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Why Women Should Vote (Overview)
Why Women Should Vote - For Equal Pay and Job Opportunities
Many women don’t earn enough to stay afloat, let alone to get ahead
Two-thirds of workers over age 16 who work at or below the minimum wage are women. The buying power of the federal minimum wage ($5.15/hr) is at its lowest level in 51 years
For a woman supporting herself and two children, living on the minimum wage puts her family 20% below the poverty level
The costs of gas, health care and other necessities keep rising. A minimum-wage worker has to work over 11 hours just to pay for one tank of gas at today’s prices!
Women dominate some of the lowest-paying fields and are still left out of many others. Parking lot attendants, 87% of whom are men, earn more per week than child care workers, 95% of whom are women
Many jobs today have no benefits, and women are even more likely than men to work in jobs with no pensions or health insurance. While 62% of male workers have access to health insurance through their jobs, only about half of female workers do
Women face unequal pay for equal work and sexual harassment on the job.
Women on average earn only about 77¢ for every $1.00 earned by men – meaning that for every $100 she earns, a typical woman has $23 less to spend on groceries, housing, child care, or other expenses. The pay gap means the average woman had to work until April 2006 to make what the average man made by the end of 2005.
Women of color fare even worse: African-American women earn only 67¢, and Latinas only 56¢, for every $1.00 earned by white men.
Female registered nurses earn 8% less than their male colleagues. Female doctors earn 39% less than their male colleagues.
The pay gap follows women into retirement: unmarried women in the workforce today will receive, on average, about $8,000/year less in retirement income than their male counterparts.
Our leaders in Washington aren’t addressing these issues.
Congress hasn’t raised the minimum wage in over nine years.
Bills to strengthen the laws against discrimination have gone nowhere in Congress.
If you think our leaders in Washington aren’t doing what they should to address the challenges you face in your life—REGISTER and VOTE! Remember, elections can be decided by just a handful of votes, so YOUR VOTE CAN MAKE A DIFFERENCE!
To register to vote, get information on voting (your polling place, how to vote absentee, etc.), or learn about the candidates in your area, go to http://capwiz.com/nwlc/e4/ and enter your state or zip code.
The National Women’s Law Center is a nonprofit, nonpartisan organization that has been working to advance and protect women’s legal rights since 1972. Women’s Voices. Women Vote is a nonprofit, nonpartisan organization that seeks to mobilize women to register to vote and to go to the polls on Election Day. Neither organization takes positions on candidates or elections, and nothing herein should be construed as an endorsement of any candidate or party.
