Ask the Scholar
Document scope · 1 page
Scholar
Ask about this object, its catalog metadata, its source description, or the page inventory.
For page-specific OCR and visual context, open one of the page chats.
Scholar Source Context
Document identity
localId
66328354
label
July 1984 Outgoing (2)
core
doc
dtoType
document
citationUrl
pageCount
1
Source metadata
id
66328354
sourceUrl
contentType
document
title
July 1984 Outgoing (2)
citationUrl
collections
Records of the White House Office of the Deputy Chief of Staff (Reagan Administration)
Michael K. Deaver's Correspondence Files
imageCount
1
hasImages
yes
source
import
hasTranscription
no
Source extras
naId
66328354
coverageEndDate
logicalDate
1985-12-31
year
1985
coverageStartDate
logicalDate
1981-01-01
year
1981
levelOfDescription
fileUnit
recordType
description
ocrSource
nara-archive
Single page context
seq
1
pageIndex
0
type
document
mediaId
bf21b4fac96eaea4
ocrText
file
THE WHITE HOUSE
WASHINGTON
July 9, 1984
Dear Mr. Clinger:
You were so good to take the time to send along
The House Wednesday Group report regarding women's
issues. I look forward to reading it in detail.
Thanks again for keeping us posted on your efforts.
With warm regards,
Sincerely,
MICHAEL K. DEAVER
Assistant to the President
Deputy Chief of Staff
Mr. William F. Clinger
Chairman
The House Wednesday Group
386 HOB Annex #2
Washington, D. C. 20515
re c'd
WG
E
7/5/84
THE HOUSE WEDNESDAY GROUP
386 HOB Annex #2, Washington, D.C. 20515 (202) 226-3236
July 2, 1984
Fy2
Michael Deaver
Assistant to the President and
Deputy Chief of Staff
The White House
Washington, D.C. 20500
Dear Mike:
Last week 23 members of the House Wednesday Group introduced a report
and legislative agenda on women's issues. We have enclosed a copy of the report
which we hope you will find interesting and useful.
The report proposes a broad range of reforms for women in the areas of
civil rights, economic equity, family care, and health and retirement. We have
sent these recommendations to the President, to the Republican leadership in
the House, and to the platform committee, and we are hopeful that many of them
will be included in the Party platform.
Wednesday Group members who have endorsed the report represent a wide
spectrum, in political and geographical terms, of our membership.
We believe that the report has gained this broad support because of its
many practical and valuable recommendations, including:
Mandatory enforcement of civil rights laws for women. Currently
enforcement is discretionary, and these laws have not been sufficiently
effective in eradicating discriminatory practices.
Extending enforcement provisions of the Equal Credit Opportunity Act to
commercial lenders, to give women business owners better protection
against credit discrimination.
Establishment of a federal Dependent Care Development Program to sponsor
and promote new approaches to high quality cost-effective programs of
dependent care.
We believe that the reforms proposed in this report are good policy and
deserve the attention of the Administration and the Party.
We look forward to your reactions, and would be pleased to discuss these
issues with you at any time.
Sincerely,
Task Olympic Force Chair
Bill
Olympia Snowe
William F. Clinger
Chairman
Enclosures (3)
WGM
THE HOUSE WEDNESDAY GROUP
386 HOB Annex #2, Washington, D.C. 20515 (202) 226-3236
NEWS RELEASE
Contact: Steve Hofman
June 21, 1984
(202) 226-3236
CONGRESSIONAL REPORT PROPOSES REPUBLICAN AGENDA FOR WOMEN
"While macroeconomic improvements such as GNP growth and inflation reduction
are vital to the well-being of our nation as a whole, they are not sufficient
to alter the social and economic predicaments of women," asserts a Special Report
on Women in American Society released by a group of House Republicans known as
the Wednesday Group.
Prepared by Dr. Joyce Van Dyke, Project Director on Women's Issues for the
Wednesday Group, the report outlines a reform program for women which combines
"many new Congressional initiatives with a stress on enforcement of important
existing anti-discrimination laws, such as laws prohibiting wage discrimination
on the basis of sex." Members releasing the report include: Bill Clinger (PA),
Olympia Snowe (ME), Doug Bereuter (NE), Barber Conable (NY), Hamilton Fish (NY),
Bill Frenzel (MN), Bill Green (NY), Jim Leach (IA), Lynn Martin (IL), Joel Pritchard
(WA), Nancy Johnson (CT), Marge Roukema (NJ), Bill Whitehurst (VA), Bud Hillis
(IN), Jim Jeffords (VT), John McKernan (ME), Stew McKinney (CT), Tom Ridge (PA),
Joe McDade (PA), Sid Morrison (WA), Clay Shaw (FL), Silvio Conte (MA), and
Ralph Regula (OH).
