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.

• Is ‘having it all’ as simple as getting men to demand that, too? via The Washington Post

Anne-Marie Slaughter has good timing. When she wrote “Why Women Still Can’t Have It All” in 2012, it became one of the most-read articles in the history of the Atlantic. Not long afterward, Sheryl Sandberg’s book “Lean In” was climbing the bestseller list. They focused on the same question from different points of view: why so few women reach the very top.

• California Gov. Brown to Sign Expanded Fair Pay Legislation via ABC News

Female employees in California are poised to get new tools to challenge gender-based wage gaps and receive protection from discrimination and retaliation if they ask questions about how much other people earn. A bill recently passed by the Legislature and that Gov. Jerry Brown has indicated he will sign won’t suddenly put all women’s salaries on par with men’s or prod employers to freely disclose what every employee makes, which could make it easier for workers to mount pay discrimination claims.

• A stunning stat about pay seems impossible but actually is true via The Washington Post

Households, though, have been able to cover this up by having women enter the workforce and then getting raises. Well, at least they used to be able to do that. The problem now is that women’s labor force participation has actually been declining since the Great Recession hit, and their wages have plateaued over that time as well. That’s left households without any more escape valves to deal with the fact that men’s earnings haven’t gone up, in inflation-adjusted terms, for 40 years. It’s no surprise, then, that middle class households are worse off now than they were 16 years ago. At this rate, the middle class might not be partying like it’s 1999 by even 2039.

• States Attack the Pay Gap Between Women and Men via the Pew Charitable Trusts 

“There’s no doubt that equal pay for equal work is the law of the land,” Neufeld said. “The question is, ‘What gets in the way of that law and what is the reality for women in the workforce?’ ”

As was possibly the case with Rizo, Neufeld said that women often start out, right out of school, making less than their male counterparts. Because most jobs offer pay based on previous salaries, they never catch up. And if employers prohibit workers from disclosing their salaries to their colleagues, some analysts say, they’ll never know that they’re being underpaid in the first place.

• Professor takes care of toddler: Should colleges provide free day care? via Christian Science Monitor

According to a 2013 report by the American Association of University Women, more than 4 million women attend two-year public institutions or community colleges, and more than 1 million of them are mothers. The AAUW reports that relative to students who don’t have dependent children, student parents are more likely to drop out of school, due to caregiving responsibilities and limited financial resources.

• 2016 Equal Pay Days via the National Women’s Law Center

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.