about rising health care costs, the lack of jobs with family-sustaining wages, and the affordability of everyday expenses like food and gas.

In other words, if lawmakers are really interested in pandering to voters, they'd be better served by helping them meet their daily needs rather than cutting them off from the only source of support many have left: government aid.

Continuing unemployment insurance is not only good for the economy, it's the right thing to do in a country that has too often been dominated by the "everyone for themselves" ethos (more than 90% of those polled rejected this mentality as being of value today). Clearing up lawmaker confusion about how to effectively treat a strained economy, as Krugman aims to do, is vitally important. But it's also critical that lawmakers and laypeople alike understand how little popular support there is for the hands-off approach conservative lawmakers are peddling. In these times, people both want and need a government that is willing to take a strong hand on the economic front; they want a government that can acknowledge that unemployment has been uneven in its effects (recent statistics put levels at 12.4 percent among African-American women and 10.3 percent for Latinas, but just 7.4% for white women), and that is willing to champion policies that create jobs with decent wages to the benefit of low-income communities.

Across party lines, our poll shows that Americans believe in the government's ability to influence the economy. And what most of us want, though we may differ in the details, is for the government to use that influence to shore up this nation's economic future. Leaving millions of jobless workers out in the cold while lawmakers quibble, and then head out on vacation without a resolution, does nothing to further that cause.

So enough already with the party lines; in the real world, families are at their wits' end. Americans want -- and deserve -- far better than this. It's high time lawmakers started delivering.

Sara K. Gould
President and Chief Executive Officer
Ms. Foundation for Women

The Recession’s Deepening Toll on Women: Capitol Hill Briefing a Success

On June 24th, before a standing-room-only crowd, the Ms. Foundation and the Center for Community Change, together with Lake Research Partners, presented the results of a new nationwide poll [pdf] underscoring the recession's deepening toll on women.

Sponsored by Senator Sherrod Brown (D-OH) and Representatives Rosa DeLauro (D-CT), Carolyn Maloney (D-NY), Gwen Moore (D-WI), Linda Sánchez (D-CA) and Jan Schakowsky (D-IL), this Capitol Hill briefing offered important perspectives on the need for job creation at the local level through, among other measures, passage of national legislation to create and save more than a million public and private jobs in local communities this year.

Celinda Lake, President of Lake Research Partners, kicked off the forum by presenting the polling results we've mentioned here before -- showing that a majority of Americans believe the government should play a larger role in shaping our economy and creating jobs, and highlighting how women are particularly affected by the failing job market. To that end, Representative Rosa DeLauro spoke about the increasing pressure women are facing as a greater share of them become co- or sole breadwinners in their households, making pay equity issues even more acute. Rep. DeLauro encouraged the support of the Paycheck Fairness Act, as well as the Local Jobs for America Act (HR 4812), noting that benefits to women will be substantial from the latter bill, as they are a large share of job holders in the education sector as well as over 60% of state and local government employees.

Representatives Linda Sánchez and Gwen Moore also held forth to lift up the need for job creation for women -- particularly low-income women and women of color, who are experiencing high unemployment rates across the nation (African American women: 12.4%; Hispanic women: 10.3%; white women: 7.4%).

Gail Cohen, Chief Economist for the Joint Economic Committee (JEC), spoke briefly on the results of a report called "Working Mothers in the Great Recession." The JEC has found that only in May did women gain almost the same number of jobs as men -- but only in temporary Census jobs. In the private sector in May, women lost 1000 jobs while men gained 42,000 jobs. Unsurprisingly, single mothers and African Americans have been hit disproportionately hard by the recession, the report shows. And part-time pay inequality remains a large concern, as many women are part-time workers.

Closing out the roster of speakers, Patricica Nalls, Founder and Executive Director of the Women's Collective, explained how the recession has affected her nonprofit, which serves the needs of women and girls with HIV. The economic downturn has resulted in a 30% loss in funding to her organization, forcing her to cut her staff from 25 to 15 employees. As a result, her clients -- HIV positive women and girls -- are missing out on much needed services. The Local Jobs for America Act, she pointed out, would allow her to rehire her staff and retain critical services to a community in need.

