Foundation Launches Effort to Strengthen California's Domestic Violence Service Providers
To Balance California's Budget, Share the Burden
Our Nation Must Aim Higher to Address the Barriers Confronting Low-Income Women
Gutted Health Care Bill Ignores This Nation's Best Opportunity for Reform
A Low-Income Woman's Nation: How a Green Economy Can Help Those Struggling Most
Actor and Advocate Geena Davis Joins the Women's Foundation of California to Honor Great Leaders
Disposable Income: How gender and sexuality don't add up to equal pay
Schwarzenegger's Proposed Cuts Hurt Elderly, Hungry, Disabled Most
New Hope for Women and Girls from Washington, DC
Women can lead the way to recovery
Economic Recovery: Fairness for Low-Income Families
Hormone-disrupting Cosmetics Chemicals Found in Teen Girls
Foundation Launches Effort to Strengthen California's Domestic Violence Service Providers
"Strong Field Project" Names 20 Inaugural Leaders, 15 Organizations to Build a Stronger Domestic Violence Field in California
San Francisco, July 20, 2010 — Blue Shield of California Foundation (BSCF) is pleased to announce the inaugural participants in the Strong Field Project. Fifteen California domestic violence organizations and 20 California domestic violence leaders have been selected through a competitive process to benefit from intensive leadership training and organizational development. The Strong Field Project (http://strongfieldproject.org) is a four-year effort to build a more effective, coordinated network of domestic violence service providers in California. The Project will develop individual leaders, stronger organizations, and networking and knowledge-sharing among California’s domestic violence field. Download and read the release.
Open Forum: Budget cuts reduce opportunities for California's women and families
By Judy Patrick, President and CEO of the Women's Foundation of California and Sande Smith, Director of Communications at the Women's Foundation of California
As seen on The Opinion Shop of the San Francisco Chronicle
May 19, 2010 - The governor's revision to the state budget is unconscionable. By completely eliminating CalWORKS, California's welfare-to-work program, along with all child-care assistance, it unfairly saddles working mothers and families with balancing the budget and thwarts opportunities for low-income women to move themselves and their families out of poverty. Read more on the San Francisco Chronicle website.
To Balance California's Budget, Share the Burden
By Judy Patrick, President and CEO of the Women's Foundation of California
As seen on Huffington Post
May 13, 2010 - This Friday, May 14, Governor Schwarzenegger releases his revised budget and from all projections it will contain some very tough recommendations. Last Friday, State Controller John Chiang reported that revenues fell $3.6 billion short of what was projected in April. That means that California's budget deficit may even surpass original estimates. Faced with tough choices, what we do now will have a big impact on the health, safety and economic security of Californians for years to come. The one thing we must do is create a budget that protects California's women and their families who are struggling to make it through these tough economic times. Read the rest on Huffington Post.
Our Nation Must Aim Higher to Address the Barriers Confronting Low-Income Women
By Shelley A. Davis, vice president of programs and advocacy, Chicago Foundation for Women, and Surina Khan, vice president of programs, the Women's Foundation of California This post originally appeared on Spotlight on Poverty and Opportunity
May 10, 2010 - In the coming months, Congress and the Obama Administration will have a chance to get it right when it comes to addressing the problems faced by millions of low-income women and their families.
Past programs and policies have not done enough to help low-income women move out of poverty. To avoid repeating those mistakes, the current national focus on job creation, training and education must include a discussion about how to develop new and different opportunities to help women to aim higher and create a more promising future.
Low-income women have been hit especially hard by the recession. In March 2010, the unemployment rate for women who maintain families was 11.3 percent—the highest rate in the past 25 years. By comparison, the unemployment rate for all women was 8.6 percent; for married men it was 8.1 percent and for married women it was 6.7 percent. Women of color have been especially hard hit. The unemployment rate for white women in March 2010 was 7.3 percent, compared with 12 percent for Hispanic/Latina women and 12.4 percent for African-American women.
With both Temporary Assistance for Needy Families (TANF) and the Workforce Investment Act due for reauthorization, Congress has an opportunity to strengthen two of the nation’s largest programs for low-income women and their families. Specifically, the emphasis of these programs should be on helping women improve their skills and education rather than being pushed into any available job—no matter how low-paying or lacking in career potential. Additionally, federal efforts should support programs that combine on-the-job experience with services that help low-income women overcome barriers to employment, including the need for child care, lack of transportation and tenuous housing.
