Love in Action : Support Our Women
Love in Action : Session 16
Love in Action : FIRST Wednesdays 12-1pm mst
Please join Lead with Love for zoom webinars, on first Wednesdays each month, that highlight current issues related to community wellbeing, such as justice, freedom and climate change that need of our help. We will provide tangible actions and perform these efforts during the 1 hour meeting.
This week our efforts will focus on Women, Unemployment and our Economy.
Since the beginning of the pandemic, we have experienced a devastating decline in employment that has disproportionately affected women and in particular women of color. This economic crisis facing women, colloquially termed “she-cession”, is so significant that the White House is considering it a national emergency.
Although true gender equality in the workplace, including the wage gap, has been an enduring frustration over the last 40-50 years, women have achieved incremental gains in the labor force, creating opportunities for themselves in high power/paying positions that were unavailable to them for generations before. The losses over the last year threaten all of this progress and could set working women back decades without strategic recovery solutions.
The pandemic has been a cultural trauma in the most obvious of ways, but it has also cast an undeniable spotlight on broken areas in a functional society where all people are free from daily crisis and all people have an opportunity to actualize their potential, enjoy a sense of security, and provide for their families and communities. As we approach this moment where we are forced to recover and then rebuild, we have the opportunity to build something greater, more sustainable, that addresses these previously overlooked holes that put us in this vulnerable position in the first place. The moment for change is today.
This week, we will learn about our crisis of women and unemployment, and we will review how centering women, particularly women of color, in the recovery strategy is vital to a sustainable future for our families, our wellbeing and our economy.
If you haven’t yet registered for Love in Action, please do so by clicking the button below.
What You’ll Need
Pen/Pencil
Paper/Journal
Computer with Email/Wifi
The State of Unemployment
Over the last year, unemployment rates soared. At the peak last May, rates were higher than they’ve been since the Great Depression. Low-wage workers and people of color were hit the hardest as they are overrepresented in industries that were laid off due to public health guidance, such as restaurant, retail, and care.
Define Unemployment, Will You?
According to the Bureau of Labor Statistics, the unemployment rate includes people who are jobless, actively seeking work, and available to take a job. The official unemployment rate for the nation is the number of unemployed as a percentage of the labor force (the sum of the employed and unemployed).
But there is more to the story than the official unemployment rate, which is often criticized for not including people who, for example, are involuntarily working part-time and those who cite certain costs, such as childcare and transportation, as prohibitive to them seeking work.
“To be counted as unemployed, you have to be looking for work. Those who have left the labor force are no longer working or looking for work so in some ways the unemployment rate is artificially lowered by the fact that it doesn’t capture these millions of women.”
Unemployment Numbers
5.4M
women have lost a NET 5.4 million jobs since the start of the pandemic. Overall women have lost 12.1 Million jobs which means only 55% have been recovered.
40%
Among the group of unemployed women, 2 in 5 have been out of work for 6 months or longer. Of the 3 in 5 who have regained work, many are working at reduced hours/wages.
275k
In January 2021, 275,000 women dropped out of the labor force. In december, 196,000 women lost their jobs; 154,000 Black women dropped out entirely of the labor force.
2.3M
Since the beginning of the pandemic 2.3 million women have left the labor force.
Women accounted for nearly 80% of all workers over the age 20 who left the workforce in january 2021
Two Factors that Make Women’s Employment so Vulnerable
Unlike past recessions that have disproportionately affected male-dominated industries, such as financial markets or goods-producing sectors, the coronavirus-induced recession has primarily hit the service and care sectors, where women are overrepresented, partly due to persistent occupational segregation.
Women are facing a one-two punch as a result of at-home schooling and closures of child care facilities. Because women often bear the brunt of child-rearing responsibilities, they are put in an impossible position to care for and keep their families safe while managing their careers.