The failure of civil rights enforcement efforts -- "often subject to both
political and bureaucratic whim" -- testifies "to a half-hearted federal commitment
to rectifying sex discrimination," the report contends. For example, 40% of
employment cases involve sex discrimination charges, and "a sizeable number of
[EEOC-filed] charges (8,585 in FY'82) were closed without investigation, placing
the burden of investigation back on the complainant's shoulders."
The report recommends that Congress require "EEOC and other appropriate
federal agencies to investigate in a timely fashion all sex-based wage discrimination
charges, and correct any cases in which a finding of discrimination has been
made." The report contends that this reform "is probably the single most important
step we can take to improve the economic situation of women." The report also
recommends that Congress pass legislation requiring mandatory enforcement of all
civil rights laws once there is an administrative finding of discrimination.
Under the current system, the Justice Department and EEOC are not required to
enforce agency decisions. This has resulted in meritorious cases gathering dust
in Department files.
- more -
- 2 -
The report also documents the inequities faced by women entrepreneurs,
noting that "key enforcement provisions of the Equal Credit Opportunity Act of
1974 were extended to consumer loans but not to commercial loans. The rapid
growth of women in business since the Act was passed [women today own 25% of
small businesses] makes the extension to commercial loans imperative."
The report also recommends that Congress should "demonstrate a strong
federal commitment to giving women [business owners] access to federal money that
filters down to state and local levels." It recommends that the federal prime
contractor and federal procurement officer "negotiate a subcontracting plan to
award a reasonable proportion of subcontracts to women business owners." Noting
that "winning federal subcontracts is, for many women business owners, the best
means" to enter the mainstream of American business, the report points out that
currently "there are no legal incentives
for prime contractors to contract with
women-owned firms."
The report also discusses family care issues, noting that it is "radically
unrealistic to regard child care as a working woman's problem and not as an
issue of general public interest." Yet "our country has no federal commitment to
planning, policymaking, development or promotion" of essential dependent care
services, despite the fact that "the majority of mothers (54%) are in the paid work
force," and "the population for which women have traditionally cared -- children
and the elderly -- is increasing." By 1990, "there will be over 23.3 million
children under age 6, up from 18.9 million in 1980. During the 1980s, the elderly
population will grow even faster, by 6.3 million people."
The report recommends that Congress "require HHS to develop an appropriate
program to promote the development of high quality, varied, and cost-effective
dependent care services." In addition, it recommends a Labor Department study of
existing disincentives to the use of flexible work schedules such as job-sharing
and flexitime, in order to expand their use in the private sector.
The report also notes that Social Security "covers more women than men,
yet the system fails to account for the different life patterns of women," rendering
retired women especially vulnerable to poverty. Women receive low Social Security
benefits for numerous reasons, including: divorce ("in 1982, the average benefit
for divorced women was $192 per month"); "the system's penalty against an interrupted
earning career"; and the penalty for two-earner couples, most of whom "actually
get a lower benefit than one-earner couples with the same income."
Recognizing this, the report recommends that Congress "develop appropriate
legislation" to implement Social Security earnings-sharing. Under earnings-sharing,
the earnings of husband and wife would be pooled and divided equally for purposes
of calculating benefits upon retirement or divorce.
The report asserts: "A deeper commitment from both major political parties
is required to change the biases against women which are built into our country's
institutions, programs, and policies. The challenge that "women's issues" poses
to our nation is not only a challenge to reform our laws; it is also a challenge
to enlarge our vision."
- 30 -
WGM
THE HOUSE WEDNESDAY GROUP
386 HOB Annex #2, Washington, D.C. 20515 (202) 226-3236
ABOUT THE WEDNESDAY GROUP
The Wednesday Group is a by invitation Republican organization begun in
1963 in the House of Representatives. Composed of 32 members of the House, its
purposes are to facilitate legislative information exchange, propose policy
programs, and provide forums for the confidential consideration of legislative
and public policy options.
Wednesday Group members, from a diverse geographical spectrum, meet on a
weekly basis for discussion and exchange of information and ideas. The Group
is supported by a small professional staff that conducts research, engages in
outreach activities, and helps generate policy proposals by preparing reports
on major issues.