Learn more about the Community Voices on the Economy project: Read an Op-Ed by Ms. Foundation President & CEO Sara K. Gould and Deepak Bhargava, executive director of CCC, on how Americans want their government to behave in this new economic climate. Or download this mp3 file to listen to audio of a recent webinar explaining the poll's findings in depth.

Thanks to Susan Rees, Director of Policy and National Projects at Wider Opportunities for Women, for her assistance in capturing this information.


Photo: by Elizabeth Rappaport, Kentucky Jobs With Justice, Louisville, Kentucky, March 2010

Americans Want More, Not Less, Government on Economic Issues

A major new nationwide poll conducted by Lake Research Partners for the Center for Community Change and the Ms. Foundation for Women shows that a majority of Americans are less concerned about the federal budget deficit than they are about rising health care costs, the lack of jobs with family-sustaining wages, and the affordability of every day expenses like food and gas.

And, not surprisingly, those hit hardest by the recession are those who believe most strongly that the government needs to play a more prominent role in protecting the economic interests of the many, not the few: 66 percent of African-American women and 68 percent of Latinas want increased government intervention. In April, unemployment reached 13.7 percent among African-American women and 11.1 percent for Latinas. And three out of four people surveyed said they believe policies that would create more jobs with decent wages and benefits for low-income families are important to them personally.

Things, it seems, are getting more personal by the moment: just two days from now, more than a million Americans will find themselves facing the end of their health and unemployment benefits -- unless congress takes immediate action to ensure a reprieve.

Legislation put forward by Democratic congressional leaders late last week would have provided more than $35.5 billion in funding to extend unemployment insurance for 1.2 million jobless Americans, as well as an extension of critical COBRA subsidies that have put health insurance within reach for many who have lost their jobs.

But House Republicans have quashed multiple versions of the bill, fearing the impact of its cost on an already ballooning national deficit.

As a result, it now looks as if millions of families that are already struggling to make ends meet will be facing a more difficult future in the days to come. Moreover, the move to cutoff funding flies directly in the face of what our new poll indicates: that the majority of Americans actually want government to take a larger and stronger role in making the economy work for average Americans.

Legislation like the tax-bill currently languishing in congress is but one small step in the direction of helping hard-hit communities meet some portion of their needs; real reform would go further, addressing the deep and systemic inequalities that have left already struggling communities decimated as a result of this recession. But at least it's a step of some kind. Allowing another 1.2 million Americans to fall between the cracks in our political system is, at best, an illogical approach to stimulating this fragile economy -- and, at worst, suicidal. The clock is ticking. Congress must act before it's too late, and do what Americans want them to do: take a strong hand in building a better economic future for us all.

You can take action too: sign Ms. Foundation grantee The National Women's Law Center's petition urging senators to support struggling families by extending unemployment benefits.

Economic Crisis Hits Transgender Community Hard

Though it is true that each of us has been affected in some way by the Great Recession, it is also increasingly evident that some groups are feeling greater pains than others thanks to this economic crisis.

One group hit hard by the surge in US unemployment is the transgender community. Though rarely highlighted in media reports that parse the uneven employment rates across class and education level, transgender people are "twice as likely to be unemployed as other Americans, and face even higher rates of unemployment if they are people of color" -- making them especially vulnerable as the job markets remain weak.

But as an article on Women's eNews points out, it's not just the lack of jobs that poses problems for the transgender community. Dealing with government agencies also brings special challenges: because state and federal agencies remain inconsistent in determining how and whether an individual is allowed to change his or her sex identification on official paperwork, many transgendered people find themselves caught in a proverbial "no man's land" when it's time to file for unemployment. Their Social Security card might list them as one gender, while their driver's license might list them as another. In many cases that leads to an uncomfortable outing while applying for state aid; in other cases it can cause outing with potential employers -- and sometimes cost individuals their jobs entirely.

