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.
- It’s been nearly 100 years since women won the right to vote, people, so this is just pathetic via Daily Kos
It’s been almost 100 years since women were guaranteed the right to vote nationwide. And after all this time, a little less than a quarter of the legislators in our state capitals are women.
- Buffalo’s dubious distinction: No female elected officials via Buffalo News
Buffalo City Hall is a bit of a Boys Club these days. Plenty of women work in the building. Some, in fact, have the most influential and high-paying positions in the Brown administration. But when it comes to elected officials, not a woman is to be found. Not in the mayor’s chair. Not in the comptroller’s chair. Not in any of the nine Common Council seats.
- New York Governor Calls For A $15 Minimum Wage via Huffington Post
Cuomo pushes for $15 statewide the same day the state’s labor department accepts that hourly minimum for fast food workers. If Gov. Andrew Cuomo has his way, all New York’s workers will earn at least $15 per hour.
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Cheerleaders, Until They See Their N.F.L. Paychecks via The New York Times
As the National Football League starts a new season, millions of Americans will settle in for the next five months to enjoy the thrill of pro football. Forty-five percent of those fans are female, and the league has spent millions of dollars in recent years trying to increase its appeal among women.
- What working black women everywhere have in common with Serena Williams via the Washington Post
In general, black women do make less than white women, according to a recent report from the American Association of University Women. The average black woman earned $33,780 in 2013, which was 82 percent of the average white woman’s annual earnings of $41,010. Similarly, Williams’s earnings last year were 83 percent of Sharapova’s.
- Native Women Have to Work 9 Extra Months to Make the Same Salary as White Men Made Last Year via AAUW
There’s a pay gap between women and men, and that gap is even wider for women of color. But here are a few facts you might not have heard before: American Indian and Alaska Native women are paid just 59 cents for every dollar white men are paid. For Native Hawaiians and Pacific Islanders, that number is 65 cents.
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.