Julie Vogtman, Senior Counsel

Julie Vogtman is Senior Counsel for the Family Economic Security Program at the National Women’s Law Center. She works on a range of issues involving economic support for low-income women and their families, including minimum wage policies, unemployment benefits, and Temporary Assistance for Needy Families (TANF). She also contributes to the Center’s work on federal budget and tax policies, including implementation of the tax credit components of the Affordable Care Act.  Prior to joining the Center, Ms. Vogtman was an associate with Covington & Burling LLP in Washington, DC. She is a graduate of Furman University and Georgetown University Law Center.

Expert in: Family Support Programs, Federal Budget, Federal Tax Policy, Minimum Wage, Unemployment, Poverty & Income Support
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My Take

Poverty Still on the Rise for Women in 2010; Record Numbers Lived in Extreme Poverty

Posted by Julie Vogtman, Senior Counsel | Posted on: September 13, 2011 at 12:07 pm

The Census Bureau just released new data on poverty in the U.S. in 2010.  Though 2010 marked the first full year of the recovery that began when the recession officially ended in June 2009, the number of Americans living in poverty increased last year: the overall poverty rate rose to 15.1 percent, up from 14.3 percent in 2009. Unfortunately, the numbers aren’t looking any better for women and families:

  • Poverty among women – already much higher than poverty among men – climbed to 14.5 percent in 2010, the highest rate in 17 years. A 14.5 percent poverty rate means 17.2 million women were living in poverty in 2010, about 800,000 more than in 2009 (when the women’s poverty rate was 13.9 percent). 
  • Nearly 44 percent of poor women (7.5 million) lived in extreme poverty last year, with incomes less than half of the federal poverty level. The extreme poverty rate among women rose from 5.9 percent in 2009 to 6.3 percent in 2010, the highest rate since the Census Bureau began recording this figure 22 years ago.
  • Poverty rates in 2010 were even higher for women of color – 25.6 percent for black women (up from 24.6 percent in 2009), and 25.0 percent for Hispanic women (up from 23.8 percent in 2009).  
  • But wait, it gets worse: the poverty rate for single moms rose from 38.5 percent in 2009 to 40.7 percent in 2010.
  • The child poverty rate – already very high at 20.7 percent in 2009 – jumped to 22.0 percent last year, meaning more than one in five children was living in poverty. More than half of poor children lived in female-headed families in 2010.
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Tags: Family Support Programs, Data on Poverty & Income, Unemployment, Poverty & Income Support | 2 comments

Five Things You Need to Know About the Debt Ceiling Deal

Posted by Julie Vogtman, Senior Counsel | Posted on: August 05, 2011 at 01:00 pm

It’s been a few days now since President Obama signed the debt ceiling deal, averting a catastrophic default (at a steep price). But the deal is complicated, and questions – as well as some misinformation – are still floating around the internet. Here are five key points worth remembering:

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Tags: Federal Budget, Tax & Budget | 2 comments

Balanced Budget Amendment Vote But Not Passage Required by Debt Ceiling Deal

Posted by Julie Vogtman, Senior Counsel | Posted on: August 02, 2011 at 03:08 pm

Last night the House approved a deal to raise the debt ceiling, 269 to 161. The Senate followed suit today (74 to 26), and the bill will now be sent to President Obama for his signature – just in the nick of time, as today has long been considered the deadline for the debt ceiling increase needed to ensure the U.S. can pay its bills.

Beyond avoiding a catastrophic default, there’s not much to celebrate in the bill that passed today, which slashes funding for domestic discretionary programs without demanding a penny more in revenue from millionaires, billionaires or corporations. You can read our statement and our new fact sheet to learn more about how the deal is likely to affect programs for women and their families (in short: it’s not good). Anything positive that can be said about the deal generally falls into the “it-could-have-been worse” category – including its treatment of a balanced budget constitutional amendment (BBA).

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Disastrous Budget Bill and Constitutional Amendments Up for Vote in House... Sometime

Posted by Julie Vogtman, Senior Counsel | Posted on: July 29, 2011 at 01:01 pm

We reported earlier this week that the House would vote Wednesday on a dangerous budget plan authored by House Speaker John Boehner (R-OH). But Tuesday evening, the nonpartisan Congressional Budget Office (CBO) released an estimate of the spending cuts in the bill that was lower than Boehner’s estimate — so the Speaker’s staff went searching for more cuts to make a terrible bill even worse. The House was set to vote on the revised plan yesterday afternoon, until it became clear that much of the Tea Party faction in the House would still vote against Boehner’s bill and Boehner pulled it from the floor last night rather than risk its defeat. The Speaker is meeting with House Republicans this morning to discuss potential changes to the bill — not to move towards compromise and attempt to garner Democrat votes, but to make still steeper cuts designed to appease those on the far right. As of this writing, Boehner intended to push for a vote on the latest version of his proposal today.

But a vote on one devastating budget bill may not be enough. House Republican leadership is also reportedly planning to vote in the near future (maybe today, maybe over the weekend) on a version of the balanced budget amendment (BBA) passed by the House Judiciary Committee, H.J. Res. 1, as well as on another BBA proposal, H.J. Res. 2.

We've written several times over the past few weeks about why a balanced budget constitutional amendment is an extraordinarily terrible idea. Now that the floor vote may be upon us, it's time to recap. In no particular order (because they are all so awful), here are my top five reasons why the House should reject H.J. Res. 1 and H.J. Res. 2:

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Tags: Federal Budget, Social Security, Medicaid & Other Public Funding, Tax & Budget | Add new comment

House Votes Tomorrow on Speaker Boehner’s Latest Plan to Slash Medicaid, Medicare and Social Security

Posted by Julie Vogtman, Senior Counsel | Posted on: July 26, 2011 at 04:13 pm

As the August 2 deadline to raise the debt limit and avoid default quickly nears, the number of budget plans in the mix continues to multiply while the parties seem no closer to an agreement. Though it’s still far from clear what a final deal might be, let’s hope it looks nothing like the latest approach from House Speaker John Boehner (R-OH), which the House is expected to vote on tomorrow.

Not long after he walked out of negotiations with President Obama last Friday due to a dispute over (what else?) taxes, Boehner raised a new proposal, which he described last night as a plan to “cut [spending] by more than one trillion dollars, and [have] a serious, bipartisan committee of the Congress… begin the hard but necessary work of dealing with the tough challenges our nation faces.” He forgot to mention that it would likely unravel the safety net while leaving tax cuts for millionaires, billionaires and corporations untouched.

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