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Archived News Release--Caution:
information may be out of date.
For more information call: 202/219-6631.
At a ceremony in the Rose Garden today, President Clinton
met with working women and lauded a series of policy recommendations developed
by the U.S. Department of Labor (DOL) to address issues of concern to working
women.
The recommendations include: establishing a new fair pay
clearinghouse; initiating a partnership with the National League of Cities to
increase the supply and quality of child care and holding a series of community
forums on child care; increasing women's access to education and training;
raising the minimum wage and establishing a Working Women Count Honor Roll of
employers and others who make the workplace better for women. The
recommendations address the areas women identified as priorities in response to
the DOL Women's Bureau's Working Women Count! questionnaire -- improving pay
and benefits, balancing work and family, and valuing women's work. More than a
quarter of a million women from all 50 states returned the questionnaires last
summer.
"Working Women Count! has created an historic opportunity
for women to talk to us about their jobs," President Clinton said. "This
Administration is committed to improving the economy for working families. The
federal government has a role to play in addressing women's concerns, as do
business, labor, community organizations and the media. The federal government
intends to do its part."
Last fall, President Clinton directed the Labor Department
to develop recommendations when the Working Women Count! questionnaire results
were released. Women said they like their jobs but see a compelling need for
changes that reduce stress, improve pay and benefits, help them balance work
and family responsibilities, increase job training opportunities and end
discrimination. Mrs. Clinton helped launch the Working Women Count!
questionnaire last spring and both the First Lady and Vice President Gore
helped release the results last October.
The Working Women Count! recommendations to the President
from Secretary of Labor Robert B. Reich and Women's Bureau Director Karen
Nussbaum include:
- establishing a fair pay clearinghouse to assist employees and
employers who want to improve wage-setting practices;
- establishing a partnership with the National League of Cities to
increase the supply and quality of child care. Senior Administration officials
also will participate in a series of community forums on child care;
- increasing the minimum wage to $5.15 per hour over two years.
Sixty-two percent of workers who earn at or below the minimum wage are
women;
- establishing a Working Women Count Honor Roll to recognize employers
and others who are making the workplace better for women;
- reducing wage discrimination among federal contractors through
streamlined new reporting designed to more easily identify contractors who
discriminate against women workers, and to protect lawful employers from
unnecessary investigations;
- initiating a pension education campaign to help women and men with
retirement and pension planning;
- offering tax credits of $500 per child (under age 13) for families
making less than $75,000 per year;
- increasing women's access to education and training through skill
grants, tax deductions and IRAs.
"Working women know better than anyone else what they
need," Reich said. "Today, the Administration is responding to the collective
insights that women articulated through Working Women Count! These
recommendations will do a tremendous amount to help not only women, but their
families."
"With 99 percent of women working for pay at some point in
their lives, action cannot come quickly enough," Nussbaum said. "The
Administration has made important progress in improving the lives of working
women by signing the Family and Medical Leave Act into law and through the Head
Start reauthorization bill. The women who participated in Working Women Count!
helped create momentum for real change."
Among the working women attending the event were
Tallahassee (and former Connecticut) resident Marina Foley, who wrote President
Clinton a letter when she returned her questionnaire. In the letter, Foley
wrote about "how difficult it is to raise your children, have decent health
care, and try to survive on less pay . . . I'm exhausted."
The Working Women Count! questionnaire was distributed by
1,600 partners around the country -- businesses, labor unions, magazines,
newspapers, national and community-based organizations and government agencies.
The Labor Department also conducted a scientific phone
survey using the same questions as the popular questionnaire with a
representative, random sample of 1,200 working women. Among the results:
- Nearly four in five women (79 percent) either "love" or "like" their
jobs -- but women see a need for change.
- Too much stress is a serious problem for more than half the women in
both the popular (58 percent) and scientific samples (59 percent), cutting
across income and occupational groups.
- Two-thirds of women (65 percent) say improving pay scales is a high
priority for change. Fifty-five percent of women in the popular sample and 49
percent in the scientific sample say they are not getting paid what they are
worth.
- In the scientific sample, 17 percent of women report losing a job or
promotion on the basis of their gender or race.
- A majority of women consider on-the-job training (52 percent in the
scientific and 61 percent in the popular sample) and insuring equal opportunity
(51 percent in the scientific and 63 percent in the popular sample) high
priorities for change.
- The number-one issue women would like to talk to President Clinton
about is their difficulty balancing work and family -- including child care.
Unequal or unfair pay is second, and lack of equal treatment and equal
opportunity is third.
- More than half (56 percent) of women with children under age five say
that finding affordable child care is a serious problem. More than half (53
percent) of this group say that "information about or support for child or
dependent care" is a very high priority for change.
The Women's Bureau was founded by Congress in 1920 with a
mandate to "promote the welfare of wage-earning women."
Archived News Release--Caution:
information may be out of date.
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