Industries Impacted Heavily by COVID
Heath care
Workers
Women account for 77% of the health care workforce, including:
75% of workers in hospitals
81% of workers in nursing and residential care facilities
78% of workers in ambulatory care settings, which includes doctors’ offices and dentists’ offices, as well as home health care services and other outpatient care facilities
Black women are particularly likely to hold health care jobs; more than one in five (24%) Black women workers hold jobs in health care.
The health care sector is still short 527,400 net jobs—a loss of more than 3% of the sector’s jobs since February 2020.
Home-Aides/ Domestic
workers
Women—disproportionately Black and Latina women— make up more than over 8 in 10 of those working as home health aides, personal care aides, and nursing assistants. These women risk their lives to care for our loved one despite being among the lowest paid workers across all industries and occupations.
Retail and Hospitality
WORKERS
As Americans stopped traveling and staying at hotels, attending live entertainment, and eating out at bars and restaurants, employees in the leisure and hospitality industry—53% of whom were women—saw the greatest job losses, accounting for nearly 2 in 5 jobs lost in the recession.
In the leisure and hospitality sector, 498,000 jobs were lost in December, with women accounting for 57% of these losses.
Latinas had the highest unemployment rate due to being overrepresented in the leisure and hospitality industry
The retail trade sector added 120,500 jobs in December, women accounted for just 44% of those gains, despite making up 48.5% of the industry’s workforce.
66% of grocery store cashiers and salespeople are women.
Childcare
Workers
Child care providers, mostly women of color, are paid poverty wages for performing essential work- a high skilled job. Women account for 93% of jobs in this sector.
The child care sector has lost a total of 173,000 jobs since the start of the pandemic. Nearly 1 in 6 have not returned.
Child care is on the brink of collapse and has long been severely underfunded, leaving child care providers with razor-thin budget margins, child care workers with low pay, and many families without access to affordable, quality care. Now, expenses are increasing with health protection measures in place such as PPE, but income is down respective to enrollment.
When the economy reopens- parents will have a hard time rejoining the labor market if they can’t find a place to put their children.
Women of Color Particularly Impacted
Black, Hispanic and Asian women accounted for all job losses for women in December 2020. The devastating impact of the recession on women of color is not surprising to many researchers and economists who understand that the intersection of long-standing patterns of racial, ethnic, and gender discrimination in policymaking and the labor market mean that women of color have always faced the worst economic outcomes and the greatest financial insecurity.
In addition to bearing the brunt of pandemic-related job losses in particular industries as mentioned above, many women of color work in jobs deemed essential, having to go to work despite risks to their health and safety—even if they are sick—because they provide vital financial support for their families. While these so-called essential jobs keep the nation’s economic lights on, they pay low wages and don’t offer basic protections like paid sick days or adequate health care. These factors force women of color to make impossible choices, as they have few options when their children must attend school remotely or a family member needs care to recover from COVID.
Childcare and Women
Among other areas of care (such as health care), childcare is among many long-neglected and structural problems laid bare by COVID.
Quality affordable child care:
is critical for the development of our children
reduces strains on K-12 systems
strengthens our future workforce and economy
provides freedom for (mostly) mothers to pursue careers that fulfill them and support their families’ long-term well-being
In addition to job losses caused by industry-specific closures and other labor market pressures, women have been forced out of work due to the pull of caregiving demands at home. For two parent heterosexual families, it’s often women who leave their jobs to tend to these domestic demands because their male partner’s job pays more. Unfortunately, this earnings margin is often a result of a wage and opportunity gap. A gap that will only increase as women become further underrepresented in the job market.
Income Gap
In 2019, the median annual earnings for women working full time, year-round was $47,299, or 82% of men’s earnings. Most women of color experience a wider wage gap due to the persistence of intersecting gender, race, and ethnic biases.
Women’s lower earnings are connected, in part, to the primary role that they play caring for their families. Women are more likely to be shouldered with a wide range of family caregiving responsibilities—including caring for children at home, handling household needs, coordinating appointments and activities, and more—causing them to pay an economic price.
