Fwd: Women can carve out the future they want for themselves

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Patrice Onwuka
Director
Center for Economic Opportunity

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From: Independent Women's Forum <[email protected]>
Date: Thu, Apr 29, 2021

Expanding opportunity and mobility for women and workers

Welcome to the inaugural newsletter for IWF's Center for Economic Opportunity, The Pointer. Today, financial security and the ability to climb the economic ladder are more within reach for men and women. America’s dynamic economy is creating new employment paradigms. And public policy is reducing hurdles to enter the labor force and entrepreneurship. With such freedom, women can carve out the future they want for themselves. But, there is still more to do, and we are here to help!

Learn More

CHARTING TRENDS

ON THE MARK

1.5 Million Working Mothers Sidelined by Covid-19, but for Good?
The good news is that women’s employment has been recovering, though slowly. However, labor force participation for mothers faces a rocky road to recovery that may not materialize entirely. Mothers with school-aged kids are still not returning to the workforce in large numbers as would be expected even as job creation is accelerating across the whole economy.
...
Liz Anthony (Age 38, Brooklyn, NY): “I cannot do both. I cannot be a good mom and successfully work to further my career simultaneously," Anthony told the Wall Street Journal. She was a self-employed public-relations consultant but closed her business indefinitely to care for their daughters, one of whom is school-aged while the other two are under age 5. Her husband continues to work.
...
There are no easy answers and no one-size-fits-all policy will solve these challenges. In part, these are very personal decisions that need custom solutions.

WHAT'S THE POINT

Biden’s $100 Billion Broadband Plan Won’t Help Communities Who Need It Most
While well-meaning, the plan would fail. The plan would impose an arbitrary redefinition of “broadband” speed that would see dollars dry up without bringing rural Americans online.

Big Labor Efforts Threaten Choices and Freedoms for Working Women
The PRO Act aims to energize organized labor, which has seen membership numbers plummet among private-sector workers. However, if passed, the bill will lead to independent contractors losing income and flexible work opportunities as many did when California passed similar legislation.

Don’t Forget About the Long Term Unemployed
As of March, a staggering 43.4% of the unemployed—more than 4.2 million people—had been jobless for 27 weeks or longer. That’s the highest level since 2011, and it’s frighteningly close to the highest level in recorded history (45.5%), witnessed in 2010.

Workers Would Bear the Brunt of a Biden Tax Increase
Scandinavia’s social democrats realize that lower corporate taxes help all levels of society and consequently keep their corporate taxes low.

PUTTING A FACE ON IT

A Severely Disabled Man Suffers the Unintended Consequences of Overly Generous Unemployment Benefits
Patrick Driscoll, diagnosed with spastic quadriplegic with a vision impairment and a seizure disorder, long has faced problems with the caregiving industry, where workers often are overworked and paid low wages. But ever since Congress allowed Americans to collect generous COVID-19 unemployment benefits instead of working, Driscoll says, the problems with his caregivers quitting or showing up late have gotten worse.

Hear Patrick’s Story

ON OUR RADAR

WSJ: Covid Unemployment Relief Makes Help Impossible to Find

U.S. Telecom: No Contest: U.S. Leads Europe in Broadband Deployment

Mercatus: Consequences of Restricting Independent Work

FINAL THOUGHT

“Women are making career choices that are best for themselves and their families… Congress has no place in telling women their career choices are wrong.”

—Congresswoman Virginia Foxx (R-NC) on the passage of the Paycheck Fairness Act

INVEST

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