“Remember the Ladies”, by Jared Polis, Member of Congress, Colorado, 2nd Congressional District
January 26, 2009
by The New Agenda
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Reposted from Jared Polis’ Facebook with permission of the author.
“In the new code of laws which I suppose it will be necessary for you to make, I desire you would remember the ladies and be more generous and favorable to them than your ancestors.” ABIGAIL ADAMS TO JOHN ADAMS, MARCH 31, 1776
One of the most important pieces of legislation we’ll soon be acting on in Congress is a national economic recovery package. A large portion of the new federal spending—perhaps as much as 20 percent—will be focused on infrastructure construction, including transportation and school projects, energy efficiency improvements, and green economy investments such as smart grid expansions.
While President-Elect Obama is to be applauded for proposing a recovery plan that focuses on a wide number of areas, including education and healthcare, the proposed infrastructure spending in the plan overwhelmingly benefits men and won’t be of much help to unemployed women. In 2007, only 9.4 percent of the 11.9 million workers in the construction industry were female and in major infrastructure occupations with an employment base of 100,000 jobs, women held only about 3.9 percent of jobs. Without efforts to increase workforce diversity, this could lead to a massive shift of hundreds of billions of dollars of wealth from women to men.
Women make up nearly half—46 percent—of the total U.S. labor force of 153 million. While the overall unemployment rates of women and men have been similar since 2000, women with children experience much higher unemployment rates. Worse still, there is evidence that women who lose their jobs face a harder time finding new jobs than their male counterparts.
We must not let disparities between men and women in employment and compensation worsen as a result of the recovery act. A few simple steps, if incorporated into the economic recovery package, could help ensure that infrastructure investment can and will benefit women.
1. Expand Training for Women in Non-Traditional Jobs:
We should expand the U.S. Department of Labor’s Women in Apprenticeship and Non-traditional Occupations (WANTO) grant program that “awards competitive grants to recruit, hire, train, and retain women in apprenticeships and non-traditional occupations.”
Also, the Carl D. Perkins Career and Technical Education Improvement Act of 2006 allows states to use funds for “preparing students for employment in fields that are traditionally dominated by one gender.” Not only should funding for the Perkins Act increase, but the program should be more narrowly geared toward gender diversification in infrastructure-related jobs through gender equity set-asides and the reestablishment of equity coordinators.
2.Emphasize goals for hiring and retaining women in non-traditional jobs funded by federal contracts and enforce contracts for full compliance:
We should increase the targets for female employment by federal construction contractors and require them to design and implement plans for hiring and retaining qualified female workers. Selection criteria for contracts could include assessments of these strategies and past performance. The Office of Federal Contract Compliance should rigorously enforce implementation.
3. Provide Incentives for Companies Employing Women:
The Work Opportunity Tax Credit (WOTC) encourages employers to hire members of families receiving benefits under the Temporary Assistance to Needy Families (TANF, commonly known as welfare) program, among other disadvantaged populations, whose beneficiaries are overwhelmingly women. Increasing the size of the credit would make it an even stronger incentive for employers.
Another option entails assisting contractors that meet a certain threshold of female employees in non-traditional sectors. There is already a program in place to help women obtain federal contracts. While we must do a better job at ensuring that female-owned businesses access more contract dollars, we should also explore a similar assistance program for companies with female workforces above 25 percent in non-traditional occupations, especially in construction. Gender parity goals should be expanded beyond the capitalist class to the vast majority of women who do not own companies.
I further describe these options and others in a letter to the Predident-Elect.
These steps can be implemented swiftly; during World War II, with the urgent need to ramp up war production, women entered traditionally male jobs that necessitated skilled training—welding, iron molding, skilled machine work—within months. We must ensure that the biggest jobs program since the Great Depression does not redistribute America’s wealth away from women and funnel their federal taxes and debt obligations into paying for jobs for men.
Responding to the Obama Analysis
The incoming administration has been pro-active in addressing concerns regarding the demographics of the beneficiaries of the act. A recently released report states:
Summing across industries suggests that the total number of created jobs likely to go to women is roughly 42% of the jobs created by the package. Given that so far in the recession women have accounted for roughly 20% of the decline in payroll employment, this calculation could reflect that the stimulus package skews job creation somewhat toward women, possibly as a result of the investments in healthcare, education, and state fiscal relief.
The shortcomings with their argument are:
1) 42% is not reflective of the 46% of the workforce composed of women.
2) The jobs they count on for reaching gender parity, like “retail”, “financial activities,” and “leisure and hospitality” are NOT directly created by the stimulus bill and are optimistic that the economy actually recovers quickly. While some of the areas like education and government jobs are directly created, their formula showing overall gender parity uses extremely optimistic projects for secondary job creation not directly caused by the recovery package.
3) Also, their own analysis shows that women will likely get most of the lower-paying jobs and fewer of the good-paying jobs in construction and “green” areas. As for the 13% of women they cite in the construction industry, apparently it includes lower-paying clerical jobs (boosting it from under 7% to 13%). The data on the higher-paying occupations, like carpenter and electrician, only emphasizes the point that women need equal access to good-paying jobs, in which they have traditionally been underrepresented.
The truth is that it’s extremely difficult to reach gender parity when 20% of the money spent is going into an area that benefits 93+% men. The best way to address this is to take this opportunity to provide for more opportunities for women in construction and infrastructure-related jobs to narrow that gap and lead to a more balanced overall package.
Incorporating some of these ideas and others to promote an increase of women in construction-related jobs into the recovery act would meet both the immediate needs of the recovery package and the long-term goals of improving the skill and preparation of our workforce by offering a future filled with greater economic security for women and their families.
You can help by contacting your Representative and encouraging them to sign the Polis letter on gender equity or by emailing the Obama transition team. You can also read the full letter to the President-Elect here.
