Jobs

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 »

The story goes that the recession ended in June 2009, meaning that we have been in recovery for over two years. The reality for women has felt like anything but a recovery. NWLC research shows that while job growth has begun – albeit slowly, with only 639,000 jobs added between June 2009 and August 2011 – women have actually lost 345,000 jobs since the start of the recovery. Women’s unemployment has been on the rise (increasing from 7.7 percent in June 2009 to 8.0 percent in August 2011), and nearly half of all jobless women are among the long-term unemployed who have been seeking work for more than six months.

Recognizing some of these realities, the President included provisions to ensure that women share in the benefits of the job creation plan he unveiled last night. 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 »