Among the outstanding organizations leading the fight to address the inequalities faced by the transgender community is the Audre Lorde Project. Their Welfare Justice Campaign, which "sought to address the rampant transphobia, discrimination, and harassment that Trans and Gender Non-Conforming people in New York City face when seeking to access welfare/public assistance" is one example of how activist organizations are now winning battles to secure the rights of transgender individuals.

Another is Ms. Foundation grantee Southerners on New Ground (SONG). This Atlanta-based organization works with the LGBTQ community in the southern region to build the power of marginalized groups and organize across lines of race, class, culture, gender and sexuality through its unique organizing school model.

These are organizations that are doing things right for the LGBTQ community, and they have great lessons to teach about the power of grassroots organizing. If little else comes out of this economic crisis, perhaps it will at least help us learn that the vulnerabilities of diverse communities are unique and nuanced -- and require, at best, the input of the people experiencing the problem to develop viable solutions. That's the kind of change we can believe in.

Act Now to Support Quality Affordable Child Care

Remember a few days back when we highlighted how the lack of low-cost, affordable child care is pushing more and more women out of the job force? Well now, thanks to Mom's Rising, there's a way for you to tell Congress what you think about cuts to child care funding that are leaving many mothers simply unable to afford to work.

By signing on to the petition currently running on their site, you can urge Congress to put families back to work by investing in affordable, quality child care. At least twelve states are now in the process of slashing funding to child care assistance programs and/or quality child care initiatives -- a number that could rise as state economies continue to struggle. Yet we know that providing families with access to affordable child care is absolutely crucial to economic recovery; without it, mothers will increasingly have little choice but to turn to welfare and other assistance programs to support their families.

Remind Congress that working families are essential to our nation's economic recovery -- SIGN the Mom's Rising petition today.

And if you're interested in learning more about what a healthy, robust child care agenda for this nation would actually look like, Ms. Foundation grantee the National Women's Law Center has put together a fabulous campaign on the subject, replete with all the facts and figures, state and federal updates, and action alerts you need to stay current on the topic. This is an issue too important to ignore -- our nation's future depends on our actions today.

Women & Welfare: Revisiting Reform in the Wake of Economic Crisis

While there’s been plenty of talk throughout this global economic crisis about the fate of the newly jobless, newly poor, middle class, stories about how the tanking of the economy has affected those who were already poor in the “best of times” have been few and far between. In this week’s issue of The Nation, however, Katha Pollitt asks some long overdue questions about the current plight of Americans who entered this recession in poverty -- particularly the women among them.

Framing her piece around "welfare mothers," and the impact that the passage of 1996's Personal Responsibility and Work Opportunity Reconciliation Act (or PRWORA) has had on their lives, Pollitt notes that despite the tendency of pundits and analysts to label these welfare reforms a “success,” in fact, even in the economically prosperous 1990s, the families most affected by said reforms remained solidly poor. PRWORA may have pushed poor women off the welfare rolls and forced them to find jobs (which conservatives cast as a return to the great American ethic of “hard work”) -- but those jobs tended to pay them much less than it actually took to survive, usually earning them salaries well below the annual poverty line. (Hard to see the “success” in all that.)

So how are these women and families managing nearly 15 years after the passage of the PRWORA and in the worst economic climate in recent memory? The hidden truth may be that they aren’t managing at all; they’re simply subsisting. Homeless shelters have seen the impact: according to the Center on Budget and Policy Priorities, from July to November 2008 the number of families entering New York City homeless shelters increased 40 percent over the same period in 2007. And as Pollitt points out, while the use of food stamps nationwide has also risen 40% over the last 2 years, there’s been little jump in welfare rates over the same period -- meaning, most likely, that the process for accessing the latter type of aid has become so complicated as to “weed out” those who most need it. It’s therefore safe to assume, according to one of Pollitt’s sources, that most of these women and families are now living in a state of “constant suffering and inequality,” vulnerable not just to poverty itself, but to all of its attendant, ugly bedfellows, including increased rates of domestic violence.

