By Diana Furchtgott-Roth
Texas Insider Report: WASHINGTON D.C. Women are a majority of Americans -- 51 of the population.
The majority of registered voters are women 53. And the majority of voters who elected the current president were women 56. Yet women have elected a government that all too often ignores or even worse militates against their interests.
This is particularly true when it comes to womens economic interests.
Thats the real War on Women -- the threats to womens economic advancement caused by a poor economy. And Sen. Patty Murray D-Wash. a member of the Senate Democratic leadership has voiced an additional threat to women. Last week speaking at the Brookings Institution she said that if Congress wont pass a bill that raises taxes for people making $250000 and more per year in 2013 Congress will let the current tax rates expire causing them to rise in 2013 for everyone rich and poor.
Allowing taxes to rise in January -- from 10 percent to 15 percent at the bottom from 35 percent to 44 percent at the top from 15 percent to 25 percent on long-term capital gains from 15 percent to 44 percent on dividends -- would slow economic growth even
further.
Gross domestic product grew at an annualized rate of 1.9 percent in the first quarter of 2012 and second-quarter figures will be published Friday. Retail sales figures have been negative for three months in a row.
Women already have it tough in todays economy. The American economy has 5 million fewer jobs than in December 2007 the start of the recession even though it officially ended in June 2009.
Womens unemployment rates have risen by a full percentage point since President Obama took office in January 2009 from 7 percent to 8 percent. The male unemployment rate is higher but it has declined from January 2009 to the present from 8.6 percent to 8.4 percent.
There were 40000 fewer women employed in June 2012 than there were in January 2009. In contrast employment for men has risen over the same period by 268000.
Fewer women are participating in the labor force -- their participation rate was 57.8 percent in June down from 59.4 percent in January 2009. The labor force participation rate for men is higher at 70.3 percent (down from 72.4 percent when the president
took office). Women cant progress if they are so discouraged they dont even look for a job.
My analysis of data for women in a new edition of my book
Womens Figures: An Illustrated Guide to the Economic Progress of Women in America shows that given the right economic conditions women can make significant progress without affirmative action.
But with no economic growth and no jobs women are stalled.
Higher tax rates discourage married women from working. When single working women are considering marriage higher rates may cause them to think twice. Sometimes higher tax rates result in women quitting the workforce altogether when taxes are added to the cost of child care work clothes and transportation.
President Obama who has boasted that he has reduced pay discrimination by signing the Lilly Ledbetter Fair Pay Act of 2009 supports raising marginal tax rates for upper-income earners.
In contrast Mitt Romney the presumptive Republican nominee wants to lower all tax rates by 20 percent so that the bottom rate would be 8 percent and the top rate would be 28 percent. This would help working women by reducing the tax penalty for
entering the workforce.
The real War on Women is not about contraceptives or abortion but about family paychecks.
Diana Furchtgott-Roth is a former Chief Economist at the U.S. Department of Labor is a Senior Fellow at the Hudson Institute and an Adjunct Fellow at the Manhattan Institute. Her newest book edition is Womens Figures: An Illustrated Guide to the Economic Progress of Women in America.
