Economic equity news is a weekly round-up of articles by Donna Seymour of AAUW-NYS that features our core values of poverty solutions, opportunity and access, workplace fairness, healthy lives, equal pay and representation at all tables. Sign up for our mailing list to receive this directly to your inbox.
- Doctors, health groups push for paid family leave in N.Y. via The Times Union
A coalition of doctors and medical groups sent a letter to Gov. Andrew Cuomo and the state Senate Tuesday morning, pushing for paid family leave benefits for most New Yorkers. Nearly two dozen medical groups, along with 270 doctors and other health professionals, urged the governor and Senators to support a bill the state Assembly passed in March, extending the state’s disability benefits to cover family caregivers as well as patients.
- Raising Awareness for Paid Leave (Documentary)
The Raising of America is a compelling new documentary featuring interviews with advocates, experts and working people who struggle to manage the dual demands of their jobs and families while giving their children the best possible start in life. The film asks important questions: Why do we, as a nation, make it so hard for our children to thrive? How can we do better? (Hint: The solutions include paid family and medical leave.)
- I Want to Be a Boy Scout.’ There’s Just One Hitch. via The New York Times
Five girls wearing makeshift scout uniforms stood before top Boy Scout brass this month and made an announcement: We want in. “I want to be a Boy Scout,” Allie Westover, 13, told a panel of men in khaki uniforms weighted by pins and patches. She dropped a scout application in front of them. Then so did her sister, Skyler, and three friends: Ella Jacobs, Daphne Mortenson and Taylor Alcozer.
- Hochul talks confidence, strength at Upstate Women’s Leadership Council event via the Watertown Daily Times
During her speech at the Upstate Women’s Leadership Council’s inaugural networking event Monday, Lt. Gov. Kathleen C. Hochul urged women not to believe they are incapable of pursuing opportunities that may seem impossible. But in the north country, particularly in Jefferson County, Ms. Hochul said, women already are stepping up and setting examples for others to follow.
The gap in pay between women and men will close, but it will take more than a century for it to happen, at its current rate of improvement. That’s what a new, worldwide study has concluded. There are some critics of its methodology, but it’s hardly disputed that some sort of gap, big or small, exists. That leads to questions of how it can be eliminated in less than the century that the new study, at least, predicts.
Donna Seymour, who hales from the (far upstate) North Country of NYS, has spent 40 plus years advocating for children, women and family issues, equity, sustainability, and social justice issues. Currently serving as the Public Policy VP for AAUW-NYS (the American Association Universality Women), she also is a member the League of Women Voters, the Equal Pay Coalition, PTA, NOW, and Planned Parenthood, just to name a few.