There are, of course, solutions to be had to problems of this nature, and, among other things, they involve crafting and pushing for the adoption of policies that put the needs and experiences of women and families at their center -- just as Ms. Foundation grantees the Mississippi Low-Income Child Care Initiative and the Georgia Citizen’s Coalition on Hunger do every day.

With TANF (Temporary Aid for Needy Families – a provision of PRWORA that replaced AFDC) up for recertification this year, Congress now has an opportunity to, in the words of grantee Legal Momentum, finally “make [welfare programs] responsive to the mothers and children [they are] intended to serve.” To do that, though, they’ll need to start listening to the women living on the front lines of extended poverty and including their perspectives in the decision-making process -- an approach that’s clearly long overdue.

Susan Wefald

Executive Vice President & COO

Rejecting the Myth of the “Mancession”

If the idea that men were being disproportionately impacted by our national economic crisis never sat quite right with you, we now know there’s a reason why: it wasn’t precisely true -- particularly over time.

According to a report to be released by the Joint Economic Committee, women have continued to lose jobs even as men have found new ones. As the Associated Press reported,

"As job losses slowed in the final months of 2009, women continued to lose jobs as men found employment," says the report…based on the committee's analysis of unpublished data from the Bureau of Labor Statistics. Specifically, from October 2009 to March 2010, women lost 22,000 jobs while men gained 260,000, it says. "And April's strong employment growth showed women gained 86,000 jobs last month, far fewer than the 204,000 jobs gained by men."

In other words, as things have begun to get better for men on the economic front, they’ve gotten worse for women. Single mothers have paid a particular price during this recession, with their unemployment rate jumping 5 percentage points in 2 years (from 8% in 2007 to 13% in 2009). Add to that the fact that male job loss has had a lasting, tangible impact on women and families (less overall money in dual-parent families means heavier reliance on women’s income, even as women are paid less than men and make up the majority of minimum-wage and part-time workers; in single-parent families, a father’s lost job can mean the end of child-support payments, again putting increased financial pressure on households led by women) and you’ve got a rock solid case for why the concept of a “mancession” is at best misleading, and at worst a myth.

Of course, economic insecurity -- for women, for people of color, for low-income people, for immigrants -- is nothing new under the sun. It’s a trend as long and as deep as our history as a nation. But as we argued back in February, it’s time to do away with the fantasy that economic security -- not to mention “recovery” -- is available to us all in equal measure. (The data from the JEC certainly makes it clear that no such thing is true.) What we really need is a re-thinking of our entire economic system to address the inequities that continue to put women, people of color and others at a disadvantage. Until we get there, though, tossing out the myth of the mancession is a good place to start.

Our Nation's Recovery Depends on Those Most in Need of Jobs

On Tuesday, Bob Herbert wrote a compelling column about how those most affected by today's economic crisis are also the most forgotten. "What you’re not hearing from the politicians and the talking heads," Herbert writes, "is that the joblessness and underemployment in America’s low-income households rival their heights in the Great Depression of the 1930s — and in some instances are worse."

Herbert highlights new data from a Northeastern University study of U.S. households that examined unemployment rates during the last quarter of 2009 by annual household income. Not surprisingly, they found alarming disparities:

The highest group, with household incomes of $150,000 or more, had an unemployment rate of 3.2 percent. ...The unemployment rate of the lowest group, which had annual household incomes of $12,499 or less...was a staggering 30.8 percent. That’s more than five points higher than the overall jobless rate at the height of the Depression.

...When the data about underemployment is factored in...the picture only worsens. In the lowest group, the underemployment rate was 20.6 percent, compared with just 1.6 percent in the highest group.

Herbert is not trying to diminish the impact of the crisis on the middle class. Instead he argues:

The point here is that those in the lower-income groups are in a much, much deeper hole than the general commentary on the recession would lead people to believe. And none of the policy prescriptions being offered by the administration or the leaders of either party in Congress would in any way substantially alleviate the plight of those groups.

