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.
- How sexism holds back the economy via the Washington Post
The OECD report, released Thursday afternoon, warns that several impediments are “compromising the economy’s ability to direct skills toward the activities where they are most highly valued” – which is to say, policies and attitudes in America are keeping workers from doing jobs that would maximize their potential to earn money and contribute to growth. It says those factors “still tilt the playing field against some groups—such as women, African-Americans, and those with criminal records.”
- 28 Major Companies Sign On To The White House’s Equal Pay Pledge via ThinkProgress
The White House is holding an event focusing on women’s issues on Tuesday, and as part of the day-long summit it announced actions it is taking to try and reduce the gap in pay between men and women. One brand new step is calling on private sector companies to make a promise that they will look at their own internal gender wage gaps. Any company that signs up for this “White House Equal Pay Pledge” agrees to conduct an analysis of pay by gender across its entire workforce, review its own hiring and promotion practices to reduce bias, and include equal pay in overall efforts to promote equality within its own ranks, as well as look for any other practices that can ensure women are paid equally with men.
The term “tireless” can be thrown around rather frivolously, but it’s apt in the case of Lilly Ledbetter. At age 78, the equal pay activist spends much of her time on the road, traveling between speaking engagements and summits, like last week’s United State of Women conference in Washington, D.C., where she got an onstage shout-out from the first self-described feminist commander-in-chief (“a good friend of mine,” President Obama said of Ledbetter).
- IMF says U.S. should raise minimum wage, offer paid maternity leave and overhaul taxes via the Los Angeles Times
The International Monetary Fund downgraded its forecast for the U.S. economy this year and said America should raise the minimum wage to help the poor, offer paid maternity leave to encourage more women to work and overhaul the corporate tax system to boost productivity.
A federal judge ruled on Friday that the U.S. women’s soccer team cannot go on strike ahead of this summer’s Olympic games. According to the Associated Press, U.S. District Judge Sharon Johnson Coleman based her ruling on a no-strike clause in an agreement between the U.S. Soccer Federation and the U.S. Women’s National Soccer Team Players Association.
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.