Philanthropic and private entities have key roles to play. Through our work with women’s foundations in our communities, we know what strategies work best locally and could be replicated nationally.
For example, programs that help low-income women navigate the obstacles to higher education can be highly effective in moving women out of poverty. LIFETIME, a San Leandro, California-based nonprofit (and grant partner of the Women’s Foundation of California), provides counseling to women seeking college degrees while receiving public assistance through the state’s TANF program (CalWORKS). LIFETIME’s peer counselors help their clients qualify to stay in school despite caseworkers who typically press them to take any job, regardless of pay and growth potential. The peer counselors become advocates for LIFETIME’s clients and train the women how to advocate for themselves. Overall, 90 percent of the mothers who go through the program graduate from college and land jobs in their field of study, earning between $18 and $55 per hour. Others have gone on to earn master’s degrees and doctorates.
Transitional employment programs that provide job experience while offering hands-on support and training have also shown success in launching low-income women into steady work. Bright Endeavors, a grantee of Chicago Foundation for Women, operates a candle-making business to provide young women, ages 16 to 25, with the guidance necessary to develop a successful work history, focusing on skills like teamwork and communications. The women learn how to make Bright Endeavor’s line of eco-friendly candles and to work as a team, while receiving hands-on personal support and one-on-one coaching and job placement.
This past year we started the Women’s Economic Security Campaign (WESC) with other women’s foundations across the country to ensure that the problems faced by women living in poverty and their families are at the center of efforts to fix our nation’s economy. In a report released by WESC last week (May 5) – Aiming Higher: Removing Barriers to Education, Training and Jobs for Low-income Women – we offer the following strategies for helping women achieve more promising futures for themselves and their children:
Connect women to programs and services that make education or employment possible. Supports in areas like child care, transportation, housing and health services are critical for single, low-income mothers struggling to balance work, training or education, and family responsibilities. When these supports fall through, low-income students and workers are likely to drop out of school or quit their jobs.
Provide women with more work and training opportunities. Limited previous work experience and opportunities for on-the-job training pose a major barrier to low-income women hoping to improve their future employment options.
Increase opportunity by focusing on employer needs. In order to increase economic security, we need to support programs that tie training and education to actual jobs. More and better jobs are also needed in the low-income neighborhoods where these women live so they are not forced to rely on complicated transportation and child-care arrangements to hold down jobs many miles from home.
As a nation, we need to aim higher. For too long we have settled for too little when it comes to the lives of millions of low-income mothers. It is not enough to create programs and services if we do not provide the guidance and support these women need to access them. We cannot assume we’ve done our job as a nation if we have simply funneled women off of public assistance and into low-paying, dead-end jobs with no hope for a better future.
As we emerge from the worst economic crisis in generations, we have a chance to rethink the status quo and develop policies that will set low-income women, and our nation as a whole, on a more promising path. Government leaders, as well as the philanthropic community and private entities, must help lead the way.
Shelley A. Davis is vice president of programs and advocacy for the Chicago Foundation for Women. Surina Khan is vice president of programs for the Women's Foundation of California
Gutted Health Care Bill Ignores This Nation's Best Opportunity for Reform
by Judy Patrick and Karla Rodriguez | as seen on HuffingtonPost.com
December 21, 2009 - The stripped health care "reform" bill fails to leverage the power of those who have the greatest potential to determine and maintain good health for all of us: women. We all suffer when women -- this nation's primary health care decision-makers and consumers -- do not have what they need to be healthy.
Most people agree that the health care system in the United States is in desperate need of reform. Too few people have access to quality health care. Insurance and pharmaceutical companies hold us hostage. Treatment, not prevention, is the focus of care because it helps rich companies get richer.
The current health care reform bill in the US Senate is not reform at all and, in fact, creates greater barriers for all of us. The bill offers no public option, diminishes a woman's right to choose if or when she has children, reduces consumer choice around prescription medication and requires everyone to buy health insurance.
What happened to free will in a free market economy? What does it say about our society when government requires us to purchase health insurance and fines us for not doing so yet provides no support to make this possible? And while we're asking questions, what happened to this being about health and care?
