FAFSA Delays-Navigating the Thorny Landscape of College Unaffordability
For many low-income college students, the prevailing Free Application for Federal Student Aid (FAFSA) delays are causing added panic to our ever-growing educational crisis of soaring college costs. IWPR's Policy Team weighs in.
FAFSA Delays-Navigating the Thorny Landscape of College Unaffordability
For many low-income college students, the prevailing Free Application for Federal Student Aid (FAFSA) delays are causing added panic to our ever-growing educational crisis of soaring college costs. IWPR's Policy Team weighs in.
It’s fitting that Women’s History Month, which began March 1, kicked off with Women in Construction (WIC) Week—an annual celebration led by the National Association of Women in Construction (NAWIC) to highlight and honor the vital contributions women make across the industry. In January 2025, President Trump issued Executive Order (EO) 14173, “Ending Illegal Discrimination and Restoring Merit-Based Opportunity,” which rescinded the long‑standing employment goals for women on federally funded construction projects. These goals—set at 6.9 percent of hours [...]
From a landmark abortion access court case to the Trump administration's week-one efforts to erode critical rights and protections, this week marks multiple anniversaries related to women’s health and economic well-being. These dates provide a crucial reminder of what’s at stake and why it is imperative to protect against attacks on reproductive freedom and threats that undermine better workplaces—not just to hold firm to progress from the past but also pursue policy solutions that advance gender justice in the future. [...]
This year marked the second consecutive year the gender gap in earnings worsened, increasing from 17.3 percent in 2023 to 19.1 percent* in 2024. In 2024, women earned only 80.9 cents for every dollar earned by men—the lowest gender earnings ratio since 2016, when women earned 80.5 cents to the dollar compared to men. Equal Pay Days across this past year have highlighted how the problem of wage equity is worse for the intersecting identities of women of color, mothers, LGBTQIA+ individuals, and disabled women. On April 7, we recognized Asian American, Native Hawaiian, and Pacific Islander (AANHPI) Women’s Equal Pay Day. In 2023, AANHPI [...]
November 20 marks Women in Apprenticeship Day, a day chosen by the National Taskforce on Tradeswomen’s Issues to highlight the role apprenticeships play in improving women’s access to—and advancement in—good jobs in the construction trades. Apprenticeships offer an earn-as-you-learn pathway to industry-recognized certifications, combining paid work and on-the-job training with classroom instruction, and typically require a minimum of two years of full-time work. Not all apprenticeships lead to equally highly paid careers. In FY 2025, the median hourly pay [...]
November 8 marks National Science, Technology, Engineering, and Math (STEM) Day—an opportunity to celebrate and inspire students to pursue STEM education and careers. In recent decades, STEM professionals have created countless groundbreaking innovations, and employment in STEM careers has grown exponentially. According to the US Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS), employment in STEM jobs is projected to continue to grow at more than twice the rate of overall employment over the next 10 years. Despite this, women account for only 26.6 percent of the STEM workforce, according to IWPR’s State Policy Action Lab (State PAL). Moreover, IWPR’s analysis of the 2023 American Community Survey finds that women in the STEM workforce make just 80 cents for [...]
October is LGBTQIA+ History Month—a designated month-long tribute to recognize, acknowledge, and share the history of the ongoing battle for equality for lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, queer, intersexual, and asexual people. In the first and second blogs of this series, we explored the exhausting effects of workplace inequities, the extremely limited federal data collection efforts, and the profound economic disparities within the LGBTQIA+ community. For the third and final blog, we’re examining the higher rates of poor mental health, mental [...]
