For more information: AAUW Fact Sheets and Position Papers on Affirmative Action, Athletics, Education, Managed Care Reform, Reproductive Rights, and Social Security Reform.

Updated May 20, 2013

Index:

• In the News: Suburbs’ Share of Poor Has Grown Since 2000 - The first decade of the 21st century was a tipping point, the authors wrote. Suburbia, they said, is now home to the “fastest-growing poor population in the country.”
• Washington Female CEOs Earn $600,000 Less Than Male Lobby Peers - Washington is “the original boys’ club,” said Lisa Maatz, vice president of government relations for the American Association of University Women, a research group promoting female leadership. “Clearly there’s still a hurdle, a glass ceiling, a bias about leadership roles.”
• On May 14, Vermont Gov. Peter Shumlin (D) signed a workplace rights and equal pay law that includes protection for employees who talk with coworkers about salary information and requires government contractors to provide written certification that they will comply with Vermont’s equal pay laws.
• In the News: Report: Income inequality rising in most developed countries - The divide between rich and poor is widening in developed nations, according to a new report released Wednesday by the Paris-based Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development.
• The Equal Pay Webinar on April 17, 2013 that was hosted by the Women’s Bureau and The American Association of University Women is now available!
  1. Recording of the Equal Pay Webinar
  2. Women’s Bureau Equal Pay Guides: “An Employer’s Guide to Equal Pay,” and “A Guide to Women’s Equal Pay Rights” (available in Spanish, Chinese, French and Vietnamese upon request)
  3. The Bureau of Labor Statistics Women in the Workforce Databook
  4. The American Association of University Women report, “Graduating to a Pay Gap: The Earnings of Women and Men One Year After College Graduation”
  5. The American Association of University Women Salary Calculator
  6. The Equal Employment Opportunity Commission Equal Pay Fact Sheet
  7. The Georgetown Center on Education and the Workforce Report: “What’s it Worth: The Economic Value of College Majors”
• In the News: Environmentalists decry plan to truck weapons-grade N-waste through N.Y.
• In the News: Taxpayers Billed Nearly $100 Billion for Extreme Weather in 2012
• In the News: Methane Emissions Higher Than Thought Across Much of U.S.
• In the News: How Austerity Kills
• Sequestering Our Mothers: Spending Cuts and Effects on Women - Sue Sturgis, Facing South: Here is an index of how the sequester spending cuts will affect women and mothers in the United States, by the numbers.
• In the News: In “Momentous, Historic Achievement,” New York City Council Paves the Way for One Million Workers to Earn Paid Sick Days
• In the News: Bankers Warn Fed of Farm, Student Loan Bubb
• Missed the salary negotiation webinar with AAUW Director of Campus Leadership Programs Kate Farrar, hosted by WEPAN? An archived version and additional materials is available.
• New regulations announced by the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau will make it easier for stay-at-home spouses or partners to obtain their own credit cards.
• In the News: Equal Pay Isn't Enough; Let's Also Make It Fair - Let's also attack the problems of low-paid work and volatile scheduling that hold back millions of female workers.
• AAUW in the News: OpEd: Unequal pay (April 6, 2013)
• April 17: Equal Pay Webinar from 11 am to 12 noon (EDT) - In commemoration of the 50th anniversary of the Equal Pay Act, The U.S. Department of Labor Women’s Bureau, and the American Association of University Women invite you to join us for a webinar on the issue of equal pay for women. This webinar is targeted toward educators, career counselors, and others who are on the front lines of preparing college women for their careers. Please register for the event!
• AAUW has launched The Faces of Pay Equity, a one-stop shop for everything you need to know about the wage gap and our nationwide campaign to close it. Please share fightforfairpay.org widely!
• Why Companies with Female Directors Perform Better - A new study published in the International Journal of Business Governance and Ethics concludes that women are more effective business directors than men because they are "better able to see new business options, opportunities, and outcomes."