Not a new problem: The Untenable Pressures of Working Moms
In 1989 Arlie Hochschild coined the term the “second shift” bringing into public consciousness the role working mom’s play in their family life. They work a full day within their career and then come home to attend to the domestic needs. The demand is untenable for most families.
In fact, 84% of the 17.3 million women who worked part time in 2017 (nearly double the number of men working part time) cited noneconomic reasons, such as family responsibilities.
While many moms don’t even have the option to work from home, those that do may be supported by their employers with more flexible hours, but they are still working around the clock to care for and bear the responsibility of educating their children. Women are burning the candle at both ends…. and burning out.
A Constant Sense of Failing
Mental health issues among moms are rising. The lack of acknowledgement or value placed on their “invisible work” is causing many mothers to feel left behind. The new demands of at-home learning are requiring parents to step into a new role as teacher- a role they may feel defeated by taking on. Parent/child relationships are being challenged by this new dynamic with children feeling confused by the new roles and authorities.
Parents are feeling GUILT- not present in other countries . Decisions about working/safety/childcare all rest solely on parents with no policy structures in place. The American system of go-it-alone individualism can be isolating for families who could benefit from public and community support.
The Breaking Point
Mothers are 3 times as likely as fathers to be responsible for the majority of housework and childcare during COVID according to Lean In and McKinsey & Company’s “Women in the Workplace” report. It’s of no surprise then that 1 in 4 women said they were considering downshifting their careers or leaving the workforce due to the pandemic’s impact.
Why Do We Devalue Care??
How do we decide what work / time we value the most? Is it the work or the demographic more likely to fulfill that work?
The U.S is an Outlier
In most developed countries it is common for families to enjoy the security of public support. Parents receive assistance such as long paid leaves, birth packages that smooth transition for new parents, and high quality child care. In many work environments, family needs are understood and accommodated with compassion. In many places, family wellbeing is so openly considered that it leads to men naturally taking on a larger share of the domestic responsibilities.
Going up against the 40 other developed countries, the U.S. came in dead last in terms of paid leave available to mothers and fathers. It was also the only Organization for Economic Co-operation and Development country that offered a whopping zero federally-mandated weeks of maternity leave. Even as the pandemic spotlighted how there is no system to catch us if the village falls apart, the United States stands alone in:
Leaving families to figure out childcare on their own
Providing nearly no public policy support
Providing little to no societal support
Why Won’t the Government Provide?
Congress has a track record of resistance when it comes to family support for a few reasons.
OUR GOVERNMENT SAYS CHILD CARE IS TOO EXPENSIVE
Congress has repeatedly deemed the service as too pricey. In truth, it is an expensive endeavor to educate and properly care for children. However, not doing so comes has multi-generational costs, including a less competitive workforce, higher poverty, less family creation, worse health outcomes, and so on. In the catastrophe of the moment, we find ourselves not only with a moral imperative, but also economic imperative: the cost of women being pushed out of the labor force because of this caregiving crisis is $64.5 billion a year-- more than it costs to fix it. The Child Care for Working Families act shows $60 billion a year on average.
It’s not as if we don’t spend money – we’ve just decided to devalue the benefits relative to other priorities, such as forever wars we’re still paying for or recent tax cuts for the powerful few and profitable corporations. Lastly- we might consider the imperative to keep care budgets low at any cost? What does it say about our perception of children’s needs (or elderly needs, or health needs) or the high skilled labor required in this field?
Our Government Doesn’t Want to be Involved with Family Decisions
While the government protects itself and the ethos of individualism by staying out of some family decisions, it has made a choice itself to let markets decide who has and who doesn’t have access to affordable and high-quality child care, it has made a choice to allow so-called heroes and essential workers to be paid poverty wages, and it has made a choice to not provide basic care for them and their families even as they put their bodies on the line to keep food on our tables.
