Katherine Gallagher Robbins, Senior Policy Analyst

Katherine Gallagher Robbins

Katherine Gallagher Robbins is a Senior Policy Analyst for Family Economic Security at the National Women’s Law Center where she examines how tax and budget policies influence the financial stability and security of low-income women and families.  Before joining the Center in 2010, Ms. Gallagher Robbins worked as an organizer for the California Public Interest Research Group at the University of California, San Diego. She is a Ph.D. candidate in Political Science at the University of Michigan, Ann Arbor, and a graduate of the College of William and Mary.

Expert in: Data on Poverty & Income, Poverty & Income Support
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My Take

Five Facts Women Should Know About the “Man”ufacturing Comeback

Posted by Katherine Gallagher Robbins, Senior Policy Analyst | Posted on: March 19, 2012 at 09:30 am

Manufacturing’s been on everyone’s lips lately.  Economists are extolling its recent growth and policy makers, both Democrats and Republicans, are suggesting we should promote it further.

But NWLC’s new report, A “Man”ufacturing Comeback:  Men’s and Women’s Employment Gains and Losses in 2011 has a few facts about manufacturing that no one’s mentioned yet:

MANuFACTuring statistic #1: In 2011 manufacturing employment increased for the first time in more than a decade, with annual average employment rising by 205,000 jobs.  Unfortunately, women did not share in these gains.  In fact, between 2010 and 2011 men’s annual average employment in manufacturing increased by 230,000 jobs while women’s dropped by 25,000 jobs.  This divergence was a change from the trend during the recession, when the declines in manufacturing employment were borne proportionately by women and men.

Change in annual average employment in manufacturing, 2010-2011

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Tags: Civil Rights, Employment, Jobs, Unemployment, Unemployment, Employment | 3 comments

The President’s Budget – Supporting Key Investments for Women and Fairer Taxes

Posted by Katherine Gallagher Robbins, Senior Policy Analyst | Posted on: February 17, 2012 at 10:56 am

The President’s Budget for fiscal year 2013 came out on Monday and we’ve been doing some serious number crunching all week. Our whole analysis gives you all the details, but I give you the quick breakdown right here.

The main take away point:

At a time when the economic recovery is picking up steam, but millions of women and men are still struggling to get back on their feet, this budget generally takes the right approach – it proposes investments to strengthen the economy and protects the most vulnerable while seeking increased revenues from those with the greatest ability to pay. 

What makes us happy:

We really like certain elements of the budget – it proposes needed investments in job creation, it supports the Affordable Care Act and protects Social Security benefits. It also increases funding for child care and early education, child nutrition, health services for women veterans, enforcement of civil rights and labor laws by the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission and Wage and Hour Division. It makes permanent improvements in tax credits for lower-income working families that were part of the 2009 American Recovery and Reinvestment Act and increases the Child and Dependent Care Tax Credit for low- and middle-income families with child care expenses. Finally, the budget takes key steps toward a tax system that would require millionaires and corporations to pay their fair share of taxes.

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Tags: Budget, Child Care, Child Care & Early Learning, Child Care Agenda, Family Support Programs, Federal Budget, Health Insurance, Child Care Assistance, Equal Pay and the Wage Gap, Family Tax Credits, Social Security, Child Care Tax Strategies, Prekindergarten, Data on Poverty & Income, Health Care Reform, Medicaid & Other Public Funding, Unemployment, Education & Title IX, Employment, Health Care & Reproductive Rights, Poverty & Income Support, Social Security & Retirement, Tax & Budget | Add new comment

Jobs in 2011: Job Gains and Losses by Sector for Women and Men

Posted by Katherine Gallagher Robbins, Senior Policy Analyst | Posted on: January 06, 2012 at 05:42 pm

Though millions of people are still looking for work, some sectors added jobs in 2011. How did women and men fare in different industries?

For women, most of their job growth was in the service industry. Women gained jobs in private education and health services, professional and business services, leisure and hospitality. Women also added jobs in both retail and wholesale trade, as well as in "other" services (which includes repair shops and laundry services). The one non-service sector which saw some growth for women in 2011 was mining and logging.

Losses in the public sector were a huge story for women in 2011 — this sector saw the most losses by far. Women also lost jobs in goods-producing fields like manufacturing and construction, as well as in some service sectors like financial activities (which includes banking and real estate), information (which includes media and publishing), transportation and warehousing, and utilities.

For men the story is quite different — for every sector other than information and public jobs, they made gains in 2011.

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Tags: Unemployment, Poverty & Income Support | Add new comment

ABC’s “Work It” should be Fired Immediately

Posted by
Abby Lane, Fellow
Danielle Jackson, Online Outreach Associate
Katherine Gallagher Robbins, Senior Policy Analyst
| Posted on: December 15, 2011 at 10:30 am

One of the best cures for the post-holiday blues is the crop of new TV shows in January. One new show on ABC, “Work It”, is definitely going to boost us out of any blues – by making us see red.

According to ABC, “Work It” is:

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Tags: Employment, Television & Media, Unemployment, Women in the Judiciary, Education & Title IX | 9 comments

New Census Data Underscore NWLC's Findings: Changing the Social Security COLA Would Especially Hurt Elderly Women

Posted by
Joan Entmacher, Vice President for Family Economic Security
Katherine Gallagher Robbins, Senior Policy Analyst
| Posted on: November 18, 2011 at 06:05 pm

Sometimes bad ideas just won’t go away. This is the case for the proposal to change the way the cost-of-living adjustment (COLA) for Social Security benefits is calculated by switching to a new measure of inflation (the chained CPI). This proposal has been billed as a mere technical adjustment to benefits but we debunked that myth this summer in our report Cutting the Social Security COLA by Changing the Way Inflation is Calculated Would Especially Hurt Women which showed that switching the COLA is nothing more than a sneak attack on Social Security benefits. The report explains how the current COLA already underestimates the effects of inflation on the elderly and fails to account for a crucial fact — that older people spend a much larger share of their budget on health care, where costs are rising much more quickly than with other expenses. And switching to the chained CPI would only put these beneficiaries farther behind.

The report also showed that changing the way the COLA is calculated would be particularly painful for women:

  • Since women live longer than men, they would face deeper cuts in their Social Security benefits under the proposed new measure of inflation, because the cuts from this reduced COLA get deeper each year.
  • Since women have less income than men, these cuts would represent a larger share of their total retirement income.
  • Finally, since older women are already more economically vulnerable than older men, these cuts would leave many of them unable to meet basic needs.
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Tags: Social Security, Social Security & Retirement | Add new comment