We talk about the recession as if all of its victims were suffering equally, and all will be helped by some bland, class-and-category-neutral solution.

That is so wrong.

Herbert is so right. None of the economic recovery policies we've seen thus far sufficiently addresses the urgent needs of low-income people and their communities. This again begs the question advocates have been asking for some time: How will our country recover if we don't respond -- and listen -- to those most affected?

Of course, a significant percentage of those most affected are women, who make up nearly 70 percent of minimum- and below-minimum-wage workers. In fact, "a majority of women workers," according to Ms. Foundation grantee Wider Opportunities for Women (WOW), "earn only about two times the federal poverty line, or $20,140 in 2010 for a mother and one child."

Our next opportunity to address the priorities and solutions of low-income people, including low-income women and an especially vulnerable group, households headed by women, is through a comprehensive jobs bill. And as our colleague Deepak Bhargava of the Center for Community Change says, this has to come with an adequate price tag.

Ms. Foundation grantees have already been advocating for a jobs program to meet women's needs. In December, WOW issued "A Women's Agenda for Job Creation" [PDF]. Today, they continue to push for the incorporation of their solutions into the final Congressional bill. WOW has already made progress: their suggested "nonprofit tax credit" [PDF] made its way into President Obama's recent jobs proposal. Now let's see if Congress can improve even further upon the White House plan. And let's remind them that the fate of the entire country is tied to those who need jobs the most.

Sara K. Gould
President & CEO
Ms. Foundation for Women

Applied Resource Center Releases 'Race and Recession' Report

The Applied Resource Center has released a compelling report on the economic crisis and its effects on people of color. "Race and Recession: How Inequity Rigged the Economy and How to Change the Rules" uncovers root causes of long-term racial inequities that fed into the economic crisis. It proposes solutions to change a system that threatens future generations.

Their short video introduces the issues addressed and the voices of people affected.



Race and Recession: How Inequity Rigged the Economy and How to Change the Rules
Download the Full Report [pdf]
Download an Executive Summary [pdf]

See also: Women of Color Policy Network Releases Study on Race, Gender, and the Recession: Job Creation and Employment

Women of Color Policy Network Releases Study on Race, Gender, and the Recession: Job Creation and Employment

Our colleague, C. Nicole Mason, executive director of the Women of Color Policy Network at New York University's Robert F. Wagner Graduate School of Public Service, has authored a sobering report, the first in a four-part series on the impact of the economic crisis and recession on women of color, their families and their communities.

The series focuses on effects of the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act of 2009, and the first report focuses on job creation and employment. It finds of the nearly 4 million jobs created or saved through the Act, only 917,675 will go to African-Americans and Latinos. An additional 1.7 million jobs would have to be created and go directly to Blacks and Latinos to cut the unemployment rate in those communities to Administration's projected national rate of 6.5 percent by 2010.

The study also finds:

• Of the jobs created or saved, African-American and Latino women will receive an estimated 420,991 and African-American and Latino men will receive 496,684


• African-Americans and Latinos are under-represented in the industries targeted through the Reinvestment Act. Black and Latino men comprise 5.1 percent and 8.4 percent of those working in targeted industries. Black and Latino women make up 5.9 percent and 5.6 of those working in targeted industries


• Of the targeted industries and occupations identified as green, African-Americans and Latinos comprise less than 25 percent of those employed


• Although women will receive nearly half of the jobs that will be created through the Act, they are under-represented in higher-wage occupations and in targeted industries


• White women will receive an estimated 1,377,879 jobs through the Reinvestment act; a figure nearly 70 percent higher than for African-American and Latino women combined

C. Nicole Mason says, "During this time of great economic need and distress, it is important to consider the most vulnerable in our society. To ensure that everyone recovers successfully, the Administration will need to dedicate significant and additional resources to communities hit hardest and to those with the least safety nets."

Download the full report [pdf].
Download an executive summary [pdf].

Update
See also: Race and Recession: How Inequity Rigged the Economy and How to Change the Rules