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Economic Equity News: June 14, 2016

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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.

On Tuesday, June 14, 2016, Oprah and Michelle will host a summit for women in DC. There will be a follow up event on Wednesday, June 15, 2016. Watch it live here.

Thanks to everyone who took action last Friday on the AAUW-NYS Action alert. Results: 180 people have taken action with messages sent to 142 distinct targets. That’s a strong showing! The NYS Legislature is still in session 3 more days this week. If you did not take action on Friday, it is not too late! Click the link below.

Join AAUW of New York and our PowHerNY Equal Pay Campaign partners to urge your state senator and assemblymember to pass NY S6059/A8487.

Fitbit Inc. on Wednesday named its first women to its board, part of a recent movement by tech companies to hire more women as top decision makers. The San Francisco-based maker of fitness trackers, which are popular with women, chose Laura Alber and Glenda Flanagan as directors. Alber is the chief executive of Williams-Sonoma Inc., the kitchenware and home furnishing retailer, and Flanagan is chief financial officer of grocery chain Whole Foods Market Inc. “Having different perspectives on your team is always incredibly important, but it is one criteria of many that we took into account,” said Fitbit Chief Executive and co-founder James Park.

“Women earn less than men on average — 19 percent less in 2015 according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics — giving them less purchasing power when it comes to buying a home,” said Daren Blomquist, senior vice president at RealtyTrac. “So it’s not surprising to see the 10 percent gender gap in average home values between single men and single women homeowners; however, the slower home price appreciation for homes owned by single women demonstrates that less purchasing power is also having on a domino effect on their ability to build wealth through homeownership as quickly as single men.”

The 79 percent wage ratio figure, the most commonly used figure to measure the gender wage gap in the United States, is often derided as misleading, a myth, or worst of all, a lie. In this post, we argue that the figure is an accurate measure of the inequality in earnings between women and men who work full-time, year-round in the labor market and reflects a number of different factors: discrimination in pay, recruitment, job assignment, and promotion; lower earnings in occupations mainly done by women; and  women’s disproportionate share of time spent on family care, including that they—rather than fathers—still tend to be the ones to take more time off work when families have children. Just because the explanation of the gender wage gap is multi-faceted does not make it a lie.

More than two dozen companies including Amazon.com Inc., PepsiCo Inc. and Dow Chemical Co. have signed a White House pledge to conduct an annual gender pay analysis aimed at eliminating inequitable compensation, the Obama administration said Monday. The 28 companies agreed to review their hiring and promotion processes and embed equal-pay efforts in other workplace initiatives.

 

Donna Seymour, who hails 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 University Women), she is also a member the League of Women Voters, the Equal Pay Coalition, PTA, NOW, and Planned Parenthood, just to name a few.