Our Government Doesn’t Want to Disincentivize Women from Child Care
Many cultural conservatives in congress encourage old school family values and consider encouragement of working mothers to be an affront to traditionalist stay at home moms and religious voters. This, despite how difficult and fragile it is for so many families to exist on only one income. Interestingly, there appears to be a conflict along race and class lines here as middle- and upper-class women are expected to stay home with their children, but women in poverty must prove they are worthy of assistance through employment.
The History of Devalued Care is a History of Devaluing Women’s Time
Women’s work has been historically undervalued, as long-standing gender biases and inequalities contribute to the segregation of women into low-wage occupations and the persistent gender wage gap. Women are also in the precarious position to struggle between their career and home life because of a lack of U.S. policies to support both work and care, which is rooted in long-standing assumptions and often racist and sexist stereotypes that devalue women’s roles and expect women to juggle it all.
The United State’s current childcare paradigm is rooted in sexism and racism, harkening back to the period of slavery when we devalued childcare and domestic work because of its. Many of these care jobs originated during slavery and were expected to performed at no cost. That legacy has impacted the current treatment of these jobs both culturally and in terms of policy. Even when new labor laws and protections were being developed during The New Deal, domestic and care work was deliberately left out because southern congressman refused to support those laws if they protected domestic workers (and farmers) since these positions were typically held by black workers. This deliberate exclusion facilitated an ongoing understanding that this work was less valuable- even today it is often referred to as “help” rather than a profession. The origin of undervalued care work is BECAUSE it’s been the job of women and women of color.
What’s at Stake?
Long Term Concerns When Women are Out of Work
Lack of Care
One out of four women who became unemployed during the pandemic reported the job loss was due to a lack of childcare, twice the rate of men surveyed. Without addressing the systemic weaknesses of the U.S. child care system, 4.5 million child care slots could be lost permanently
Sinkhole in the U.s. Economy
The cost of women being pushed out of the labor force because of this caregiving crisis is $64.5 billion a year
Difficulty with Reentry to the Labor Force
Long-term spells of unemployment make it hard to find another job
INcrease in the Wage gap - taking lower jobs
Right now, women working full-time in the U.S. are paid just $0.82 for every dollar paid to men, with this gap being even wider for women of color. This gap will likely increase as women become further underrepresented in the job market.
Mental Wellness
Nearly half of all mothers reported at least mild symptoms of psychological distress in early April, after the nationwide school closings, as compared to 41% of women without school-age children and 32.5% of men.
Poverty
The poverty rate in the U.S. surged from 9.3% in June to 11.7% in November, representing the biggest single year increase since the government began tracking poverty in 1960. Blacks and children experienced disproportionate effects, both rising 3.1 percentage points.
diminished prospects for today’s children
“There is fascinating research out there that shows children in poverty, their brains are actually not developing at the same pace or in the same ways as children in well-resourced households, so that children become disadvantaged for life,” says Elaine Maag, who studies tax policy at the Urban Institute.
Policy Solutions to Build a Better Future for Women
“The world we rebuild in the wake of the coronavirus must grapple not only with the effects of COVID broadly, but also how the ongoing pandemics of white supremacy and misogyny have exacerbated inequities and placed undue burdens on Black and brown women. The only way forward to prosperity for our country is to center the needs of women, especially women of color.”
To truly resolve the stress and vulnerabilities of women in the workplace, we may need to reckon with the value we place on work (paid and unpaid) and the understanding of support needed by families. Centering the needs of women, in particular women of color, as we consider recovery and permanent policy is important to the wellbeing of families and our economy. In order to do that, the following must be addressed:
Affordable quality Child care
Paid Leave
Fair Work Schedules
Health and Safety Protections
Expanding Access to Comprehensive Health Coverage
Living Wages
Expanding and Strengthening State Unemployment Insurance Programs
Child Allowance / Child Tax Credits
This extensive list should be kept on our radar as we continue our advocacy efforts on behalf of families, and given the emergency resulting from the pandemic, today our action efforts will focus child care.
