RESEARCH MAKING THE NEWS
What It’s Like To Fight For Equal Pay When You’re A Latina Construction Worker
By Judith Ohikuare | 
These contrasts might seem like trite figures, until one considers, based on a projection from the Institute for Women’s Policy Research, that Hispanic women may not achieve equal pay with white men until the year 2233. But this is about so much more than statistics — we wanted to hear first-person accounts of Latina women who are fighting against salary discrimination.
Citing: Women’s Median Earnings as a Percent of Men’s, 1985-2016 (Full-time, Year-Round Workers) with Projections for Pay Equity, by Race/Ethnicity, by The Institute for Women’s Policy Research, November 2017
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Most Americans are Unprepared for the Skyrocketing Cost of Long-Term Care
By Emily Gurnon | 
The cost of long-term care just keeps going up and most Americans keep believing — incorrectly — that the government will cover most or all of it. “Our population is aging, living longer, and not prepared,” said David O’Leary, president and CEO of Genworth’s U.S. Life division. […] A private room in a nursing home now costs consumers more than $8,000 a month, or $97,455 a year, according to the report, which provides national median figures.
Citing: Genworth 2017 Cost of Care Survey, by Genworth Financial , October 2017
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New Research Shows Women Freelancers Face a Big Gender Pay Gap
By Nina Zipkin | 
The gender wage gap in the United States is a persistent, pervasive issue. While the gap has narrowed over time, Pew Research found in 2015, women were paid 83 percent of what men earn. […] But the pay gap isn’t only a problem in corporate America. For those who make their living as a freelancer, the issue still remains, despite not having to contend with the structures and hierarchies of a traditional office, according to a new study from client management platform Honeybook. The company’s analysis of 200,000 invoices found that women make 32 percent less than men for the same job in the creative economy. Women earn roughly $30,700 a year, while men earn more than $45,400.
Citing: 2017 Gender Pay Gap, Honeybook | Rising Tide , October 2017
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The Healthy D.C. Economy is Leaving Longtime Black Residents Behind, New Study Finds
By Perry Stein | 
The booming and increasingly dynamic D.C. economy is leaving the city’s longtime black residents behind, according to a study released Thursday that examines African American employment, population and housing trends in the nation’s capital. The Georgetown University report, which culled data from several recent studies, found that more than half of all new jobs in the District between 2010 and 2020 will require at least a bachelor’s degree, although only 12.3 percent of black residents in 2014 had graduated from college. It noted the average white household in the region has a net worth of $284,000, while the assets of the average black household are just $3,500.
Citing: An Analysis: African American Employment, Population, & Housing Trends in Washington, D.C. by Maurice Jackson, Ph.D, Georgetown University, October 2017
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Some advice for business on the gender pay gap: World Bank research has found compelling case for offering childcare services to staff
By Sarah Gordon | 
[…]Advice on what to do [to close the gender pay gap], though, is hardly lacking. Employers can do little to change societal norms which mean that, even in places like Scandinavia where great progress has been made getting more women into top jobs, they still do the bulk of unpaid work in the home. But there are many effective measures companies can take, and a constant flow of research to help them select what works best. The IFC, for example, a member of the World Bank Group, has just looked at 34 companies around the world that offer childcare services to staff, and found that there is a compelling business case for doing so.
Citing: Tackling Childcare: The Business Case for Employer-Supported Childcare by the International Finance Corporation, October 2017
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When Will the Economy Start Caring About Home-Care Work?
By Annie Lowrey | 
Home-health and personal-care work is one of the country’s fastest-growing occupational sectors. But it is one marked by low pay and meager benefits, a problem that might become more urgent as the U.S.’s population continues to age. On top of that, care workers face high rates of wage theft, tax and benefits misclassification, and employer fraud, according to a new report from the National Employment Law Project (NELP), a think tank and advocacy organization.
Citing: Surveying the Home Care Workforce: Their Challenges and the Positive Impact of Unionization, by the National Employment Law Project, September 2017
NEW RESEARCH REPORTS
Women in the Workplace 2017
By Rachel Thomas et al. | Lean In | October 2017
Women remain underrepresented at every level in corporate America, despite earning more college degrees than men for thirty years and counting. There is a pressing need to do more, and most organizations realize this: company commitment to gender diversity is at an all-time high for the third year in a row. Despite this commitment, progress continues to be too slow—and may even be stalling. One of the most powerful reasons for this is a simple one: we have blind spots when it comes to diversity, and we can’t solve problems that we don’t see or understand clearly.
One Quarter of Hispanic Children in the United States Have an Unauthorized Immigrant Parent
By Wyatt Clarke, Kimberly Turner, Lina Guzman | National Research Center on Hispanic Families and Children | October 2017
Approximately 1 in 4 U.S. Latino children have a parent who is an unauthorized immigrant, a finding that is striking in its consistency across data sources and methods. This means that there are more than 4 million Latino children in the United States who are at risk of experiencing parental separation and the stress and fear associated with their family’s uncertain legal status. We also found that the likelihood of a Latino child having an unauthorized immigrant parent varies by country of heritage, suggesting varying levels of risk to children’s well-being.
Meta-Analysis of Field Experiment Shows No Change in Racial Discrimination in Hiring Over Time
By Lincoln Quilliam, Devah Pager, Ole Hexel, Arnfinn H. Midtoen | Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences | October 2017
With the election of the country’s first African-American president in 2008, many concluded that the country had finally moved beyond its troubled racial past. Despite clear signs of racial progress, however, on several key dimensions racial inequality persists and has even increased. For example, racial gaps in unemployment have shown little change since 1980, and the black–white gap in labor force participation rates among young men widened during this time. […] Indeed, while expressions of explicit prejudice have declined precipitously over time, measures of stereotypes and implicit bias appear to have changed little over the past few decades. In this view, far from disappearing, racial bias has taken on new forms, becoming more contingent, subtle, and covert.
The Impact of Low Unemployment Rates on Disadvantaged Groups
By Cherrie Bucknor and Dean Baker | Center for Economic and Policy Research | October 2017
The 4.2 percent unemployment rate reported for September 2017 is the lowest level since 2001. It is important to recognize that this figure is well below the unemployment rate that many economists— including those at the Federal Reserve Board and the Congressional Budget Office— consider to be consistent with a stable inflation rate. […] While there have been gains throughout the economy due to the Federal Reserve Board’s decision to allow the unemployment rate to continue to fall (as opposed to raising interest rates sharply to slow the pace of job creation), blacks and Hispanics have benefited disproportionately from the drop in unemployment.
The 2017 Distressed Communities Index
By Kenan Fikri and John Lettieri | Economic Innovation Group | September 2017
It is fair to wonder whether a recovery that excludes tens of millions of Americans and thousands of communities deserves to be called a recovery at all. Indeed, the consequences extend far beyond the individual communities being left behind. The further we go down the path of geographically exclusive growth, the more we limit our nation’s economic potential as a whole—and the more fractured our society risks becoming in the process. Even residents of prosperous locales have an interest in ensuring a more inclusive map of well-being. The challenge of “reconnecting” distressed communities is urgent and complex—especially so for policymakers.
