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Economic Equity News: August 17, 2015

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.

The Securities and Exchange Commission took a shot at it last week, approving a rule that would require companies to disclose their C.E.O. pay gap — comparing how much chief executive officers take home compared with ordinary employees. That’s a fine idea. But here’s a better one: require companies to publish their gender pay gap.

New research from the University of Massachusetts Boston shows that the already yawning gender wage gap becomes a chasm in lower-income jobs, particularly for Hispanic women.

With Uber’s misclassification lawsuits in the news, independent contractors are asking why they shouldn’t get the same benefits as employees for doing the same work“I see this all the time,” says Alan Lescht, whose law firm deals largely with federal employees and contractors. “Companies think they can hire someone as an independent contractor to avoid paying benefits and overtime, and when they look carefully into their roles, more often than not they’ve been misclassified.”

So you’re at a party, and someone says something ignorant. And while you know that they’re in the wrong, and that you could totally engage them and win if you were a bit more prepared, your words escape you. To make sure that doesn’t happen, we’ve compiled a series of handy reference guides with the most common arguments — and your counter-arguments — for all of the hot-button issues of the day.

A proposal to extend overtime pay eligibility to millions of workers would have its biggest impact on single mothers and women of color, according to a study published Tuesday by the Institute for Women’s Policy Research (IWPR) and the advocacy group MomsRising.

 


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.