Labor, Family & Economic Security

Highlighting how labor, family and social welfare policies interact to shape gender equality and equity across class and race.

Race, Gender and Homelessness

As the Trump Administration rolls back Obama era protections against housing discrimination and proposes cuts in funding for the Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD) by 18.3 percent as well as elimination of community development block grant programs entirely, Congress pushes back with historically high HUD funding levels in its latest budget deal. Against this backdrop, the Gender Policy Report talked with Heading Home Hennepin's Lisa Thornquist and Humphrey School Faculty member Maria Hanratty about the face of homelessness and how federal housing and safety net policy intersects with their work at the local level to end homelessness.

Labor, Family & Economic Security

Equal Pay for Equal Work: Employer Accountability is Essential

Equal Pay Day – April 10, 2018 – is the approximate date in the New Year to which the average US woman must work to make what the average US man earned at the end of 2017. Of course, for African American, American Indian and Latina women this day comes around much later in the year. As we mark this day each year, it drives home the persistence of the gender pay gap and the failure of our current laws to address it. What policy changes are necessary to achieve the intuitive and popular goal of “equal pay for equal work?”

There’s a Demographic Pattern to Trump’s Tariff Threats

President Trump has taken many by surprise with his recent threats to impose global tariffs on steel and aluminum imports. Presumably seeking to deliver policy goods to his political base, the remarks appear aimed to support the principally white male workers in the steel and aluminum industries. But if these tariffs are imposed, negative consequences will hit a whole host of other workers, and women workers in particular. Trade, too, is a gendered policy area. Trade issues formed a central pillar of Trump’s campaign promises, which emphasized re-negotiating multilateral and bilateral trade agreements and increasing tariffs on imported goods from specific countries (China, Mexico) as well as across the board. These promises appealed to voters who saw globalization generally and free trade deals in particular as detrimental to American jobs and workers.

Built & Natural Environment, Immigration & Refugees, Labor, Family & Economic Security

Black Women, Migration, and the Delay of Fair Housing

On January 5th, 2018, Secretary Ben Carson and the Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD) announced a delay of an Obama-era fair housing rule, the Affirmatively Furthering Fair Housing (AFFH) measure, until 2020. Instituted in 2015, the rule was meant to extend pieces of the Fair Housing Act (FHA) of 1968 that were never actualized—measures that call for communities to review and account for racially discriminatory housing policies or face sanctions such as the loss of community block grants and fair housing aid. Secretary Carson has called the AFFH “failed socialism” and “social engineering,” while U.S. Representative Maxine Waters (D-CA) characterized its delay as an attack on “minorities, women, families with children, and persons with disabilities.”

Built & Natural Environment, Labor, Family & Economic Security

Why Transit Policy Should Consider Riders’ Gender

Federal infrastructure spending is generally popular across the political spectrum – but with research-informed policy-making, that infrastructure spending could be more effective in achieving multiple policy objectives, including greater gender equity. A large part of President Trump’s $1.5 trillion infrastructure plan is slated for improvements to our transportation system. With significant public and private partnerships envisioned, policy choices at all levels of government and within private sector organizations are important for achieving a more gender equitable public transportation system.

Labor, Family & Economic Security

Family and Medical Leave Act at 25: What’s Next?

On the 25th anniversary of the federal Family and Medical Leave Act, Gender Policy Report Labor & Family contributor Debra Fitzpatrick connected with Jackie James, co-director of the Center on Aging & Work at Boston College, and Jennifer Greenfield, assistant professor at the University of Denver/ Graduate School of Social Work, to discuss the law and proposed policy innovations. They recently co-authored an OpEd and spearheaded an effort to engage 113 researchers on aging, work and family issues to advance specific policy solutions.

Labor, Family & Economic Security

Gender and the Wage “Tournament”

Labor, Family & Economic Security

When Deregulation Is Deadly

Labor, Family & Economic Security

Tax Proposals: A Missed Opportunity for Addressing Implicit Gender Bias

Broadly, the tax bill before Congress (in both its House and Senate versions) proposes to cut the standard corporate tax rate from 35 percent to 20 percent, reduce personal income tax rates, reduce a range of tax preferences, including the deductibility of state and local income taxes, and increase the child tax credit and the standard deduction. The “sunsetting provisions” of many of the changes in the personal income tax suggest that the most important long-run effect would be the reduction in the corporate tax rate, and experts agree that the bill will bring disproportionate benefits to the wealthiest of the wealthiest Americans. It’s difficult, though, to see how the tax bill will perform in terms of gender equity. All we can say for sure is that it represents a missed opportunity to move toward a more gender-neutral individual tax system or to use the personal income tax to better support working women.