• March Jobs Numbers Show Slow in Hiring - The U.S. economy added 88,000 jobs in March, the lowest monthly gain in over six months, and the unemployment rate declined from 7.7 to 7.6 percent due to 500,000 people dropping out of the labor market. Analysts had anticipated an addition of 190,000 jobs.
• AAUW Blog: Three Reasons the Wage Gap Hurts Women in STEM
• In the News: Shiu Dusts off 1980 Goal for Women in Trades - The director of federal contract compliance for the Department of Labor is focused on getting U.S. women a 7-percent piece of all skilled trade jobs performed, a goal first set in 1980.
• In the News: Graduate Glut Spells Underused Skills and Dissatisfaction for Many - Graduates are taking up jobs that don't fully use their skills and as a result are causing high turnover for employers, claims new research published today in the journal Human Relations, published by SAGE. The findings raise questions about today's high throughput in university education.
• In the News: The Economy is "Recovering" By Creating More Low-Wage Jobs... Increasingly Filled By GraduatesIn the News: Damaging Effects of Unemployment and Unexpected Wealth Losses On Mobility and Economic Security - A new study from The Pew Charitable Trusts, "Making Hard Choices: Navigating the Economic Shock of Unemployment," examines how American families cope with unexpected financial setbacks and how those periods of economic uncertainty draw down financial resources. The report studies families across race and income levels, revealing different experiences resulting from unemployment and the difficult choices many of them face.
• In the News: As Child Care Costs Rise, Families Seek Alternatives
• In the News: Health law could boost use of temp workers
• In the News: Unfit for Work: The startling rise of disability in America - - Somewhere around 30 years ago, the economy started changing in some fundamental ways. There are now millions of Americans who do not have the skills or education to make it in this country. Politicians pay lip service to this problem during election cycles, but American leaders have not sat down and come up with a comprehensive plan. In the meantime, federal disability programs became our extremely expensive default plan. The two big disability programs, including health care for disabled workers, cost some $260 billion a year.
• In the News: Low-wage employees report grim outlook - Roughly 65 percent of the jobs the U.S. economy added since the recession officially ended in June 2009 have been lower­wage ones. Despite those numerical gains, “lower-income households have been hit very hard and have not benefited as much from the recovery,” said Mark Zandi, chief economist at Moody’s Analytics. “Their real wages are going no­where. And this is a group that has more debt, fewer assets, is less likely to own a home or stocks and with little capacity to absorb higher gasoline prices.”
• Women workers in Wisconsin file new class action against Wal-Mart - After the Supreme Court's 2011 ruling in Wal-Mart v. Dukes obstructed a major class-action lawsuit by 1.5 million current and former female Wal-Mart employees, smaller groups of women are coming forward alleging discrimination and unequal pay from the company. Ladik v. Wal-Mart, filed by five women in Wisconsin, is the latest regional class action suit against the company.
• Obama Nominates Labor Secretary, Head of Global Women's Issues Office - On Monday, President Obama nominated Thomas Perez as the next secretary of labor and Cathy Russell to lead the State Department's Office on Global Women’s Issues. Perez is currently the assistant attorney general for the Justice Department's Civil Rights Division. Perez will replace former Secretary Hilda Solis, who stepped down in January. Russell is currently chief of staff to second lady Jill Biden, and will succeed Melanne Verveer, who has been in the ambassador-at-large role since it was created by former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton in 2009.
• In the News: Bye, Bye American Dream! U.S. Economic Inequality Is Permanent, Study Finds
• In the News: More than 22 percent of St. Lawrence County's workers would benefit from minimum wage hike, Sen. Gillibrand says
• AAUW CHEER OF THE WEEK: New Mexico governor signs fair pay bill, which will make it easier for women to file a complaint if they are experiencing pay discrimination.
• A Pew Research Center study released Thursday found a greater percentage of working mothers say they want full-time jobs (37 percent, up from 21 percent in 2007). Researchers observed that the increase came during the economic recession, which means it may have more to do with the weak economy than an increased desire for career advancement.
