Study: California Women “Falling Behind”—and Held Back by Budget Cuts
02.03.2012 | New America Media | Zaineb Mohammed
SAN FRANCISCO--Women are recovering from the recession at a slower rate
than men according to a new report by the California Budget Project
(CBP) published in partnership with the Women’s Foundation of
California.
The report, titled, “Falling Behind: The Impact of the Great Recession and the Budget Crisis on California’s Women and Their Families, " was released on Feb. 1.
In
a telephone briefing with the media on Thursday, Jean Ross, CBP's
executive director commented, “The Great Recession hit single mothers
particularly hard and contributed to a sharp increase in poverty among
female-headed families with children.”
Ross added, “Older women
faced a rise in poverty, as well. The recession eroded women’s
retirement savings, causing them to remain in the workforce to rebuild
their savings.”
Slow to Share in Economic Recovery
As the economy gradually recovers in California, Ross noted, women have been slow to share in areas such as job growth.
“California’s
job market is slowly recovering, but recent data suggest that women
have not shared equally in the state’s modest employment gains,” said
Ross during the briefing.
Ross emphasized in an interview with
New America Media, “Single moms have not fared well in this struggling
recovery. When people say you need to get a job faster and work more
hours, that just doesn’t reflect what’s available in this labor market.
Workweeks are shrinking and jobs are scarce.”
Judy Patrick, the
president and CEO of the Women’s Foundation of California, commented
during the briefing, “We have to have a public system for when the
economy isn’t working well enough to support these populations.”
However,
Governor Jerry Brown’s 2012-13 budget proposal outlined cuts to public
programs that have alarmed advocates for children, elders, minorities
and others vulnerable groups. Ross said women would also be among those
most negatively impacted.
Reductions facing CalWorks, which
assists economically struggling families, and childcare programs were
among the budget cuts that concerned Ross the most.
Ross
observed that the state has made cuts to CalWorks multiple times since
2008, reductions totaling $3.3 billion. Those include funding rollbacks
for services meant to help parents find and keep jobs.
“These
cuts mean that low-income families will have a harder time keeping a
roof over their heads and making ends meet,” said Ross during the
briefing. “Everybody understands that childcare is critical to a single
parent’s ability to remain in the workforce, to be productive at the
job, to know his or her children are well taken care of.”
Cuts Pull Rug From Under Families With Children
In
an interview, Ross explained that federal and state welfare reform laws
implemented in the mid-1990's limited the time people could receive
benefits and required them to find work eventually.
But those
laws also recognized that the jobs typically available for people on
cash assistance programs usually don’t pay enough to support a family or
enable them to afford childcare. So the state promised those parents a
safe place for their children to go while they were at work
“When
you cut those programs, you’re pulling the rug out from under families,
who assumed that their part of the bargain was to get a job and in
exchange they wouldn’t have to worry about where their kids were,” said
Ross.
According to the “Falling Behind” report, cuts made in the
2011-12 budget are expected to eliminate care programs for over 35,000
children. Proposed cuts for 2012-13 would eliminate 62,000 more spaces
in state-supported childcare programs.
Cuts to healthcare
programs, such as Medi-Cal, will also disproportionately affect women,
who make up two-thirds of those on the state’s Medicaid program.
Ross
was particularly concerned with the impact of Medi-Cal cuts on women
because more than half of the women in the program are in their peak
reproductive years, and many others are seniors with very low income.
College Cuts Hit Women Hardest
During the media briefing, Ross noted that budget cuts to higher education have also affected women disproportionately.
“Higher
education is critical to providing pathways to opportunity. In the past
three decades, the hourly earnings of women with a B.A. or more have
increased by 37 percent. Those women with just a high school degree have
risen by 2 percent,” said Ross.
She pointed out that increasing
student fees and declining course offerings haave caused the number of
California high school graduates attending a college or university to
decline, most significantly at community colleges.
The report
found that from the 2007 to 2010 fiscal years, enrollment in community
colleges dropped by approximately 130,000 students, and women accounted
for 82 percent of that reduction. The most substantial drops were among
young women, ages 19 or younger, and older women, 35 or older.
Asked
who has been hardest hit by the recession, Ross responded, “Single
mothers with children--in terms of everything, increased poverty, poor
employment prospects.”
She also stressed that because ethnic
women of color are more likely to go to community colleges and tend have
low incomes, the education reductions especially affect them. For
example, Ross said, half of the population served by CalWorks is Latino.
Patrick, of the Woman’s Foundation of California, also
expressed her concern about older women because of steep reductions in
the In-Home Supportive Services program and other services for seniors
and people with disabilities.
When discussing possible solutions
to avoid these cuts and improve the prospects for women, Ross affirmed
the need for more revenue.
“We’ve encouraged lawmakers to look at ineffective tax breaks. There always are ways to do things differently,” she said.
Ross
also mentioned the need to make choices based on what is happening in
the economy at large and emphasized not placing unrealistic expectations
on families.
“Budgets are always about values and choices, and
these clearly are tough choices,” she declared. “The easy cuts have all
been done.”
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