American Rescue Plan
Today’s session focuses on child care – one of many long-neglected and structural problems that have been laid bare during the pandemic – and its importance is acknowledged in the American Rescue Plan, a $1.9 trillion stimulus package that passed in the house and is being debated in the Senate. Among other provisions, key measures support women and families who are struggling during the pandemic, such as:
Childcare
The Rescue Plan invests $40 billion to expand access to affordable child care for families with low incomes. This money would help child care providers safely reopen and operate and stabilize the child care sector and expand access to low-income families.
Paid Sick and Family Leave
The Rescue Plan would require companies to provide 14 weeks of fully paid sick, family, and medical leave to help parents and those recovering from COVID until September 30, 2021. Doing so would allow 106 million additional people to access paid leave, many of them with full wage replacement.
Child Tax Credit
The Rescue Plan’s expansion of the existing Child Tax Credit would mean an additional 27 million children would benefit — including roughly half of all Black and Latino children. The maximum credit would increase from $2,000 to $3,000 for children between ages 6 and 17 and to $3,600 for children under 6.
Mental Health
The Rescue Plan invests $4 billion to increase access to urgently needed mental health services nationwide.
Child Care for Working Families Act
The Child Care for Working Families Act (CCWFA) would holistically address the current child care crisis by reducing costs to families, improving quality and increasing wages in the sector. In turn, millions would be lifted from poverty and would deliver security, starting at the family level, to the nation’s economy.
EXPANDING ACCESS
“The high cost of child care is a heavy burden that falls on children, families, and our economy as a whole. Children are too often denied the foundation they need to reach their potential, parents are forced to choose between child care and work, and these challenges have both short- and long-term consequences for our economy. The Child Care for Working Families Act addresses this national crisis by ensuring that all families can afford to send their children to a quality child care program that will support them through a critical stage in their lives”
Under CCWFA, no family with an annual income under 150% of state median income (SMI) would pay more than 7% of their income on copays. Families with incomes under 75% of the SMI will not have to pay anything at all. For families with incomes between 75% and 150% SMI, copays would be based on a sliding scale.
SMI varies by state, but in Colorado, for example, a family making less than $68,420 would pay no cost and a family making $136,839 would pay the full 7 percent of their income on child care ($9,579).
Currently, just 1 in 6 eligible families receives a child care subsidy. Under the CCWFA, 3 in 4 children— about 40 million—ages 12 and under would be income-eligible for child care assistance
IMPROVING CHILDREN’S PROSPECTS BY IMPROVING QUALITY OF CARE, A LONGER-TERM INVESTMENT
CCWFA would invest in improving quality in child care programs. When children have high-quality early care and education, their cognitive development is improved, they perform better throughout school, are less likely to interact with the criminal justice system, and report higher earnings later in life and increased overall happiness. The benefits of high-quality care and early childhood education for children’s wellbeing is well-established.
REBUILDING THE CHILD CARE SECTOR
By shoring up and expanding the deteriorating child care sector, CCWFA would create 770,000 new child care jobs. The goal would be to level up one of the nation’s most underpaid workforces and to better recruit and retain workers with the skills needed to improve the quality and outcomes for children’s early care and education.
These jobs would pay a living wage. Considering 3/4 of child care workers currently earn below a living wage, this would amount to a pay raise for nearly one million workers.
ADDRESSING LABOR FORCE WOES
Not all parents are provided workplace flexibility. CCWFA would allow families to use their child care subsidy to pay for child care during traditional work hours, as well as during evenings, on weekends, and in the summer.
Vastly expanding access to child care would allow 1.6 million parents, primarily mothers, to go back to work, in turn helping to counter the steady decline in women’s participation in the workforce
BOOSTING WAGES FOR LOW- AND MIDDLE-INCOME FAMILIES, AND LIFTING FAMILIES OUT OF POVERTY
Returning to the Colorado example above, where the cost of high quality child care was $15,600 in 2019, even the family paying the full 7% would experience thousands of dollars in savings.