A sampling of the issue areas in which the group has been particularly
involved in the past several years includes: Foreign Investment in the U.S.,
the Underground Economy, U.S. Immigration and Refugee Policy, U.S. Military
Manpower, Food Stamp Reform, Ballistic Missile Defense, the Clean Air Act, the
Voting Rights Act, Money Market Funds, the Gold Standard, U.S. Natural Gas
Policy, and Federal Lands Policy.
Throughout its history, the Group has also affected major legislative
initiatives in areas of specific concern to Congress and to Wednesday Group
members. Present efforts include: Recodification of the Rules of the House,
Federal Civil Rights Policy, Revitalization of the Defense Industrial Base,
Capital Budgeting and the U.S. Economic Infrastructure, Worker Retraining,
Women's Issues, and Federal Budget Policy.
WGM
THE HOUSE WEDNESDAY GROUP
386 HOB Annex #2, Washington, D.C. 20515 (202) 226-3236
WG SPECIAL REPORT
ON
WOMEN IN AMERICAN SOCIETY
TABLE OF CONTENTS
Overview
p.1
Summary of Recommendations
p. 4
Prepared by:
Civil Rights
p.6
Dr. Joyce Van Dyke
Economic Equity
p.ll
Project Director on
Family Care
p.20
Women's Issues
Health and Retirement
p.26
June 21, 1984
Conclusion
p.31
After years of activity on women's issues by political and legislative
groups, American women continue to face substantial barriers to equality.
During the past two decades, the Equal Rights Amendment has been the focus
of many reform efforts, and it remains an important part of any reform program
for women. But the ERA does not obviate the need for other reforms that complement
or even go beyond its intent.
In order to fill this need and reinvigorate the long-standing link between
women's issues and the Republican Party, many Republicans believe that Congress
and the Administration need to focus on a variety of issues which directly
benefit women, as well as American society at large. These include: civil rights
enforcement; equity in employment issues; family and dependent care; and women's
health and retirement.
In 1980, the Republican platform endorsed "enforcement of all equal
opportunity laws." It declared that women's work must be "reevaluated to
improve the conditions of women workers concentrated in low-status, low-paying
jobs" and urged attention to one of the "most critical problems in our nation
today
inadequate child care for the working mother." It also pledged to
address any remaining inequities in the treatment of women under the Social
Security system.
The cost of disregarding the economic problems of women is high. First
and foremost, it is a cost borne by women themselves. But there are other
costs: that of disregarding the majority of new American workers and their
dependents; and the steady drain on the federal budget by the many social
programs which provide essential assistance to women, but do little to address
the issue of why women are poor in the first place.
In short, America's political leaders need a comprehensive vision of women
in American society. Our legislative and economic institutions must recognize
and support rather than ignore or penalize the very different patterns which
characterize women's lives. Otherwise, women will continue to experience
unequal political, economic, and social opportunity in the coming years, and
we will continue to squander the resources of more than half of our people.
Overview
For most of American history, women have been denied equal opportunity and
The stigmatized as the social, intellectual, economic, and legal inferiors of men.
into of educational within situation. poverty. American changes the bottom and Official Women of society vocational the half today last are and of remain still two unofficial wage fields, decades structures, firmly concentrated and barriers have in increasingly place. only within within to begun the the a within full to small less rectify integration the financially number official this of of centuries-old occupations, rewarding limits
women
- 2 -
Women as a group are entitled to less protection from discrimination
within federally assisted programs than are other groups (minorities, the
aged, the handicapped), and enforcement of their rights is often subject
to both political and bureaucratic whim.
Women are "systematically underpaid" in all industries, occupations, and
educational levels, according to a 1981 National Academy of Sciences study.
NO national policy exists with regard to child and dependent care, despite
conditions which point to a potential crisis: a serious shortage in existing
services; an underground child care market to which parents often do not
have ready access; an anticipated second "baby boom" during the 1980s; and a
continuing rise in women's employment.
Older women are more likely to live in poverty than older men. In 1981, the
median income for men.age 65 and older was $8,173; for women, $4,757. Of the
approximately 7.5 million elderly people living alone, 6 million are women.
If women are to be integrated into our national institutions and have as
individuals the freedom and equality of opportunity honored by this country,
urgent, energetic, and immediate action must be taken. Reforms are necessary in
the following areas:
Mandatory enforcement of existing civil rights statutes, and standardization
of coverage for women.
Equity in pay and employment training; expanded federal contract opportu-
nities and credit protection for women business owners.
Commitment of federal resources to the development of dependent care, and
a restoration of funds for low-income dependent care services.
An equitable Social Security earnings-sharing system, and investigation
into the adequacy of health care systems and services to treat women.