The limitations of this bill affect all of us and affect younger adults, low-wage workers, the elderly, women and immigrants the most. These groups represent the most vulnerable populations to health inequities who have the most to lose, while health insurance and pharmaceutical companies have the most to gain. If the bill passes, we will end up with a system that is based on private insurers that have no incentive to control their costs or the costs of pharmaceutical companies and medical providers. To conform to the present health care "reform" bill is to surrender our choices and to drive a deeper wedge between the "haves" and the "have-nots."
Congressional leaders have forsaken the health needs of their constituents in favor of protecting the profits of big health business. Perhaps our representatives need to be reminded of the millions of people in our country whose health rights are being denied.
While it has become widely understood that when women are healthy, their children are healthy, their families are healthy, communities are healthy and so on, low-income workers (60% of whom are women) have the least access to health care. When examining the rates of uninsured by race, 13.4% of European-American women are uninsured while nearly 40% of Latinas lack health insurance.
In California, more people are born outside the US than in any other state. Of these 9.9 million residents, 3.3 million are legal residents, who are mandated to wait a full five years before being eligible for Medicare and Medicaid coverage under the bill.
What benefits are left for low-wage workers, women, immigrants and elders in a health care reform bill that does not provide quality, affordable, health care for all of us?
After many months of debating, advocating, testifying, arm twisting, we may realize some changes to our health care system that are a mere shadow of what should be possible.
We must continue to push forward to achieve all that we can in this piece of legislation, but we should be disappointed and angry that the interests of a few of our elected officials and those of the health care industry will carry the day. We must continue to advocate for policies that definitively expand access to quality health care, abolish unjust practices of insurers and provide quality affordable health care for all people living in the US.
A Low-Income Woman's Nation: How a Green Economy Can Help Those Struggling Most
by Judy Patrick and Shelley A. Davis | as seen on Grist and Change.org
October 23, 2009 - This past week Maria Shriver and the Center for American Progress released a seminal report on the emergence of women as primary wage earners for millions of families. The Shriver Report: A Woman’s Nation Changes Everything, marks a promising step forward in the evolution of a society that for too long has failed to adjust policies and practices to women’s growing presence in the workplace.
Left in the shadows of this otherwise comprehensive report, however, were the unique obstacles faced by those struggling most to make ends meet-low-income single mothers trying to support their families on paltry wages in jobs that offer no prospects for a better future. Any serious national discussion on the obstacles confronting women in the workforce must include a special focus on the growing numbers of women toiling at the bottom of the economic ladder.
Consider these facts:
- Ninety percent of working-age adults who work full-time but earn less than $15,000 a year are women.
- In 2008, 37.2 percent of female-headed families with children were living in poverty compared with just 8 percent of families with both parents in the home and 14 percent of male-headed families.
- Adult women and teenage girls make up two-thirds of minimum wage employees in the U.S.
The recession has taken a significant toll on low-income single mothers. In September, 11.6 percent of this population were unemployed, compared with 11 percent of men overall and 7.4 percent of married men. Providing low-income single women with the resources to train for and stay employed in jobs with good wages and benefits is the clearest path to a brighter future for millions of families. Since women now make up half the workforce, it is also a vital component of lasting economic recovery for our nation.
As founding members of a new collaborative of women’s foundations—the Women’s Economic Security Campaign—we have seen up close how programs that train women for better paying jobs with the possibility of advancement can make all the difference for families and communities. With the emergence of a green jobs sector, we have an opportunity to advance women’s economic security in a bigger and better way than ever before, providing low-income women with a rare chance to get in on the ground floor of a growth industry and learn the skills to compete for stable, higher-paying jobs.
Unfortunately most green jobs, from weatherizing homes and buildings to constructing wind turbines, are in fields that have typically been dominated by men. As a society we have a terrible track record of training and placing women in these non-traditional careers. For example, 0.5 percent of roofers and 1.4 percent of plumbers, pipefitters, and steamfitters are women, according to a new report from the Women’s Economic Security Campaign—Creating Opportunity for Low-Income Women in the Green Economy. Even at the higher end, women make up just 10.6 percent of civil engineers. The median hourly wage for roofers, at the low-end of the non-traditional job spectrum, is $16.17 an hour—enough to cover the basic needs of a small family. By contrast, preschool teachers, 98 percent of whom are women, earn just $11.48 an hour. At that wage, a preschool teacher would need to work over 25 hours more per week then a roofer to support a similar living standard.
