Liz Watson, Senior Counsel

Liz Watson, Senior Advisor

Liz Watson is Senior Counsel to the Education and Employment Team at the National Women’s Law Center. In her work on the Education and Employment Team, Liz uses legislative advocacy, public education and litigation to promote full and fair opportunities for women and girls in employment and job training. She also works on cross-cutting projects at the Center that advance the interests of women and girls. Before coming to the Center, Liz was Executive Director of the Georgetown Center on Poverty, Inequality and Public Policy where she led public policy initiatives focused on improving policies and programs that address the needs of low-income workers and marginalized girls and young women. Prior to that, she was legislative counsel for Workplace Flexibility 2010 at Georgetown Law, where much of her work focused on developing policy solutions to work-family conflict and its consequences for low-wage workers. She also practiced employment law at Orrick, Herrington & Sutcliffe. Liz began her career as a Skadden Public Interest Law Fellow, working with low-wage workers and women receiving public benefits in New York City. She served as a law clerk to the Honorable Susan Y. Illston of the Northern District of California. Liz is a graduate of Georgetown University Law Center and Carleton College.

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My Take

The National Women’s Law Center’s Labor Day Index

Posted by Liz Watson, Senior Counsel | Posted on: September 04, 2012 at 04:43 pm

In honor of Labor Day, here’s a snapshot of how working women are faring in today’s economy, by the numbers.

  • Percentage of college graduates earning bachelor’s degrees who are women: 57.
  • Percentage of students earning master’s degrees who are women: 60.
  • Years of college that a man must attend, on average, to earn approximately the same as a woman with a four-year degree: 2.
  • The typical number of cents paid to a full-time, year-round woman worker for every dollar paid to her male counterpart: 77.
  • The typical number of cents paid to an African-American full-time, year-round woman worker for every dollar paid to a white, non-Hispanic man: 62.
  • The typical number of cents paid to a Latina full-time, year-round woman worker for every dollar paid to a white, non-Hispanic man: 54.
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Tags: Education and Schools, Employment, Equal Pay, Title IX, Equal Pay and the Wage Gap, Education & Title IX, Employment, Judges & the Courts | 7 comments

Don’t Blame Title IX

Posted by Liz Watson, Senior Counsel | Posted on: July 27, 2012 at 05:17 pm

Yesterday, Megan Greenwell laid the blame for the decline in the number of female coaches at Title IX’s feet, calling the lack of female coaches “the dirty little secret of Title IX.” This is a classic case of “blame the victim.” Title IX has steadily increased the number of opportunities for girls and women in sports, although the playing field is still far from level.

But the growing opportunities for women and girls in sports are in no way responsible for the lack of opportunities for women in coaching.

Remember: correlation is not causation. As Greenwell acknowledges, now that female coaching jobs are higher-paying and more prestigious they are desirable jobs. Put that together with a hiring process that relies on informal male-dominated networks and voila, no women coaches.

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Tags: Athletics, Title IX, Athletics, Education & Title IX | 2 comments

Hours are the new bonus. What does that mean for workers earning the minimum wage?

Posted by Liz Watson, Senior Counsel | Posted on: July 25, 2012 at 04:17 pm

$7.25 an hour. Imagine feeding a family on that. That’s the magic trick low-wage working women – who make up 2/3 of those earning minimum wages or less – have to perform on a daily basis.

As Kate Gallagher Robbins pointed out yesterday, an hourly wage of $7.25 leaves a person working full time year round with just $14,500—or $3000 below the poverty line for a mom with two kids.

But where does that $7.25 an hour leave workers who can’t get a full-time job? Involuntary part-time work is a huge problem for low-wage workers in today’s labor market. BLS data from 2011 (PDF) show that 8.5 million people were in part-time work for economic reasons like slack work, only being able to find a part-time job or seasonal work.

Instead of multiplying $7.25 by 40 hours a week, for these workers the math looks more like $7.25 x 20 or 25 hours (and in many cases, even fewer hours). In other words, workers earning minimum wages in involuntary part-time jobs are hit much harder by the painfully low minimum wage.

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Tags: Employment, Low-Income Workers and Families, Minimum Wage, Minimum Wage, Employment | 6 comments

"Working Maternity Leaves" Aren't the Solution

Posted by Liz Watson, Senior Counsel | Posted on: July 18, 2012 at 12:53 pm

On Monday, the news broke that a pregnant woman is now leading a Fortune 500 company—an important and exciting milestone. Before being appointed CEO of Yahoo this week, Marissa Mayer disclosed her pregnancy to Yahoo’s Board. When she announced her pregnancy publicly on Monday, she praised the Board for its “evolved thinking” in hiring her anyway – that is, for not violating the Pregnancy Discrimination Act.

I’m not so sure following the law is all that praiseworthy, but here’s what made me cringe as I read the otherwise great news of a pregnant woman breaking through the glass ceiling:

Mayer told Forbes, “My maternity leave will be a few weeks long and I’ll work throughout it.”

I’m picturing a phalanx of 24/7 baby nurses, a state-of-the-art high-tech home office located in a spacious and sunny corner of a beautiful nursery, an in-house lactation consultant, a personal chef, and, don’t forget the personal trainer! As the CEO, Mayer will be free to telecommute to her heart’s content, which is not at all the situation for most working women.

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Tags: Maternity Care & Leave, Pregnancy Discrimination Act, Pregnant Workers Fairness Act (PWFA), Women at Work, Pregnancy, Parenting, and the Workplace, Employment | Add new comment

The Pregnant Workers Fairness Act: What It Means for Low-Wage Working Women

Posted by Liz Watson, Senior Counsel | Posted on: July 12, 2012 at 04:26 pm

Yesterday, the 100th co-sponsor in the House of Representatives, Grace Napolitano (D-CA), signed on in support of the Pregnant Workers Fairness Act. The Pregnant Workers Fairness Act would ensure that employers provide pregnant workers with simple accommodations if they need them to safely continue working during pregnancy.

The National Women’s Law Center is grateful to all of the bill’s co-sponsors for supporting this important piece of legislation.

So why is it so important?

To answer that question, today I asked Dr. Maureen Perry-Jenkins what happens to low-wage working women when they can’t get simple accommodations that they need during their pregnancies. Dr. Perry-Jenkins is a researcher at the University of Massachusetts conducting a federally-funded study of low-wage working families across the transition to parenthood.

Here’s her answer: All too often, pregnant low-wage workers wind up out of a job.

It is common for women in Dr. Perry-Jenkins’ studies to report they felt they had no choice other than to quit their physically demanding jobs in those instances when their pregnancies no longer permitted them to stand for long periods of time, lift heavy objects or work very long shifts with no break.

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Tags: Employment, Pregnancy, Pregnant Workers Fairness Act (PWFA), Pregnancy, Parenting, and the Workplace, Employment | Add new comment