Women's Issues in the News

Aug 04, 2014

In case you missed it last week, issues that impact women were all over the state and the nation. 

On Thursday, Governor Bullock released the findings from his state employee pay audit. As we’ve written about previously, in Montana, women only earn 67% of what men make. At MBPC, we are proud of the Equal Pay Task Force and the Bullock Administration for conducting this important audit and leading the way by releasing the findings. Not only can we improve the lives of women in state government, but hopefully it will also encourage the private sector to do the same. You can read the full audit here. The audit revealed many areas where Montana is doing well in regards to equal pay, but here are the issues identified where more work needs to be done.

Earlier in the week, the National Women's Law Center released a new report, Underpaid and Overloaded: Women in Low-Wage Jobs, which provides a comprehensive look at the women and men in the low-wage workforce. Tomorrow we will blog about this report in much more detail, but some of the findings from among women in the low-wage workforce are:

In fact, women’s issues were so important that President Obama did his weekly address on paid leave. This is an issue we’ve blogged on in the past. According to a recently released Shriver report, 96 percent of single mothers said that paid leave at their workplace would help them the most. Not only would paid leave help workers across the nation, it would help our economy.

At MBPC, we are focusing on paid leave as well as an issue that would help working families. Stay tuned!

Montana Budget & Policy Center

Shaping policy for a stronger Montana.

MBPC is a nonprofit organization focused on providing credible and timely research and analysis on budget, tax, and economic issues that impact low- and moderate-income Montana families.