Fortunately, our country is in a good position to change this pattern. The American Recovery and Reinvestment Act provided states with millions of dollars to train workers for new green sector jobs. We need to ensure that a significant portion of those funds goes to programs that prepare low-income women to successfully compete in the green economy.
Once they are on the job we need to provide women with the supports necessary to stay employed. For low-income single mothers that means child care, flexible hours, and accessible transportation. It also means enforcing anti-discrimination and sexual harassment laws that for too long have made non-traditional workplaces inhospitable to women.
As Congress debates climate change legislation, our representatives in Washington, D.C. should stand up for the needs of low-income women when considering provisions aimed at training and placing workers in green jobs. We have the chance to do it right this time and shape a more promising future for the growing number of women and children in poverty. In the process we can help our nation move toward a long-term economic recovery that will benefit us all.
Actor and Advocate Geena Davis Joins the Women's Foundation of California to Honor Great Leaders
The Women’s Foundation celebrates 30 years and raises money to fund programs in the Bay Area
San Francisco, California
October 23, 2009 - The Women's Foundation of California is excited to announce its 30th Anniversary Luncheon taking place on Friday, November 13 from 11:30 am to 2 pm at the Fairmont San Francisco.
More than 750 of the Bay Area’s most influential women and men will gather to honor Actor and Founder of See Jane (www.seejane.org) Geena Davis, California State Senator Mark Leno, Statewide Activist and San Francisco native Elmy Bermejo and philanthropic partners Levi Strauss & Co. and Levi Strauss Foundation. Lateefah Simon, one of Oprah’s Top 20 Power Women of 2009 and Executive Director of the Lawyers’ Committee for Civil Rights, will serve as Mistress of Ceremonies.
“I have spent most of my adult life advocating for girls and women,” said Geena Davis, keynote speaker for the event. “I want my children—all children—to live in a world where girls and boys, and women and men, are treated with equal dignity and have equal opportunities."
The Women’s Foundation of California was established in San Francisco in 1979. It became a statewide foundation in 2003 when it merged with the Los Angeles Women’s Foundation. Thirty years later the Foundation is a leader among the 135 women’s funds worldwide that trace their roots to the Foundation’s model.
“I am proud to join my wife, the First Lady of San Francisco and Honorary Chair of the Foundation’s 30th Anniversary Celebration, Jennifer Siebel Newsom, in honoring great leaders who embody the spirit of the Women’s Foundation of California,” said Gavin Newsom, Mayor of San Francisco. “Their service to California is truly inspirational, and continues to make our world a better place.”
The event’s Honorary Committee includes Chair First Lady of San Francisco Jennifer Siebel Newsom, San Francisco Mayor Gavin Newsom, Speaker of the US House of Representatives Nancy Pelosi, US Senator Barbara Boxer, US Senator Dianne Feinstein and San Francisco District Attorney Kamala D. Harris, among others.
Tickets for the event are on sale for $175.
About the Women’s Foundation of California:
The Women’s Foundation of California envisions a state that is the healthiest, safest and most economically prosperous place in the world to live. The Foundation achieves this by focusing on the leadership of women and girls through their central role in families and communities.
Disposable Income: How gender and sexuality don’t add up to equal pay
by John Caldon | as seen in the San Francisco Chronicle and the Huffington Post
June 28, 2009 - June marks Pride Month, an annual celebration of the lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender (LGBT) community’s struggle for full equity. Despite the huge strides made toward this goal over the last few decades, there remains much work to be done. The historical patterns of workplace discrimination and pay inequity among LGBT and women workers still persist. On June 24, Representative Barney Frank (D) of Massachusetts introduced the federal Employment Non-Discrimination Act (ENDA), a bill that would protect all workers from discrimination regardless of their sexual or gender identity.
A careful look at the earnings and workplace experiences of LGBT and women workers clearly illustrates the need for this legislation. Gender and sexual identity are intrinsically linked to pay.
According to the Institute for Women’s Policy Research, in 2008 full-time working women made 80 cents for every dollar their male counterparts made. And though the Lilly Ledbetter Fair Pay Act was a significant step toward promoting pay equity for women, Ledbetter only amended the statute of limitations established by the Civil Rights Act of 1964 to allow claimants more time to file equal pay lawsuits. It did not legislate equal pay for equal work.
