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.
8 of the of the 10 provisions in the Women’s Equality Act passed in 2015, including anti human trafficking laws , protections for pregnant workers ,broadening anti sexual harassment laws in the workplace, and making it easier for women to sue for equal pay, says the co –chair of the Women’s Equality Coalition, Suzy Ballantyne.
“We’re energized that we really made a lot of progress this year,” said Ballantyne. “It had been a slow painful past three years, when there hadn’t been a lot of issues passed.”
- Twitter Storm marking African American Women’s Equal Pay Day via PowHer NY, NWLC, AAUW, Moms Rising + More
While NY has a smaller overall gap than most states (86 cents), black women in NY make 66 cents compared to $1.00 earned by the average white male. Speak out tomorrow and use @PowHerNY and #BlackWomenEqualPay when you tweet. Go here for promotional materials, sample tweets, and shareable graphics.
- 30 Percent of Moms Can’t Afford Diapers via The Atlantic
Infants use about 240 diapers per month. A year’s supply of diapers costs $936. That means a single mother mother working full time at the minimum wage can expect to spend 6 percent of her annual pay on Pampers alone.
- More Than Their Mothers, Young Women Plan Career Pauses via The New York Times
The youngest generation of women in the work force — the millennials, age 18 to early 30s — is defining career success differently and less linearly than previous generations of women. A variety of survey data shows that educated, working young women are more likely than those before them to expect their career and family priorities to shift over time.
- Retired Women Are Twice As Poor As Retired Men via the Huffington Post
According to a report Sen. Patty Murray (D-Wash.) released Thursday, the average total income of women over age 65 is just 55 percent of older men’s income, and those women are nearly twice as likely as men to live in poverty. Women’s median retirement income is about $16,000 a year, while men’s is nearly $30,000. And while more women depend on Social Security benefits than men, men 65 and older receive an average of $18,000 a year in benefits, compared to only $14,000 for women.