"The increase in the federal minimum wage helps women -- but not nearly enough."

[ensho]

http://www.prospect.org/cs/articles?article=women_and_the_minimum_wage


Women and the Minimum Wage


It has been dubbed the "mancession." During the past year's economic collapse, job losses have been sharply higher in male-dominated industries like manufacturing and construction than in sectors like health care, services, retail, and hospitality where many women tend to work. This reality is forcing families to rely more than ever on women's wages to make ends meet.

But while unemployment is lower for women, so are their wages. That's why this month's boost in the federal minimum wage from $6.55 to $7.25 an hour couldn't come at a better time, especially because the overwhelming majority of minimum-wage earners are adult women, many of whom support children.

-snip-

Furthermore, opposition to this modest increase completely ignores that even at $7.25 an hour, a full-time minimum-wage worker will earn just $14,500 a year -- not nearly enough to meet basic needs anywhere in the United States. During the postwar decades when the minimum wage boosted pay more broadly, it was approximately 50 percent of the average U.S. worker's wage -- which would translate to more than $9 an hour today.

For tipped workers like waitresses and nail salon workers -- a group that is overwhelmingly female -- the situation is even worse. For them, the federal minimum wage is a shockingly low $2.13 an hour. And under another outdated exemption, workers in the fast-growing home-health-care industry, in which millions of women tend to the most vulnerable in our society -- seniors, persons with disabilities, and the ill -- are not guaranteed any minimum wage at all.

-snip-

Our stagnant minimum wage is one of the most significant reasons why women across our economy continue to receive low wages. Even before the recession, women's incomes were absolutely critical for keeping families afloat. Now, with the difference between male and female unemployment at a half-century high, it's an issue we can no longer afford to ignore.
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there are more women in the US (and world) then men - we have the power

and we won't give up (or break)

[lumberjack_jeff]

1. Interesting theme.

Women are victimized by men losing their jobs.

This reminds me of most news stories about civil wars. "And in other news, Amnesty international reports that refugees are streaming across the border at Rwandazbekastan, roughly at a female to male ratio of 40:1. When the UN was confronted with the observation that women are 40 times more likely to be refugees..."

They neglect to say that's because their fathers, brothers and husbands are all dead.

Wage stagnation is a serious problem, but it's not a gender issue.