Studies also illustrate just how much a person’s sexual identity is present in their pocketbook. “Bias in the Workplace,” a 2007 Williams Institute report, documents that gay men earn 10% – 32% less than similarly qualified heterosexual men. The report also finds that though “the differential between lesbian and heterosexual women has varied across studies… lesbians consistently earn less than men.” But despite multiple attempts, ENDA has yet to survive its way through Congress, leaving LGBT workers vulnerable to workplace discrimination in more than 30 states.
In 2008 the B.E. Journal of Economic Analysis & Policy also released a very telling new study. Kristen Schilt and Matthew Wiswall’s “Before and After: Gender Transitions, Human Capital, and Workplace Experiences” explores the changes in pay and workplace treatment of people who transition genders. By looking at the before-and-after snapshots of people whose gender changes, but whose abilities remain the same, the study makes unique observations about the affects of gender identity in the workplace. Schilt and Wiswall find that people who transition from male-to-female lose about 31% of their earnings, while people who transition from female-to-male experience on average a 10% gain.
So, study respondents who lived as women before transitioning earned less money than men, and study respondents who lived as women after transitioning earned less money than men. In short, regardless of their talents, both biological and transgender women earn less than men for equal work.
Similarly, “State of Transgender California,” a March 2009 report produced by the Transgender Law Center, finds that while transgender Californians are twice as likely to hold a bachelor’s degree, they’re also twice as likely to live below the poverty line. These obvious disconnects between ability and opportunity point directly to the challenging discriminatory employment environment faced by LGBT and women workers.
The conclusion is clear: LGBT and women workers are not earning equal pay for equal work, nor are they fully protected from discrimination based on their gender and sexual identities.
The time to pass ENDA is now.
Twelve days before his inauguration, President Obama delivered a speech at George Mason University in which he said, “We cannot have a solid recovery if our people and our businesses don’t have confidence that we’re getting our fiscal house in order.”
When getting your house in order, it’s best to work your way from the foundation up. This means advocating for stimulus packages that benefit women and low-wage workers as a way to jumpstart the economy while protecting our nation’s most vulnerable. True fiscal recovery must also include steps to promote equal pay for equal work and ensure that everyone is protected from harassment in the workplace. This Pride Month—join LGBT and women workers in urging President Obama and Congress to take more steps to promote pay equity and to pass ENDA.
Schwarzenegger's Proposed Cuts Hurt Elderly, Hungry, Disabled Most
by Judy Patrick | as seen in the Sacramento Bee and the Huffington Post
June 14, 2009 - At noon on Sunday mornings the church I attend in downtown Oakland usually distributes about 100 bags of food. Those who line up to receive these bags are usually elderly residents and a few homeless men who live in the neighborhood. Last Sunday as I looked at the line forming, it was a starkly different group of people—many more single young men in their 20s and 30s and mothers with their young children. In the end, we packed and distributed 223 bags of food.
This very same week our Governor announced his proposed elimination of most major supports for public assistance to our state’s poor and disabled residents. He proposed that we eliminate CalWORKS, the program that provides very limited cash support (a maximum of $652 per month for a family of three) to low and no income families with children. This would leave 1.3 million Californians with no cash support, most of whom are single mothers with significant barriers to employment—interpersonal violence, access to affordable childcare or disabilities—in an economy where it is very difficult for unemployed people with strong skills to find jobs.
The Governor also proposed the elimination of Healthy Families, a program that provides health coverage to low income children, and two programs created by Governor Wilson: the Cash Assistance Program for Immigrants (CAPI) and the California Food Assistance Program.
CAPI provides core assistance to about 10,500 mostly elderly Asian women, many of whom immigrated here after the conflicts in Southeast Asia. These are the women we see on Sundays at the food pantry because they cannot live on their current income. Women who, despite their advanced age, stand in line for 2-3 hours leaning on their walkers in order to get a bag of food that contains one can of vegetables, one can of fruit, one can of soup, a small can of tuna or chicken, cereal, milk, a grain or beans and on a good day a few pieces of fresh produce. At the end of this wait, they struggle to walk home with food that will last a day or two.