The majority of those who would experience increased wages, savings, and new employment would be among low-income mothers. Altogether, these income boosts could lift 1 million or more families out of poverty.
Step into Action
Check to See if Your Representatives Have Co-Signed Child Care for Working Families Act
Click the button below to see a list of cosponsors in the House. You can search for your representative by state on the left side of the screen. If you don’t know the name of your congressperson, you can scroll down to find buttons in the next section to help you do that first. This is a fantastic time to get to know their names if you don’t already!
Show Support to Your Representatives Who Have Already Cosponsored Child Care for Working Families Act
You may opt to use the following script when either calling or emailing your state legislators. All the better if you are inspired to create your own statement in your own words. Your senator and representative are working to represent YOUR interests and values.
Because you are here with us, we empower you to represent yourself as a member of this organization if that feels good and brings you comfort. Feel free to omit this section if you prefer to reach out as an individual.
Dear (Representative),
My name is [Name]. I’m a member of Lead with Love, a non profit working to bring positive engagement with popular causes, and I am [writing/calling] from [zip code] in [city].
Thank you for your support of the Child Care for Working Families Act. At this time when women, especially women of color, and children are bearing the brunt of this deep recession, reducing child care costs, improving child care quality, and increasing wages in this sector is a moral and economic imperative.
I deeply appreciate your commitment to rebuilding our child care sector, and encourage you to compel your colleagues to do the same. I am asking you to do all in your power to pass this legislation. As your constituent, please let me know if there’s anything I can do to help build support in my community for the Child Care for Working Families Act.
Encourage Your Representatives Who Have Not Already Cosponsored Child Care for Working Families Act To Do So
You may opt to use the following script when either calling or emailing your state legislators. All the better if you are inspired to create your own statement in your own words. Your senator and representative are working to represent YOUR interests and values.
Because you are here with us, we empower you to represent yourself as a member of this organization if that feels good and brings you comfort. Feel free to omit this section if you prefer to reach out as an individual.
Dear (Representative),
My name is [name] and I am [writing/calling] from [city, state]. ]. As a member of Lead with Love, a non profit working to bring positive engagement with popular causes, I urge you to publicly support and co-sponsor the Child Care for Working Families Act. At this time when women, especially women of color, and children are bearing the brunt of this deep recession, reducing child care costs, improving child care quality, and increasing wages in this sector is a moral and economic imperative.
Rebuilding our child care sector is necessary to our wellbeing. As we witnessed over the last year, a lack of support has devastating effects on our labor force and economy. Your support and commitment is critical to ensuring that all families have access to quality care during this formative time for children. As your constituent, please let me know how if there’s anything I can do to support your commitment and build support in my community.
NOTE: For the representative, after you enter your zip code, you will be provided with a link to their website on the left side of the screen - this House of Representatives site does not contain the contact info directly
Encourage Your Senator to Support the American Rescue Plan
You may opt to use the following script when either calling or emailing your senator. All the better if you are inspired to create your own statement in your own words. Your senator is working to represent YOUR interests and values.
Because you are here with us, we empower you to represent yourself as a member of this organization if that feels good and brings you comfort. Feel free to omit this section if you prefer to reach out as an individual.
My name is [name] and I am [writing/calling] from [city, state]. ]. As a member of Lead with Love, a non profit working to bring positive engagement with popular causes, I urge you to swiftly pass the American Rescue Plan.
At this time when women, especially women of color, and children are bearing the brunt of this deep recession, many provisions in the Relief Plan would support women and families who continue to struggle, such as paid leave, child tax credits, and investments in child care and mental health.
Your immediate support and commitment is critical to ensuring women and children recover from this recession. As your constituent, please let me know how if there’s anything I can do to support your commitment and build support in my community.
Amplify this message!
POST about America’s unemployment and child care crisis and help bring attention to this cause, using the hashtags:
#womensupportingwomen
#thesecondshift
#childcare4all
#leadwithlove
#loveinaction
Share images showing your support for:
working women
moms
high quality child care
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