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Earlier this week we celebrated Mother’s Day. As someone who has fought for the rights of women, especially women of color, throughout my life, we have rejoiced with family and friends over how far women, including mothers, have come in our professional and personal lives, and also agonized over how far we still have to go.
This year, the April jobs report, released just two days before Mother’s Day by the U.S. Department of Labor’s Bureau of Labor Statistics, paints a devastating picture for women in the workforce. And it highlights how the coronavirus has disproportionally impacted us in the labor market. So, my celebration of the joys of Mother’s Day has been tempered by the pandemic reminding me of the tremendous challenges that women are facing at work and at home.
But never one to keep my head down, I am going to use this jobs report to urge our country’s leaders to fight these challenges head-on, including with federal and state legislation, that centers on the most vulnerable in the U.S. economy, especially my fellow women.
April’s report is the first to fully capture the economic impact of the widespread closures that began in earnest across our country in March. What did we learn from this report about the pandemic’s impact on the U.S. labor market, and on women in particular?
According to the report, 20.5 million people lost their jobs in April. More than half of those job losses were suffered by women, despite the fact that women make up less than half of U.S. workers. The unemployment rate rocketed from 4.4 percent in March to 14.7 percent in April, the highest rate since the Great Depression. Notably, the unemployment rates for white, black and Latina women is even higher, at 15 percent, 16.4 percent and 20.2 percent, respectively.
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This report is crushing for women in so many ways. Industries traditionally dominated by women lead the way in job losses and lost hours. Most striking are losses in the leisure and hospitality sectors, which combined lost 7.6 million jobs. Other sectors that employ disproportionate numbers of women also saw huge job losses. For example, education and health services lost 2.5 million jobs, and retail lost 2.1 million jobs.
What do these numbers tell us? Well, first and foremost, they’re not just numbers. These are women, some of whom are mothers and caregivers, who have lost their jobs, their health care, and their ability to support themselves and, oftentimes, their families.
And let’s not forget that this pandemic and unemployment crisis is happening in tandem with longstanding inequities in American society. Inequities fueled by sexism, racism and other institutional barriers. Inequities that have harmed women, and particularly women of color, for centuries.
These inequities include gender and racial wealth gaps too. We “celebrated” – I use these quotes to emphasize the extraordinary irony – Equal Pay Day in the U.S. on March 31 this year. What this day means is that the average woman in the U.S. has had to work three additional months into 2020 in order to earn as much as the average man in the U.S. earned in 2019.
Our leaders have a responsibility to ensure a more equitable and safe future for women in the workplace.
But that’s not even the full story of the vast chasm between men and women in the workforce in our country. Equal Pay Day for black women will be on Aug, 13. For Latina women on Oct. 29.
Oct. 29! It’s hard to even fathom the meaning of that date. But let’s try: The average Latina woman in the U.S. has to work for almost two years to earn what the average man in the U.S. earns in one year. Are you kidding me? This is 2020, for heaven’s sake!
These are all horrifying facts, and our leaders should be embarrassed at what they tell us. What they tell us, in real life terms, is that at the same time that women in the U.S. are losing their jobs at higher numbers than men, women have lower earnings and fewer savings to fall back on during the economic downturn caused by the coronavirus pandemic.
And what about women who are thankfully still employed? Sadly, they face higher risks than men simply by going to work. How can that be, you may ask? Because women, heroically, make up more than half of essential workers on the front lines fighting the pandemic.
As a result, these women who are leading our country’s unprecedented fight against an unseen threat have an increased risk of contracting COVID-19 and spreading it to others, including their families. Many of these working women, heroically again, shoulder additional caregiving and child care responsibilities at home. And yet they lack adequate access to child care, health care, paid leave and other structural supports.
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Some of these women, tragically, are also facing an increased risk of domestic violence because of stay-at-home and other pandemic-related orders. This is a critical topic that I promise to address on another day. But I commend Sens. Amy Klobuchar, D-Minn., Lisa Murkowski, R-Alaska, and Bob Casey, D-Pa., for leading a bipartisan group of 38 U.S. senators in requesting that any future legislation to address COVID-19 includes support for victims and survivors of domestic violence and sexual assault.
So many of the grave challenges facing women in the workforce and in their homes during the coronavirus are interrelated. And all of these challenges, highlighted in April’s jobs report, are crying out for leadership, both Republican and Democratic, in our federal, state and local governments.
A crisis of this magnitude demands comprehensive solutions from our leaders in Washington and beyond. Solutions that focus on the most vulnerable in our economy, especially women. Solutions including pay transparency, flexible work hours and other policies to support women workers.
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Our leaders have a responsibility to ensure a more equitable and safe future for women in the workplace. We must chart this path now, during the coronavirus. And it must be a path that leads to an American economy and society that are more resilient and just for everyone.
I pray that, when we celebrate Mother’s Day in 2021, our rejoicing over America’s response to this pandemic, including in support of women in our workforce, overcomes our agonizing about the many obstacles we still face.
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