If the California Food Assistance Program (state funded Food Stamps for legal immigrants) were eliminated, 23,700 people would lose their food assistance and $30 million would be cut from the economy. That’s because these programs are mostly funded by federal dollars. The portion of state funding varies from 10% to 33% of the total expenditure. Ending these programs not only leaves federal dollars on the table but further decimates city and county budgets and creates greater need for nonprofit and faith-based social service programs—programs that are already under-funded and over-extended.
The economic concerns are the least important. How we as a state treat “the least of these” matters the most. As the Governor was announcing his severe cuts he talked about California standing on the edge of a cliff with a gun to its head. The Governor is standing on the edge of this cliff and throwing over the edge poor women, poor children, the disabled, the elderly and the mentally ill. Is this the California we want?
There are solutions. These solutions, however, demand an increase in State revenues, skillful budget cutting that protects those least able to protect themselves and a legislature that can move from being positional to being true problem solvers.
We must communicate to our elected officials that we would be receptive to thoughtful tax increases and that we expect them to stop pointing fingers and digging in their heels. We elected them to be problem solvers, and if there was ever a time when we needed cooperative and creative problem solving it is now.
New Hope for Women and Girls from Washington DC
by Judy Patrick as seen on Huffington Post
March 13, 2009 - On Wednesday, President Obama signed an executive order creating the first-ever White House Council on Women and Girls. The Council will be charged with creating among all federal agencies a coordinated approach to the challenges faced by women and girls. In its first year, the Council will focus on women's economic security, work-family policies, preventing violence against women and improving access to healthcare for women and their families.
The creation of this council is deeply significant. It is an important acknowledgment not only that women and girls face persistent economic and cultural barriers to full equity, but also that women and girls play a key role in ensuring our society's well-being. By improving the lives of women, we improve the lives of their children, families and communities -- and ultimately the country.
The Council alone, however, cannot achieve its goals. It will require the coordination and combined efforts of Congress and all federal agencies. It will also require that advocates and activists who care deeply about women and families push the Council and the Obama administration in constructive ways to ensure that those women who are most in need have a voice. The very creation of the Council is a good sign that the administration will listen.
Women's Foundation of California and our partners in the Women's Economic Security Collaborative are ready to help the Council off to a strong start. We have decades of experience and research to support the importance of investing in women, and we know how to do it effectively. We hope to have the opportunity to advise the new White House Council and work with federal agencies to make the greatest impact.
While the announcement of the White House Council on Women and Girls was historic, the President's release of his budget plan two weeks earlier was an equally important step toward supporting women and their families.
The President's budget proposal includes both short-term and long-term investments to support working families, many of which are headed by women. Millions of these families are now living on the brink of poverty or sinking deeper into it as a result of the ever-worsening recession the country faces.
Many elements of the President's budget are crucial to women and girls.
First and foremost is the investment in significant healthcare reform. Under the plan, the government would set aside more than $630 billion over the next ten years to help finance health reform. The President did not offer many details about what health reform would look like, but instead convened stakeholders at the White House, established guiding principles for reform and asked Congress to craft a plan that is in line with his budget.
It will not be easy to achieve comprehensive, affordable healthcare care reform, but the commitment of funds proposed in the President's budget is an essential first step. Because women pay more on average for health coverage, need more health care services over the course of their lives and make the majority of health-related decisions for their families, this is an absolutely crucial issue for women and girls.
The budget proposal also increases funding for childcare by $2 billion. Affordable childcare will allow millions of parents -- especially moms -- to go to work to support their families knowing that their children are safe and well-cared for. In addition, the budget would fully fund nutrition programs for women and children and create a nurse home visitation program for first-time mothers, which has proven positive effects for family health and child development.
Economic supports for unemployed and low-income workers in the proposed budget are also vital for women's ability to support themselves and their families. The president proposed to make permanent the recent expansions to the unemployment insurance system, which allow lower-wage and part-time workers to access benefits. Women represent the majority of low-wage and part-time workers in the economy, including 68% of the minimum wage workforce, so this provision helps to create gender equity in the unemployment safety net. Making Work Pay, a refundable tax credit for working families making up to about $75,000 a year per person, would also become permanent.
The fight in Washington, D.C. over President Obama's budget plan is sure to be long, tough and nasty at times. Yet it is essential that people get involved and stay involved in this battle to ensure that the pieces of the budget that are most critical to women and families survive. Many of us live in states -- California in my case -- where our state budgets are dismal and deficits are only growing. As the states' capacity to help families and the economy come out of the recession diminishes, the importance of the federal government increases. In short, we need this federal budget; women and girls need it.
