Kolby Kamm

Ms. Tamez

College Prep English

4 May 2017

Poverty Solution Proposal

My proposal to reduce poverty in America is to reduce the gender wage gap and

make sure all women have paid paternity leave. Even when women have the same

seniority or work experience, they are often paid less than their male colleagues. This

inequity exists at all levels of employment. Fair pay legislation provides an important

tool for fixing this inequity, but more is needed to ensure that employers are following

the law and treating men and women employees fairly. The salaries for the vast majority

of jobs held by women, in industries such as retail and hospitality, are consistently lower

than the traditional male career paths like construction, engineering, and energy. The

Legal Momentum is working on expanding the more non-traditional pathways for

women which would promise stronger salaries and stable benefits creating a pathway

from poverty to prosperity.

With female full-time workers earning just 78 cents for every $1 earned by men

and women in America are still 35 percent more likely than men to be poor in America,

with single mothers facing the highest risk. Currently, 35 percent of single women with

children live and raise their families in poverty. Action must be taken to ensure equal

pay for equal work. Unfortunately, the nations anti-poverty and safety net programs

have repeatedly failed to take into account the reality of womens lives and provide
sufficient ways for helping women and children escape poverty. Until very recently, and

as is still the case in many states, unemployment insurance in most states was limited

to full-time workers, leaving part-time workers, the vast majority of are women, with no

assistance if they lost their jobs. Over half of the 37 million Americans living in poverty

are women. Closing the gender wage gap would cut poverty in half for working women

and their families and add nearly half a trillion dollars to the nations gross domestic

product.

Working women necessarily take time off for pregnancy and birth. While women

with paid sick leave may be able to utilize that to offset some of the cost of childbearing,

women in low wage-earning jobs must often forfeit income during the course of a

pregnancy and immediately following a childs birth. For women in nontraditional jobs,

employers sometimes fail to modify job duties or force them into inappropriate light duty

positions against their consent. These types of behaviors may constitute pregnancy

discrimination.

Domestic violence and sexual assault have repercussions far outside a womans

home or personal life. Victims of violence are forced to leave jobs for safety and take

time off work to seek appropriate medical care and legal assistance. Regardless of

marital status, family caretaking responsibilities more often fall to women: when a child

or relative is sick, women are more likely to sacrifice work and income to take care of

that person. For the many low-wage workers who arent paid sick leave, taking a child to

the doctor means losing a half-day or full days wages when finances are already at a

breaking point.