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Rocky Recovery for Women
. . .although men lost 70 percent of the 7.5 million jobs that were eliminated between December 2007 and June 2009, men have won 92 percent of the 1.9 million jobs that have been created since then. From “man-cession” we’ve gone to “man-covery.
One reason is that women represent 57 percent of workers in the public sector (compared with 48 percent in the private sector, where the gains are). They hold a disproportionate share of state and local government jobs—exactly those levels of government that have been shedding workers by the shipload.
. . .
Women are finding it harder to find work, and they’re still being paid less than men when they are working. Across the board, women earned on average 78.2 percent of what men earned in 2009 according to the US Census. Even in female-dominated workplaces, men were paid better.
This winter, the Retail Action Project (RAP) and the City University of New York (CUNY) released a report that showed a dramatic gender gap in wages in the retail industry. In a survey of 436 retail workers at national retail chains (among them Target, Old Navy and Urban Outfitters), the median gender gap between women and men was the difference between $9.00 per hour and $10.13 per hour. Women were also found to be less likely to receive benefits from employers, or promotions. Hit hardest were the 53 percent of black women and 77 percent of Latina women who earned less than $10 per hour. On that, approximately a third of those surveyed supported at least one family member. (As for all that talk about education and training, just over 70 percent of the workers RAP talked to had completed some college or a college degree. Those with an associate’s degree had a median hourly wage of $10 for an annual gross income of $16,640. So much for Newt Gingrich’s associate degree ticket out of poverty.)
It’s no better among the so-called creative class. To quote Richard Florida in The Atlantic (the same publication that in 2010 brought us Hanna Roisin’s ridiculous “The End of Men”):
"Women hold slightly more than half (52.3 percent) of creative class jobs and their average level of education is almost the same as men. But the pay they receive is anything but equal. Creative class men earn an average of $82,009 versus $48,077 for creative class women. This $33,932 gap is a staggering 70 percent of the average female creative class salary. Even when we control for hours worked and education in a regression analysis, creative class men out-earn creative class women by a sizable $23,700, or 49.2 percent.
One reason is that women represent 57 percent of workers in the public sector (compared with 48 percent in the private sector, where the gains are). They hold a disproportionate share of state and local government jobs—exactly those levels of government that have been shedding workers by the shipload.
. . .
Women are finding it harder to find work, and they’re still being paid less than men when they are working. Across the board, women earned on average 78.2 percent of what men earned in 2009 according to the US Census. Even in female-dominated workplaces, men were paid better.
This winter, the Retail Action Project (RAP) and the City University of New York (CUNY) released a report that showed a dramatic gender gap in wages in the retail industry. In a survey of 436 retail workers at national retail chains (among them Target, Old Navy and Urban Outfitters), the median gender gap between women and men was the difference between $9.00 per hour and $10.13 per hour. Women were also found to be less likely to receive benefits from employers, or promotions. Hit hardest were the 53 percent of black women and 77 percent of Latina women who earned less than $10 per hour. On that, approximately a third of those surveyed supported at least one family member. (As for all that talk about education and training, just over 70 percent of the workers RAP talked to had completed some college or a college degree. Those with an associate’s degree had a median hourly wage of $10 for an annual gross income of $16,640. So much for Newt Gingrich’s associate degree ticket out of poverty.)
It’s no better among the so-called creative class. To quote Richard Florida in The Atlantic (the same publication that in 2010 brought us Hanna Roisin’s ridiculous “The End of Men”):
"Women hold slightly more than half (52.3 percent) of creative class jobs and their average level of education is almost the same as men. But the pay they receive is anything but equal. Creative class men earn an average of $82,009 versus $48,077 for creative class women. This $33,932 gap is a staggering 70 percent of the average female creative class salary. Even when we control for hours worked and education in a regression analysis, creative class men out-earn creative class women by a sizable $23,700, or 49.2 percent.
MORE...
http://www.truth-out.org/rocky-recovery-women/1328810712
(I've always said - and experienced - that women are first to be laid off and the last to ever be hired back during economic downturns and subsequent recoveries. The data confirms this and it confirms the extremely negative effect Republicans' targeting of public workers have had on women since women comprise the bigger proportion of public sector workers. This is yet another way the Republican war on workers - and on women - have been a disaster for our economy and our economic recovery. This is another reason our nation cannot afford to have Republicans in control.)
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