The formulation of the federal budget is the first step in the process of creating new policies that address the needs of women and girls. The passage of the president's proposed budget, with its core priorities intact, will create the foundation on which the White House Council on Women and Girls -- and we as citizens and advocates -- can build a better future for women and their families.
Judy Patrick is President and CEO of the Women's Foundation of California.
Women can lead the way to recovery
by Chris Grumm, Judy Patrick, Kavita Ramdas | from the San Francisco Chronicle
March 9, 2009 - This year, National Women’s History Month falls during a time of enormous turbulence and fear. The global economic meltdown is drastically reshaping our financial landscape and altering the way we live.
Although the economy has dominated our consciousness, debates and airwaves for months, little attention is being paid to the fact that women are disproportionately bearing the brunt of this crisis. Equally ignored is the fact that women have the solutions to get us out of it.
Consider the facts:
In California, women make up 68 percent of minimum-wage workers, making them especially vulnerable.
In the United States, the subprime mortgage crisis is taking a higher toll on women: 32 percent of women borrowers hold sub-prime mortgages, compared with 24 percent of men.
Worldwide, the poor, the majority of whom are women and children, are shouldering the burden as developing countries battle inflation, soaring prices for food and a slowdown in markets for exports.
Amidst this grim outlook, there is good news. President Obama’s signing of the Lilly Ledbetter Fair Pay Act is a strong first step, and the federal stimulus package will begin to stem the tide of cuts to social service programs in California.
As labor secretary, Hilda Solis understands the issues that low-wage workers face, and the president’s budget prioritizes crucial areas like health care, education, the environment and reducing income disparities.
Yet as lawmakers and economists attempt to find a way to stop the downward spiral and rebuild the economy, investing in women and women-led solutions must be central to any plan.
Women are capable of forging lasting change, starting with their families, then transforming entire communities and beyond. We know that when women are economically secure, families are economically secure and, ultimately, so are communities and nations. That’s the perspective that drives the work of the Women’s Foundation of California, the Global Fund for Women and the more than 130 women’s funds from around the world that comprise the Women’s Funding Network.
Women’s funds invest in solutions created by and in partnership with women who are pushed to the margins. We see women as experts and solution-builders who can lead whole communities to security, not as victims or passive recipients.
We invest in women like Diana Spatz, a former welfare recipient and UC Berkeley graduate who founded LIFETIME in Alameda County, a grassroots organization that helps women earn college degrees while raising their families on public assistance.
We invest in organizations like Mujeres Constructoras, a women’s rights organization that, in the aftermath of devastating Hurricane Mitch in Nicaragua, played a key role in rebuilding homes for single women and their families.
Women who dared to learn skills like carpentry, electrical wiring, and welding were able to make a difference in their community while gaining economic independence.
It’s clear that we must invest in the ingenuity and strength of women. We already know what some of the solutions are:
Give women equal pay for equal work—an act that would cut poverty in half. Women still make only 78 cents for every dollar earned by men—and for women of color, the numbers are even worse.
Put money in the hands of low-income people—food stamps return $1.73 into the economy for every dollar invested, more than any other measure.
Educate and train women to move into quality jobs created by the stimulus package, rebuilding our infrastructure and greening the economy.
Invest in education and health care now to ensure that we have the human capital to sustain a healthy economy.
Engage women directly in the policymaking process as advocates and elected officials.
These are a few measures that will help not just women and families—especially low-wage workers and low-income families—but all communities. Now more than ever, we must invest in women and their potential as agents of social and economic change.
Chris Grumm is president and CEO of the Women’s Funding Network, Judy Patrick is president and CEO of the Women’s Foundation of California, and Kavita Ramdas is president and CEO of the Global Fund for Women.
Economic Recovery: Fairness for low-income families
by Judy Patrick and Surina Khan | as seen on the Huffington Post
December 3, 2008 - Blanca cleans houses. She has four kids ranging in age from five to 13. She has no health insurance, and if she misses a day of work because she is sick she doesn’t get paid. She juggles childcare to keep her cleaning jobs. Her sister helps take care of her kids during the day before going to her restaurant job at night. Blanca makes about $1,000 per month.
