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The end of another week is upon us. It’s been testing at times, that’s for sure, but I promise that within this roundup are some encouraging stories mixed in with the not-so-happy ones. After the jump, more on National Coming Out Day, reflections on Anita Hill, the continued post-H.R. 358 onslaught, changing times in the UK, everyone’s favorite football-playing Homecoming Queen, and some awesome friendship in Congress. Read more »

Yesterday, Speaker Boehner and his allies in the House of Representatives acted shamefully: they passed H.R. 358, a dangerous bill that would undermine women's health and even put women's lives at risk. As we told you earlier this week, H.R. 358 is so extreme that some women facing pregnancy complications could die as a result.

The bill is not expected to pass the Senate, and President Obama has promised to veto it even if it does, but this vote was more than symbolic — these provisions are likely to surface again, either as standalone legislation or as amendments to other bills.

Put your Member of Congress on notice. Find out how she or he voted, and let's express our thanks to those champions who stood up for women's health and make clear our disappointment with the others. Read more »

New jobs? Not yet. Improved economy? Debatable. Attacks on women's health? Non-stop.

Attacking women's ability to obtain reproductive health care services remains one of Speaker Boehner's top priorities. Tomorrow, Boehner and the House leadership will bring to a vote a dangerous bill that will undermine women's health and even put women's lives at risk.

Tell your Representative to protect women's health by voting NO on this harmful piece of legislation TODAY. Read more »

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 of the work of the congressional super-committee (officially, the Joint Select Committee on Deficit Reduction) is going on behind closed doors – but reports are leaking out. And the word is that some members of the super-committee are targeting programs for low-income people for cuts. Today’s post focuses on the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP, formerly food stamps) – but Medicaid, the Affordable Care Act, Social Security, Medicare, and other vital programs are also threatened, and we’ll have more to say about them as the committee continues its work. Read more »

This time last month, the Senate was about to get back to work after Labor Day, and there were twenty judicial nominees ready for a vote. Clearing those twenty – some of whom had been waiting for Senate action for months – in the month of September seemed like a reasonable goal. The Senate is out of session for the remainder of this week, after it reached a compromise to keep the government funded, so we’re effectively at the end of September, as far as the Senate is concerned. So how’d the Senate do on judges? Read more »

The release of new poverty data this week naturally leads us to focus on the bad news: 46.2 million people in poverty in 2010, including 17.2 million women and 16.4 million children; record numbers of women and families living in extreme poverty (i.e., below half the poverty line, which is just $11,157 for a family of four); and the highest income gap ever recorded between those in the bottom tenth and those in the top tenth. But the new data also offers an opportunity to reflect on the positive impact that the safety net has had: Social Security alone prevented 20.3 million more people (including 1.1 million children) from falling into poverty last year. 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 »