Not Your Granddad's New Deal: An Economic Stimulus for a Changing America
Most economists agree that an anti-recession program should achieve three goals: Pump money into the economy. Save existing jobs and create new jobs. And help those in greatest need.
All three of these signposts point to a large, fast-growing, but long-forgotten group of Americans who should be a major focus of emergency economic measures: the nation's 53 million single, separated, divorced and widowed women.
Unfortunately, the first round of proposals for an economic stimulus seemed to concentrate almost exclusively on projects to rebuild the nation's physical infrastructure and jobs that mostly employ men. While these are worthwhile goals, the stimulus should also include services that maintain the nation's social infrastructure and jobs that mostly employ women. These services and these jobs are especially important for women who are striving to hold their households together on their own.
These women are shouldering great responsibilities. They are earning their own livings, often at jobs with low wages and few benefits. About 10 million are single moms with young children at home. Many care for aging or ailing parents, grandparents and other relatives. While these women's busy and burdened lives make it difficult to participate in the political process, record numbers of unmarried women registered and voted in the elections this year.
Even before the recession, many of these women were economically insecure. Now, they are suffering even more than most Americans, and they need a helping hand to continue to fulfill their responsibilities at home and at work.
More than 40 percent of these women have household incomes of less than $30,000 a year -- much worse than the figures for married women and unmarried men. Single women are twice as likely as married women not to have health insurance, and also twice as likely to be unable to afford medical care last year as their married sisters.
With the recession, unmarried women have become more vulnerable than married people to layoffs, bankruptcies, and foreclosures. Women who have never married had an unemployment rate of 8.8 percent in November, 2008, compared to 6.2 percent for the entire workforce. At a time when most families are seeing their situations deteriorate, female-headed households are twice as likely as other families to suffer a 50 percent drop in their income, according to the majority staff of the U.S. Senate Committee on Health, Education, Labor and Pensions.
For women on their own in these difficult times, economic calamities can be one illness or layoff away. About 43 percent of single women spend more than 30 percent of their incomes on housing, compared to only 25 percent of married couples. Thus, these women are much more likely to face foreclosures or evictions. With a median net worth of only $12,900, unmarried women account for 40 percent of all bankruptcy filings.
Undoubtedly, unmarried women need economic assistance, and they'll pump the money back into the economy by spending it on the necessities of life. So how can an economic stimulus program include unmarried women?
Right now, the most frequently discussed ideas would mostly create and preserve jobs for working men, not working women. Yes, the nation should rebuild and repair our highways, bridges, roads, and public facilities of all kinds, as well as rewire our public schools.
But the economic stimulus should repair our social infrastructure as well as our physical infrastructure and include public services as well as public works. By helping state and local governments to avert layoffs and hire more teachers, school aides, childcare workers, homecare workers, and public librarians, an economic stimulus package could improve public services at a time of increased needs, while generating jobs that are likely to be filled by women, including those who support themselves and their children on their own.
There are many ideas that would be good for every working American, that would pump more money into the economy -- and that would be especially beneficial for "women on their own." Raising the minimum wage, increasing tax credits for low-wage workers, boosting the childcare tax credit, extending unemployment insurance (and making temporary workers eligible), and expanding healthcare coverage for children from low and moderate-income families -- all would help unmarried women survive in a sagging economy. Since unmarried women make only 56 cents and women overall are paid only 77 cents for every dollar that married men make, challenging this discrimination by passing the Paycheck Fairness Act would also increase working women's purchasing power. Some or all of these ideas might be included in an economic stimulus plan or in other legislation.
While the economic crisis may be the worst since the 1930s, the nation's social structure has changed dramatically over the past seven decades. Just as Franklin D. Roosevelt's New Deal boldly confronted the challenges of its times, we need a newer deal to help Barack Obama's changing America, with 53 million "women on their own," to recover from this recession.
Page S. Gardner is president of Women's Voices. Women Vote, a national nonpartisan organization that promotes civic participation by unmarried women.
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Why not try enforcing Title IX so there won't BE "Jobs that mostly employ men" -- i.e. science and engineering.
Women choose NOT to study science and engineering.
How are you going to force them women to like math and science?
The women who do go into science and engineering general make slightly more than men and are treated very well, from what I have seen and read.
Every company I have worked for has early searched for women engineers and scientist, and treated them very well.
The management positions may take longer to achieve, but accountants outnumber nerds in management anyway.
Thank you for emphasizing that the US is a very different place than it was in the 1930s'
Leaders and social planners MUST recognize the realities of our times
Creative stimulus plans must be structured around these realties
While we can learn from the past there is really no rationale for going back to it given all the changes that have occurred.
Dr. Rick Lippin
Southampton,Pa
Wind Solar and efficiency.
That will create the JOBS
that will revive the economy, and fix the banks worth saving.
There is no sexism at our house. My wife and I are both
without a job.
We are baby boomers with a mortgage.
My guess is that not much will be done to make work available for us.
Unemployment bennys are long past gone.
Life is pretty exiting here.
I still love America. I will like it much better in Late Jan'
job or no job.
We can’t give tax credits to the 40% of women making less than $30K. In case you didn’t realize, they DON”T pay taxes. But maybe we should change the tax code so these people don’t have to wait for a refund of the taxes withheld. But we Americans pay high taxes from all levels – federal, state and local. And look at your cell bill, cable bill, and most any other bill. All three levels of government tack on just a little that adds up to a lot.
Government is not the answer, it’s the problem. Think about it. When do most folks go shopping? They go when stuff is on sale. It’s the same with taxes. When taxes are high for businesses and individuals, the spending and hiring is decreased. Conversely, if sales taxes, business taxes(for both small and large), uses taxes, fees, duties, tolls, and you name it, were lowered, the activities related to those penalties would increase. The merchant that keeps her prices at retail will eventually go out of business for lack of customers. The one that puts her items on sale increases sales volume and cash flow and is able to re-stock for the next season. That’s simple economics.
