Elizabeth Warren: Feminomics: Women and Bankruptcy

[marmar]

from HuffPost:



Elizabeth Warren
Chair of the Congressional Oversight Panel created to oversee the banking bailouts

Posted: December 17, 2009 11:39 AM

Feminomics: Women and Bankruptcy



From an economic standpoint, will 2010 be the year of the woman? As part of the Roosevelt Institute's ongoing 'Feminomics' series, running on the New Deal 2.0 blog, I was asked to reflect on women's changing roles in the economy. Here's my take on the pernicious effects of bankruptcy on women -- especially those in the middle class.


Why is bankruptcy an issue of equal justice and fairness to women?

Bankruptcy exposes the economic vulnerability and insecurity of middle class women. The women in bankruptcy, like the men who file for bankruptcy, are a fairly representative cross-section of the American middle class. Their education levels are slightly higher than the population generally, with women in bankruptcy more likely to have attended college than their counterparts. Most are employed when they file. They work in a representative cross-section of industries and occupations. More than half are homeowners. By the most overt criteria, the women who file for bankruptcy are, as a group, solidly middle-class. But at the time they file for bankruptcy, their incomes tend to hover only slightly above the poverty level, and they are deeply mired in debt. The women who file for bankruptcy played by all the rules, but they are still in economic freefall.

How has the financial crisis impacted women experiencing debt and insolvency?

Based on projected figures, more than a million women will find their way to the bankruptcy courts this year -- more women than will graduate from college, receive a diagnosis of cancer, or file for divorce. The numbers are staggering.

How do current bankruptcy laws place special burdens on women?

For many women, the on-time payments of domestic support obligations are essential to economic survival. Until 2005, the bankruptcy of those who owed the obligations actually helped women because the bankruptcy wiped out credit card debts and other obligations, while leaving domestic support obligations intact. This gave women a clear field to collect from their ex-husbands. But the credit card companies got the laws changed in 2005, making it harder for these men to declare bankruptcy and harder to discharge credit card debt. That puts women trying to collect domestic support obligations and credit card companies in direct competition for the ex-husband's resources. Credit card companies can hire lawyers and develop extensive debt collect departments, something that is really tough for women. When the credit industry controls the bankruptcy rules, women lose.

Twenty-nine women's groups -- a diverse collection that included the Y.W.C.A., Hadassah, American Association of University Women, Church Women United, the NOW Legal Defense Fund and the Feminist Majority-publicly opposed the bankruptcy legislation. ...........(more)

The complete piece is at: http://www.huffingtonpost.com/elizabeth-warren/feminomics-women-and-bank_b_395667.html

[Berry Cool]

1. I didn't realize the effect the new bankruptcy laws had on women's ability to collect child support

That's horrible. It's hard enough for women to collect it to begin with, and all they needed was something to make it even harder and more "you can't get blood out of a turnip" than it is. Yet what do we hear about but men's rights groups complaining about how they can never get custody even if their exes are utterly incompetent mothers, and how they have to hold child support denial over their exes' heads because their exes won't let them see their kids, and how they don't want to pay child support because they know their ex will just use it to buy clothes and vacations and booze and drugs for herself or her new boyfriend or to buy bonbons or something.

I am sure women like that do exist, but how many more women are out there who are just trying to scrape by and support kids their ex doesn't even want on what they make plus whatever sporadic money they can get him to give them after much complaint and whining about how badly in debt he is and how he can't find a job and whatever?