Press Releases
Women are Four Times More Likely than Men to Work in Jobs with Poverty-Level Wages
In advance of Equal Pay Day on April 12, 2016, the Institute for Women’s Policy Research (IWPR) released new analysis finding that 6.5 million women work in occupations that have median earnings for full-time work for women below the federal poverty threshold for a family of four, compared with 1.7 million men.
Good and Growing Middle-Skill Jobs Exclude Women, New Report Shows
Women hold only a third of positions in growing middle-skill jobs that pay at least $35,000 or as much as $102,000 per year, according to a new report by the Institute for Women’s Policy Research (IWPR). These middle-skill jobs, which require a high school education but not a college degree, pay a living wage and can serve as a stepping stone to a higher-paying career for women workers, who now serve as the sole or co-breadwinner in half of American families.
New Data Shows the Gender Wage Gap Widened in 2015
On the eve of International Women’s Day 2016—with this year’s campaign focused on reaching gender parity across the globe—a new fact sheet by the Institute for Women’s Policy Research (IWPR) finds that progress on narrowing the wage gap in the United States has not only stalled, but reversed. The ratio of women’s to men’s median weekly full-time earnings declined from 82.5 percent in 2014 to 81.1 percent in 2015, increasing the gender gap to 18.9 percent from 17.5 percent last year.
Women Gain Nearly 7 in 10 Jobs Added in February
The Institute for Women’s Policy Research (IWPR) analysis of the March employment report from the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS) finds that women gained 167,000 jobs and men gained 75,000 for a total of 242,000 jobs added in February, giving women 69 percent of job growth. February is the 72nd month of uninterrupted job growth in the private sector. The overall unemployment rate remained steady at 4.9 percent between January and February.
Equal Pay Would Cut Poverty for Working Women in the South by More than Half
A new report, released in advance of Super Tuesday, by the Institute for Women’s Policy Research (IWPR), finds that the gender wage gap costs women in the South $155.4 billion per year. Closing the wage gap would reduce relatively high poverty rate for working women in the southern United States by more than half. The Status of Women in the South is the first report to provide a comprehensive portrait of the status of women, particularly the status of women of color, in the southern states, grading each state on six different topic areas related to women’s economic, political, health, and social status.
Four in 10 American Workers Lack Paid Sick Days
New analysis by the Institute for Women’s Policy Research (IWPR) finds that four in ten workers in the United States lack access to paid sick days, and among those who do have access, only 55 percent of workers actually used any sick days in the previous year. Inequality in access to paid sick days exists within and across occupations, with supervisors more likely to have paid sick days than non-supervisors. Hispanic, low-wage, and food service and personal care workers are least likely to have access to this important benefit.
