Closing the Gender Wage Gap Would Cut Women's Poverty Rate in Half

[eridani]

http://readersupportednews.org/news-section2/314-18/21483-closing-the-gender-wage-gap-would-cut-womens-poverty-rate-in-half

Closing the gap in earnings between men and women would cut the poverty rate in half for working women, according to a new report from Maria Shriver and the Center for American Progress.

Women still make 77 cents for every dollar a man earns, on average, a figure that hasn't significantly changed in five years. For the report, economists Heidi Hartmann and Jeffrey Hayes of the Institute for Policy Research calculated that paying women who work full time, year round the same as men would boost their incomes by $6,250 a year on average. That extra money would cut their poverty rate in half, raising 3 million of the nearly 6 million working women who live below the poverty line above it. The extra income would also have a big impact on the economy as a whole, boosting GDP by 2.9 percent, or $450 billion.

The report notes that one in three women in the country either live in poverty or are "teetering on its brink," coming to 42 million in total who struggle financially. In a poll conducted for the report, 90 percent of these women strongly favored addressing the gender wage gap, and the issue also got support from nearly three-quarters of the respondents overall.

But how to do it? Nearly 90 percent of the women struggling to get by said that paid sick days would be "very useful" to them, and it was in fact that number one policy they felt would give them a leg up, "even more than an increase in wages or benefits," the report notes. But 40 percent of private sector workers don't have access to paid time off when they or their loved ones fall sick given that the country doesn't guarantee paid leave. (Although there are seven laws on the city and state level that do just that.)

[Fumesucker]

1. Depends on which way the wage gap is closed

If it's closed the way the 1% would like to see it closed then it won't do shit for women's poverty rates.

Based on recent economic trends which do you think more likely to happen in 2014 America, women's wages raised or men's wages cut?

[JustAnotherGen]

2. I'm kicking this

Because I'm in agreement however - if the number is not reduced to some average between what black and hispanic women make on the dollar - it won't be an accurate wage gap close. I've posted this in the feminist oriented forums and I know they get 'it'. . . it has GOT to be inclusive of all women - not just college educated caucasian women.


ETA - Article from 9/2013
Wage Gap Hits African-American, Latina Women Hardest, Report Shows (INFOGRAPHIC)
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2013/01/29/wage-gap-african-american-women-infographic_n_2568838.html

According to the latest U.S. Census Bureau data, women in the United States are paid just 77 cents for every dollar paid to men on average. But a closer look reveals that for African-American women, this disparity is much worse, with women of color earning just 70 cents for every dollar paid to men and just 64 cents for every dollar paid to white, non-Hispanic men.

What's more: It's happening in the 20 states with the largest number of African-American women working full-time and year round, studies show.

“Women of color are hard hit by a kind of perfect –- and perfectly devastating –- storm caused by discrimination, a struggling economy and the country’s failure to adopt family friendly workplace policies,” said Debra L. Ness, president of the National Partnership for Women & Families, in a release. “These new data show that the wage gap is costing women of color thousands of dollars in critical income each year that could be spent on food, rent, health care and on meeting other fundamental needs for their families,” she added, underlining the Partnership's findings that closing the wage gap would afford a working African-American woman more than two years’ worth of food; almost 10 months’ worth of mortgage and utilities payments; more than 16 months of rent; more than three years’ worth of family health insurance premiums; or 4,549 additional gallons of gas, each year.