May 5, 2004

IWPR’s Research News Reporter is distributed monthly to highlight inventive, informative, innovative, and sometimes controversial research relating to women and their families. Each selection includes a short description of the research and either a link to the report itself or a citation. We sometimes include short pieces in their entirety.

In this edition:
1.       Women’s Economic Status in the States: Wide Disparities by Race, Ethnicity, and Region
2.       No Time to Be Sick: Why Everyone Suffers When Workers Don’t Have Paid Sick Leave
3.       Investing in Massachusetts Working Families: A Framework for Economic Prosperity
4.       Health Insurance Data Briefs
5.       Where Do Your Taxes Go?

1. Women’s Economic Status in the States: Wide Disparities by Race, Ethnicity, and Region
April 15, 2004
Amy Caiazza, April Shaw, and Misha Werschkul
The Institute for Women’s Policy Research

This report, the first release of IWPR’s 2004 Status of Women in the States project, finds wide disparities in women’s economic status across racial, ethnic, and geographic lines. The report provides disaggregated data on women’s economic status on a number of indicators, including women’s earnings, the wage gap, the occupations and industries in which women work, women’s business ownership, and women’s poverty. Unlike previous studies, this report measures the wage gap between white men and everybody else, and provides detailed data on the wage gap by race and ethnicity. The researchers report that even the highest paid group of women – Asian American women – earn a full 25 percent less than white men for year-round, full-time work. The report also shows that Hispanic American women earn nearly 50 percent less than white men. The report provides a set of recommendations, including that federal, state, and local government strengthen their support for equal opportunity laws, that businesses regularly evaluate their wage and promotion practices to ensure than men and women of all races and ethnicities are fairly compensated for their work, and that states broaden supports and protections for immigrant women.

http://www.iwpr.org/pdf/R260.pdf

2. No Time to Be Sick: Why Everyone Suffers When Workers Don’t Have Paid Sick Leave
May 5, 2004
Vicky Lovell
The Institute for Women’s Policy Research

Using data from the U.S. Department of Labor, this report finds that almost half of all American workers have no paid sick leave. This means that nearly 60 million workers go without paid time off for health recovery and routine medical visits. In addition, only one in three workers with paid sick leave can use it to care for sick children or family members, which puts many in the position of choosing between keeping their jobs and caring for their families. The report finds that coverage is far superior for full-time as compared to part-time workers, and for public-sector as compared to private-sector employees. Further, sick leave coverage varies by industry and occupation, with only 27 and 14 percent of workers in construction and accommodation and food service industries, respectively, having access to paid sick leave. Paid sick leave programs provide workers with an opportunity to regain their health and return to full productivity at work, and can reduce employees’ overall absence expense by preventing contagion among co-workers.  When a child or other family member is sick, paid leave can also reduce job turnover by preventing the need for workers to take unauthorized time off work. The author recommends that existing paid sick leave programs be expanded and wage replacement be added to unpaid sick leave, care for sick family members should to be covered under paid sick leave, and work schedules should be made more flexible so workers can adapt their hours at work to meet the demands of caregiving responsibilities.

http://www.iwpr.org/pdf/B242p.pdf

A new report by the Urban Institute also addresses the lack of access to sick leave for working parents:

Getting Time Off: Access to Leave among Working Parents
April 2004
Katherin Ross Phillips
The Urban Institute

Using data from the 1997, 1999, and 2002 rounds of the National Survey of American Families, this report examines access to leave by socioeconomic characteristics and finds that, due to the Family and Medical Leave Act of 1993, most working parents can take maternity or paternity leave, yet more than half of working welfare recipients, workers who recently left welfare, and poor workers can not take paid leave from their jobs. Further, Phillips finds that women, younger workers, parents with very young children, and single workers are less likely to have any paid leave than men, older workers, parents with older children, and married workers.  

http://www.urban.org/UploadedPDF/310977_B-57.pdf

3. Investing in Massachusetts Working Families: A Framework for Economic Prosperity
April 2004
Hannah Bailey Boyle, Sheelah A. Feinberg, and Martin Liebowitz
The Women’s Union

Compiling data from a variety of secondary sources, the authors describe the state of low-wage working families in Massachusetts, discuss the barriers that they face to self-sufficiency, and analyze the effectiveness of existing public services and policies. The authors report that one-third of working-age adults in Massachusetts lack the skills to succeed in the current economy, and that the long term unemployment rate is higher in Massachusetts than in the United States as a whole. Further, only 3.9 percent of welfare recipients are placed in education and training programs, and two million adults in Massachusetts have poor literacy skills. The authors conclude by recommending, for example, that the state focus on advancement for low-wage workers from working poverty to self-sufficiency, that Massachusetts allocate 50 percent of adult WIA funds to job training services, and that the state raise the eligibility guidelines for child care subsidies so that more families receive support. 

http://www.weiu.org/pdf_files/Investing_in_Families.pdf

4. Health Insurance Data Briefs
April 13, 2004
Heather Boushey, Mayra Murray Diaz, and Joseph Wright
Center for Economic and Policy Research

This five-part research series analyzes access to health insurance in the United States, including health insurance coverage, employer provided health insurance for employees, changes in the share of Americans receiving employer-provided health insurance as a dependent on another person’s plan, and interactions between the private and public health insurance systems. The reports conclude that we are facing a health insurance crisis, with nearly 70 million Americans lacking health insurance coverage at some point during 2002 and employers scaling back health care plans. Further, the authors find serious disparities in health coverage: for example, children, Latinos, and young adults are the least likely to have health insurance, and low-wage workers are about half as likely as high-wage workers to have employer-provided health insurance.  

http://www.cepr.net/health_insurance/hi_brief.htm

5. Where Do Your Tax Dollars Go?
April 8, 2004
The National Priorities Project

This interactive database contains data from the years 1983 to 2003 on socio-economic needs and federal expenditures for each state, and allows users to create customized graphs, tables, and charts from the available data. The site offers data on how individual states are doing on a number of specific issues areas, including hunger, military spending, and energy, as well as breakdowns of how the federal government, states, and selected cities and counties spent the average taxpayer’s money in 2003. For example, out of every income tax dollar in 2003, 29 cents went to military spending, 20 cents went to the debt, four cents went to education and veterans benefits, three cents went to nutrition, two cents went to housing, and two cents went to natural resources. The database also allows users to analyze financial tradeoffs between what was spent on ballistic missile defense, additional war spending, etc. in a specific state with what could have been spent on housing vouchers, elementary school teachers, etc.

http://www.nationalpriorities.org/taxday2004/taxday04.html?em

This edition of IWPR’s Research News Reporter was prepared by Misha Werschkul.