• In the News: In trying times, defense companies turn to women - In the broad economy, female managers earn about 71 cents for every dollar their male counterparts make. That’s a 10-cent larger gap than exists across all occupations. Female executives in the contracting industry appear to earn about the same at the median as male executives do, according to Equilar. But that’s probably because the female executives are concentrated in the largest firms in the industry, which tend to pay more. The typical female executive in defense works at a firm with revenue that is 50?percent higher than the firm where the typical male executive works, Equilar found.
• In the News: AMERICA'S FASTEST GROWING JOB PAYS POORLY: The fastest growing job in America pays poorly. Meet home health care aides. - Even though there are plenty of job opportunities, many of these people make the same wage as teenagers flipping burgers or selling clothes at the mall. For those in the industry who work full-time, this amounts to roughly $20,000 a year. Many health care aides only work part-time though -- and they do not receive benefits.
• Unemployment Rate Reaches Lowest Level in Four Years - The most recent jobs numbers released Friday show that 236,000 jobs were added in February, bringing the unemployment rate down from 7.9 to 7.7 percent. This positive jobs report comes alongside other promising economic indicators, including a strong stock market and improving housing, auto, and manufacturing sectors, although it is unclear what effect sequestration may have on next month's numbers.
• In the News: The enormous societal benefits to working from home - There are enormous societal benefits to working from home, but no one is really aware of them. We can save up to 60.5 billion gallons of gas and 36.9 billion wasted hours each year if we work from home.
• In the News: How Public Libraries Have Become Spare Homeless Shelters (Hard Times USA)
• In the News: Chart: The many jobs that pay women less than men
• In the News: Women's Work: Gender and the Global Food System
• In the News: Women Seen Paying Heavy Price for Sequestration - If $85 billion in across-the-board automatic federal budget cuts hit on Friday--and stay in place--women across the country will lose jobs, rental assistance, nutritional support, domestic-violence services.
• Survey: Wyoming has Worst Gender Pay Gap, but Few Know about It - In a survey by the Wyoming Council for Women's Issues, only one-third of respondents said they were aware of the state's gender pay gap, which is the worst in the nation. The survey also asked women about their experiences finding child care, accessing health care services, and dealing with domestic violence or substance abuse.
• In the News: Despite Growing Number Of Female Doctors And Lawyers, Women’s Pay Still Lags Behind
• In the News: Minimum Wage Would Be $21.72 If It Kept Pace With Increases In Productivity: Study - Even if the minimum wage kept up with inflation since it peaked in real value in the late 1960s, low-wage workers should be earning a minimum of $10.52 an hour, according to the study.
• In the News: Bill Moyers: Rampant Capitalism Has Created a Social Disaster -- How Do We Right the Ship?
• In the News: 4 Bogus Right-Wing Theories About Poverty, and the Real Reason Americans Can’t Make Ends Meet
• Did you miss the Women in Engineering ProActive Network (WEPAN) webinar on Graduating to a Pay Gap with AAUW Public Policy and Government Relations Director Lisa Maatz and Senior Researcher Christianne Corbett, or want to watch it again? A recording is available.
• In the News: States see more poverty among children, unemployed - In NY, the unemployed living in poverty clock in at 31.1%; 23% of youth under 18 are living in poverty.
• In the News: Raising the Minimum Wage Is Good for Business (But the Corporate Lobby Doesn't Think So)
• In the News: Will a Higher Minimum Wage Cost Jobs?
• In the News: Equal pay for women battle gains traction in New York
• In the News: Tompkins County looks toward living-wage enforcement
• In the News: More baby boomers facing credit-card quandary
• In the News: 9 Economic Facts That Will Make Your Head Spin
• AAUW in the News: Cuomo’s Women’s Equality Agenda will have local impact (Jan. 31, 2013)
• In the News: How the U.S. minimum wage stacks up globally, in charts
• In the News: THE IMPACT OF A $9 MINIMUM WAGE - After promising five years ago to raise the federal minimum wage, President Obama finally unveiled a plan to do so on Tuesday.
• In the News: Living Wage Calculation for St. Lawrence County, New York
• In the News: One Year After Graduation, Female Pay Lags Behind - AAUW published "Graduating to a Pay Gap"

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