Labor, Family & Economic Security, Violence

Nondisclosure Agreements: Sexual Harassment and the Contract of Silence

On October 5, 2017, the New York Times revealed that Hollywood producer, Harvey Weinstein, paid eight settlements in response to allegations of sexual harassment, dating back to 1990. The article detailed a behavioral pattern in which Weinstein lured women into meeting with him on the pretense of work and then appeared in various states of undress, demanded a massage, touched women without consent, or asked them to watch him shower. Weinstein’s conduct was condemned, but contextual questions soon emerged: who helped him create opportunities to harass and assault women, and who refused to see the harassment and hear victims’ complaints? Many people privately knew about Weinstein’s behavior. His sexual violence did not become public, however, due to the use of nondisclosure agreements (NDAs) in settlements with victims. Purportedly part of the solution to harassment (i.e., legal settlement), NDAs can facilitate harassment by keeping sexual violence secret and victims silent.

Labor, Family & Economic Security

Union Organizing is a Gender Justice Issue

The Democratic Party released its Better Deal platform in June that included a call for a higher minimum wage, better jobs, and worker training. Conspicuously absent, however, was any mention of unions. This was quite a stunning departure from the original New Deal that had unions and labor organizing at its very core. Last week the Democrats finally released a new plank that focuses on labor law reform, under the banner of “Give Workers the Freedom to Negotiate a Better Deal.” While no one expects the proposals to pass anytime soon, their inclusion signals that the Democrats may wrap workers’ freedom to organize into the 2019 platform. Will the Democrats stick with labor law reform this time around? For women workers’ sake, let’s hope so. After all, workers’ right to freely form unions and bargain collectively is a gender justice issue; unions help women close the wage gap, rise out of poverty, and address power issues on the job.

Built & Natural Environment, Labor, Family & Economic Security

Mobility and Flexibility Expand Working Mothers’ Success

In the U.S., women have historically had less access to cars, but their traditional, gendered family roles have increased their share of household-related trips—think daycare pickup, grocery shopping, and the like. The mismatch between women’s mobility constraints and burdens has, in turn, created significant restrictions in women’s labor market choices. As a result, employed women’s work commute trips were, for decades, shorter in both distance and time than those of employed men.

Labor, Family & Economic Security

Settler Colonialism: American Indians and US Racial Self-Conceptions

Immigration & Refugees, Labor, Family & Economic Security

The Feminization of Carework

Women in the United States have long been expected to care for others out of love or devotion rather than for money. This feminization of care work has resulted in low wages for domestic workers, who are often immigrant women, and the exclusion, historically and today, of care workers in many parts of the workforce from the protections of labor laws and policies. In Part 1 of a recent interview, Gender Policy Report curator, Professor William P. Jones spoke to Sociologist Evelyn Nakano Glenn about this topic and its intersection with U.S. labor and immigration policy.

Labor, Family & Economic Security

Food Stamps and Food Rights

Recent federal proposals to gut SNAP benefits and states’ calls to add paid employment and drug-testing as eligibility determinants are nothing new. They reflect longstanding concerns with dependence, waste, and fraud, as well as anxiety that black people, indigenous Americans, and immigrants might rise above abject status. They also reveal a widespread and longstanding suspicion of poor people—particularly poor women and especially poor women of color—as undeserving.

Rose Brewer

University of Minnesota, African American and African Studies

William Jones

University of Minnesota, History

Colleen Manchester

University of Minnesota, Carlson School of Management

Carrie Oelberger

University of Minnesota, Humphrey School of Public Affairs

Labor, Family & Economic Security

Race, Gender and Homelessness

Equal Pay for Equal Work: Employer Accountability is Essential

There’s a Demographic Pattern to Trump’s Tariff Threats

Black Women, Migration, and the Delay of Fair Housing

Why Transit Policy Should Consider Riders’ Gender

Family and Medical Leave Act at 25: What’s Next?

Gender and the Wage “Tournament”

When Deregulation Is Deadly

Tax Proposals: A Missed Opportunity for Addressing Implicit Gender Bias

Nondisclosure Agreements: Sexual Harassment and the Contract of Silence

Union Organizing is a Gender Justice Issue

Mobility and Flexibility Expand Working Mothers’ Success

Settler Colonialism: American Indians and US Racial Self-Conceptions

The Feminization of Carework

Food Stamps and Food Rights