Congress

It's about jobs. You know that the most urgent deficit facing this country is the jobs deficit. It's time for Congress to do its job and pass a plan that creates jobs for the millions of Americans who are desperately looking for work.

We expect the Senate to vote tonight on whether to allow debate to begin on President Obama's jobs plan. It couldn't be more timely or important. Last week, we got some news about the job market, and it's not a pretty picture. Women gained just 4,000 of the 103,000 jobs created last month. The main reason? Cuts in funding for public services are disproportionately eliminating jobs held by women. Since the recession officially ended in June 2009, women have actually lost jobs and their unemployment rate has risen. Read more »

Most people’s eyes glaze over when they hear terms like “disaggregated data.” Wonk, wonk. But advocates should take note. Disaggregated data is crucial to measuring progress for girls and a battleground issue in the school reform debate.

When schools disaggregate data, it means that they keep track of test scores for specific subgroups of students. When you don’t break down the numbers you can’t measure the success of different populations. If you don’t disaggregate – then researchers and journalists (and wonks) can’t tell how kids of color or girls are doing in school because they get lumped in with everybody else. Robert Reich, who is 4’ 10”, once quipped that he and Shaquille O’Neal have an average height of six feet. Disaggregating that data is pretty crucial to evaluating their respective dunking prospects. It’s also a key component in demonstrating student achievement and in making schools accountable for the success of their entire student population. Read more »

Trust me: it's no fun being the bearer of bad news.

I recently told you that since the recession officially ended, women's unemployment rates have actually increased. But that's not the only grim reality: today the Census Bureau released new data, and NWLC's analysis finds that record numbers of women are living in poverty — and extreme poverty. Read more »

With the Labor Day holiday around the corner, today’s jobs data leaves no room for celebration. This month, the modest recovery ground to a halt – with no jobs added to the economy in the month of August. Our analysis shows that the news was even worse for women, whose unemployment rate inched up in August. While both women’s and men’s small gains in the private sector were wiped out by public sector job losses in August, since the start of the recovery in June 2009, men have gained 984,000 jobs, while women have lost 345,000 jobs. Read more »

This week, a firestorm erupted  over efforts by anti-choice members of Congress to narrow the long-standing “rape” exception to the ban on the use of federal funds for abortion.  Hailed by Speaker John Boehner as one of the top priorities for the new Congress, H.R. Read more »