The first priority today is jobs. Give the business owner (small, medium and large) a tax break and they will invest in their company. They will hire more employees or buy more equipment or both. Either way stimulates our economy.
Y'all need to step away from the Kool-Aid.
Historically, the way out of recessions has indeed been to increase taxes.....
People on very meager budgets don't buy when there is a sale, they buy when they have the money to afford to buy. No money.....
As for jobs......
Hogwash. The top marginal tax rates varied from 82+% to 94% between 1944 and 1963 ( http://www
Auldphart
Thank you for this post. This is what I thought too. While I am delighted at the idea of creating jobs and re-building infrastructure, as you point out, these are primarily jobs for men. Women have to make the best out of the least sometimes.
Investment in our mass transit infrastructure would employ many women. I hope this new deal includes a plan to establish mass transit as the backbone of our transportation infrastructure. Only through mass transit can we truly make inroads on global warming, excessive consumption, and dependency on foreign oil*. I think money should be spent on fixing our current automobile infrastructure, but not expanding it. We can't flip a switch and make automobiles go away tomorrow without destroying today's economy, but we can start transitioning ourselves to an incredible mass transit future. We should declare it a national goal to develop the most convenient, efficient, and affordable mass transit system in the world. It will be an utter shame if this new deal money fails to lead us to a new direction and only provides us with a temporary economic solution.
BTW, the investment we make in bio-fuels, hybrids, and fuel cell technologies for cars can all be competing technologies for mass transit vehicles as we make our transition.
*Given projections for future population increases.
You are so right. It costs a fortune to buy and maintain personal vehicles and unless you live in a Metro area, you are s.o.l. or reduced to cabs or favors from others.
The talk is about men getting three million construction jobs after the trillion dollar stimulation package goes into affect. But women have bills to pay so they also deserve a slice of the pie. There is a shortage of home care attendants in the nation. Millions of the elderly are homebound and without proper care. A million jobs for unemployed women can be filled in that area. There are also many other human service jobs that qualified women can fill. It is up to the U.S. congress to appropriate the funds so that no woman will be left behind.
I sure hope there is help for the small business owner in this stimulus package. The bigger companies have gotten away with so much and the smaller ones that will employ people and keep them for years to come have gotten forgotten. The days that bigger are better are over.
Public works in solar and wind will hire plenty of women.
Female electrical engineers typically make more than males.
any economic stimulus should be paid directly to taxpayers.
Math: 700 billion divided by 300 million= $2300/person
134 million taxpayers ... $25,000 to each is around 300 billion...
I think you need more like 3.5 trillion for 134 taxpayers
or 7Trillion for all people. Around what the FED lent out this year.
But WOW!
Can you imagine what an extra 25k$ would do for most people and the economy!.
Why distribute money through the FED and it's banks, just give it to the people.
That would be a customer driven economy.
What a great way to End the FED.
so make it $10,000 to each taxpayer..
i'm so tired of hearing the long-since debunked statistic that women only make 79 cents on the dollar as men, the implication being that discrimination is at fault. there likely is a pay gap between men and women that is attributable to workplace discrimination, however, that 21 cent gap is mostly attributable to things like women's decisions as to work-life balance, assumption of a particular familial role, etc.
i see no need to radicalize the discussion by throwing out phoney statistics that overstate discrimination.
its such an act of bad faith, and it really hurts the credibility of anyone using the statistic.
I wish you luck, but I suspect the Obama team of establishment insiders will pump money into the usual sectors, Wall Street, construction, defense.
Well and truly said, especially the part about enforcing wage parity. About how to deal with the taxes issue, not so much. There's a much better way to deal with this issue. Inform yourself by going to fairtax.or
And to USNA73: Yes, it is true that many women can do the same jobs as men, sometimes better, but with the unemployment rate among construction workers, it will be men who get those jobs first, especially since so many more of them have the necessary experience.
And we DO need to increase the number of teachers, child care workers, etc.--the so called pink collar jobs--though hopefully with better pay than is true at present, so I hope that Page Garadner's point of view gets noticed by the new powers-that-be.
In 1977, the late Robert Edmonds an economist, L.V. Watkins, Jr. an attorney experienced in economic development and I, prepared the second of two reports for the Commerce Department describing a Human Investment Tax Credit (HITC) program. We suggested a group of employment tax credits and provided research to support turning them into law. The 1977 job tax credit program, which reflected a few of the recommended incentives, generated 900,000 private-sector jobs, fully 20 percent of all new jobs created that year. It resulted in more jobs in less time than any single piece of legislation in our history. A Census Bureau survey showed that only 34 percent of all businesses were aware of the little-publicized program. Only a third of the eligible businesses utilized the credits. The White House opposed the job tax credit, and it was little advertised.
If promoted with all of the suggested incentives, it might have generated three million to six million new jobs and encouraged one million to four million people to become self-employed. Since Congress created the program over Administration opposition, the following year the program was gutted and became the targeted jobs-tax credit, with only a small fraction of its previous effectiveness. Unemployment is once again a most urgent problem. The tax incentives in the HITC program can readily be updated and voted into law - and would clearly help women. That should be the first order of business for the new Administration and Congress.
False premises. I agree with your expectations however. I conclude that you will be pleasantly surpised that we can and will come up with the more comprehensive approach. BTW, women can do much of the same work as men, albeit accounting for some pure physical differences. Just as well, I may add.
There is construction going on next to my apartment of a huge new apartment building.
I have seen hundreds of workers (not all of them doing physical work) on the site. Not one of them female. Maybe that job site is unique. I doubt it.
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