Blanca is a low-wage worker. She is one of 30 million US residents who are heading families that include 20 million children. Sixty-eight percent of low-wage workers are women, and nearly one-third of women in the workforce work in low-wage employment, compared with one-fifth of men in the workforce.
As our legislators consider another economic recovery package for failing corporations to help move us out of a recession and alleviate skyrocketing poverty and unemployment rates, we need to make sure this plan is focused on the economic needs of low-income families and low-wage workers. Already disadvantaged by years of workplace and legislative failures, women and their families face an increasingly insecure future if policies are not adjusted to meet our ever more pressing needs. Any economic recovery package should be sure to address the urgent needs of those who have been most impacted by the crisis, especially low-income women, women of color and their families.
Recent statistics show that in the current economic recession women are losing jobs at twice the rate of men. There has been much said about higher wage workers — particularly in the financial services and automobile sectors — losing their jobs. A different type of trickle-down theory applies here. For all the higher wage jobs being lost, there are at least as many lower wage jobs disappearing — many of them held by women. If they are part-time workers or self-employed, they receive no unemployment insurance.
These are retail salespeople, security guards, education assistants, childcare workers, waitresses, cashiers, fast-food cooks, bartenders, home health aides and housecleaners. Over 20 percent of white workers, 30 percent of African-American workers and 40 percent of Latino workers are members of the low-wage workforce.
These workers are underpaid and work for wages that don’t begin to support a basic standard of living. One in four low-wage workers earns less than $8.70 an hour, or $16,704 per year, in jobs that provide few basic benefits such as health care, sick pay, disability pay and paid vacation.
Many women heads-of-households have no safety net. Nearly 37 percent of families headed by single women in California live in poverty, 53 percent of working mothers have no sick leave and one in 10 working women have no health insurance. Women also make up 68 percent of minimum wage workers, making them especially vulnerable to economic turbulence.
Women are not only disproportionately represented in the low-wage workforce, they also earn less than men who hold exactly the same job. Today, despite decades of struggle for job access and pay equity, women are paid 77 cents for each dollar a man makes. The disparity is worse for African American women, who earn 62 cents, and Latinas, who earn 53 cents for each dollar a man makes. More than 10 million women are single parents (as compared with 2.5 million single fathers). For them, opting out of the workforce for any reason — like raising children or pursuing an education — is not viable.
We need to create a safety net that includes benefits that are easy to access especially during times of economic downturn and that are inclusive of immigrants. Without this, women and our families will sink deeper into poverty and be far less likely to recover from overwhelming threats to economic security — no matter how much money our legislators move into the corporate sector.
We already know what some of these solutions are. We should pass the Fair Pay Act — a priority for women’s groups — which removes obstacles to pay-discrimination lawsuits. We should pave the pathway to citizenship for undocumented workers. We should extend the time period for unemployment benefits and make these benefits available to part-time workers (most of them women). We should focus on an infrastructure-building program to create jobs and make sure that there is education and training for women to move into these jobs. There should be set hiring benchmarks for women and people of color. We should include in the recovery package investments beyond infrastructure jobs. While these are good jobs and get money to state and local governments fast, they consist largely of jobs for which men have skills.
Let’s consider investing in education or health care as well. We should allow bankruptcy judges to alter repayment terms for mortgages. We should create equal job access and protection for lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender people. We should focus on greening the economy through jobs that are focused on alternative-energy development. We should provide universal access to health insurance and mandate paid sick days for workers. These are but a few policies that will help all workers — especially low-wage workers and low-income families.
We will have to organize in our communities to make sure our lawmakers hear us. To rebuild our economic system we need policies that are rooted in fairness and that will address people’s real problems with real solutions.
Judy Patrick is President and CEO of the Women’s Foundation of California. Surina Khan is Vice President of Programs for the Women’s Foundation of California.
Hormone-disrupting Cosmetics Chemicals Found in Teen Girls
September 26, 2008 - The Women's Foundation of California funded ground-breaking reaserach on the issue of hormone-disrupting chemicals found in teen girls who use toxic cosmetics. The study was funded through a grant from the Community Action Fund and is one of the first studies to find traces of toxic cosmetic chemicals in teen girls that have been linked to causing early puberty, increased breast cancer risk, birth defects and endocrine disruption. The study was released by the Environmental Working Group (EWG), a founding member of the Campaign for Safe Cosmetics.
Read the full article here.
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