Let’s work to ensure hope and opportunity for all Americans.
Jared Polis
Member of Congress
Colorado, 2nd Congressional District
THIS is what feminism looks like – and Exhibit A, that yes, men can be feminists.
NOTE TO ALL MEN: Women will remember!
Jared, thanks for doing this analysis. I glanced at the Obama team’s report yesterday when one of our members — Lili — linked to it, and my immediate thought was that their data on the unemployment rate for women was very shallow, and they seemed to be flogging it, while not being very firm about commitments to create jobs for women. It seemed like pre-emptive apologetics with a few loopholes woven in, and I found it alarming.
I’m glad to see you’ve got a pre-emptive accountability plan. This is exactly what women need.
Outstanding. Have contacted my Congressional Rep encouraging them to sign the Polis letter. Thank you for this very informative and very timely post. This issue does require our urgent and focused action.
By the way, in thinking about Congressman Polis as well as Governor Paterson, I presume that those who are proponents of voting based on gender, only, would vote against these fine elected officials should a woman be challenging them in the next upcoming election. In so doing, we would be saying to Polis and Paterson, thanks, sort of, and to the unvetted woman with who-cares-what political views, you’re in no questioned asked, whether for or against our goals. Something to think about. This, in my view, is why it is not so simple.
Sheryl’s comments are spot on. While on the one hand it is flattering that the administration cared enough to even try to show a window dressing of gender parity, the gender impact they show in the Romer report is looking through rose-colored glasses.
Even in counting secondary job creation that is hypothetical rather than actual, it still only reaches a 42% figure for jobs created for women as a percentage of the total. Yes, the investments in education and childcare are needed, but we must also find a way to start diversifying the higher paying infrastructure-related jobs created through the package.
Jared Polis
polis.house.gov
Contact page for Congressman Polis. Usually it’s hard, if not impossible, to send an e-mail to a Representative if you don’t live in their district. But, you can always call or fax to say thanks:
http://polis.house.gov/contact/index.shtml
Sorry, multi-tasking and not doing a good job being organized:
Called Polis’s office and they are SUPER APPRECIATIVE of feedback, even if you don’t live in their district. I think everyone is appreciating the fact that this issue has a huge impact on a national scale. I spoke with a very gracious gentleman who sounded quite happy to receive my words of support, despite having informed him that I did not live in the Congressman’s district.
Thank you for the support, and the ideas as well.
Thanks also for the link to the study. I’m going to read the entire thing, because I am immediately surprised by your quote from it. They seem to be saying that women account for only 20% of the “decline in payroll” “so far in this recession.” If that’s true, is that because far fewer women are losing their jobs or because that represents the difference in pay between men and women? The number is astounding either way. It suggests either that women aren’t losing jobs like men are, or that the pay equality is way worse than we thought. If there are any statisticians reading, I’d appreciate the help figuring this out.
Oh, good idea, Anna. I’m contacting Baron Hill (my rep) and Polis’ office now!
I called his office.
Very appreciative to see a legislator make this effort.
Thank you.
Bravo! We need a Male Feminist Hall of Fame, or something.
One quibble. “Never let a good crisis go to waste”, but….
I’m not so sure that either bailing out high-paying jobs, or creating new high-paying jobs, should be a priority in averting economic disaster. If a highly-paid person loses their job, they still have savings, a yacht and summer home to sell, etc. Some cruise companies and marinas may go bankrupt, boo-hoo.
When a low-paying job is lost, the person may end up homeless. Local hardware and auto repair shops may go bankrupt. The ripple effect is worse and may become a domino effect.
If this is an emergency measure, we need a good strong net near the bottom .. not nets stretched thin all the way up.
Anna: I only vote for women over men if there are no other factors involved. Obviously if the man is more feminist I vote for him. But often you are stuck with two bad choices to pick from. In that case my vote goes to the woman. I think even having more mediocre women in office would be helpful to breakdown the current East coast/MSM standard where women candidates need to be 5 times as effective and smart as a man and twice as honest to even run.
Has Polis’s statement been reported in any ‘Mainstream Media’? If so, pls let me know and I’ll post the link at PumaRespoders.blogspot.com
fsteele
Great point about the KINDS of jobs we’re talking about.
Also, as for your most recent post @ 3:11, I called Polis’s office to inquire. Spoke to a very gracious woman who spoke with the Press Secretary about this issue. The are going to e-mail me the list of places where the press release has been covered. Once I recieve the info, I will pass it along to you. Thanks for all you do re: PumaResponders. You are wonderful!
Want to let everyone know that Jared Schutz Polis has a Facebook page so if you wish you can communicate directly with him that way.
Wow. I am at the tail end of an Abigail Adams biography. I am homeschooling my 10 year old and decided to focus on women’s contributions. Not only did Abigail write to her husband regarding supporting women, she also was outspoken about slavery. When the British were chased out of Boston and the “seat of war” was moving South, she thought it was necessary so that “they each may have a proper sympathy for the other and unite in separation” BUT she also worried that Virginians might not be able to “stand against our common enemy” because they were slave owners and “Abigail questioned their ability to fight for freedom while denying liberty to nearly half their population.”
It makes one wonder how much faster our country would have progressed if a women’s perspective had been injected into the laws in the first 150 years of our countries existence. And this was from a woman who was not permitted a “proper” education
Thanks Jared!
Loralee – Maybe TNA will post something you write up about Abigail Adams, who is without question a prime example of a highly intelligent and visionary woman who played second fiddle to the husband.
Anna,
I’ll write something up. I was planning to do it for my daughter anyway. And if TNA would like to post it they can. It really is a shame that we didn’t make better use of minds like hers.
Thanks
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