Reforms in the areas of civil rights, economic equity, family care, and
health and retirement would correct many current inequities and provide a
groundwork for preventing future inequities. The recommendations developed in
this report combine many new Congressional initiatives with a stress on enforcement
of important existing anti-discrimination laws, such as laws prohibiting wage
discrimination on the basis of sex. As David Gergen, former White House senior
adviser, recently noted: "It is disgraceful that women today continue to face
SO much discrimination in the workplace
We
need
a
frontal
attack
on
the
barriers to equal pay for women that are rooted in discrimination. Indeed,
there ought to be no higher task for the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission
or the Department of Labor."
In the interest of providing a Republican agenda for future Congressional
action, this report complements rather than repeats current legislative efforts
on issues such as child support enforcement, insurance equity, private pension
reform, and family planning reauthorization. Such issues have been strongly
supported by many Republicans in Congress, including the Republican Congresswomen
- 3 -
who, through their ongoing meetings with the Reagan Administration, have done
much to bring several of these issues to center stage in the national political
debate. These issues need the continued attention of the American people, and
the continued strong support of Republicans in and out of government.
But neither the current Congressional agenda nor the one proposed in this
report can be expected to be a solution to all "women's issues." In fact, the
range and complexity of these issues means they cannot truly be isolated from
other questions of national, social and economic importance. A deeper commitment
from both major political parties is required to change the biases against
women which are built into our country's institutions, programs, and policies.
The challenge that "women's issues" poses to our nation is not only a challenge
to reform our laws; it is also a challenge to enlarge our vision.
*
*
*
- 4 -
Summary of Recommendations
CIVIL RIGHTS
Congress should give women broader civil rights protection in federal
programs by amending Title VI of the Civil Rights Act of 1964 to include a
ban on sex discrimination in all federally assisted and federally operated
programs and activities.
Congress should require all federal agencies to publish regulations on the
enforcement of civil rights statutes.
Congress should amend Title VII to cover Congressional employees.
Congress should pass legislation requiring mandatory enforcement of Title
VII of the 1964 Civil Rights Act, the Equal Pay Act, Title IX, the Age
Discrimination in Employment Act, and all other civil rights laws by all
enforcement agencies and the Department of Justice.
Congress should require civil rights enforcement agencies to conduct periodic
compliance reviews of those organizations previously found to have discriminated.
ECONOMIC EQUITY
Congress should require EEOC and other appropriate federal agencies to
investigate in a timely fashion all sex-based wage discrimination charges,
and correct any cases in which a finding of discrimination has been made.
Congress should direct the Labor Department to establish a Job Evaluation
Program to research the development of bias-free job evaluation techniques.
Congress should ensure that the Job Training Partnership Act (JTPA) meets
its legislative goals and provides equal opportunity for women.
Congress should remodel and upgrade the Work Incentive Program (WIN) to
provide non-traditional occupational training for unemployed women on welfare.
Congress should act to encourage federal contractors to increase subcontract
awards to women business owners.
Congress should require the Federal Reserve Board to extend all enforcement
provisions of the Equal Credit Opportunity Act of 1974 to commercial lenders.
FAMILY CARE
Congress should require the Department of Health and Human Services to establish
a Dependent Care Development Program to sponsor and promote new approaches to
high quality cost-effective programs of dependent care.
- 5 -
Congress should restore part of the reduction in the Social Services Block
Grant by raising it from $2.7 billion to $2.9 billion for FY'85, and should
restore a minimum for dependent care expenditures under the block grant.
Congress should require the Department of Labor to do a study of disincentives
to the expansion of alternative work schedules such as flexitime, compressed
workweeks, job-sharing, flexible leave policies, and part-time jobs with
pro-rated benefits (including part-time work at middle and upper levels).
As a model employer, the federal government should authorize the use of
flexible schedules in federal agencies to meet the goal of reducing parents'
reliance on non-familial child care.
HEALTH AND RETIREMENT
Congress should pass legislation prohibiting sex discrimination in all
federally assisted and federally operated health care services and programs.
Congress should require the Secretary of Health and Human Services to report
by a specified date on: (a) what constitutes civil rights compliance by
health care providers; and (b) whether existing services and programs meet
these standards for providing equally effective health care for women and men.
Congress should schedule additional hearings on reforming Social Security
to provide more equitable benefits for women and for two-earner families.
*
*
*
- 6 -
Civil Rights
The suffrage movement, has intensified during the last twenty other areas. years,
struggle for women's civil rights, which began over a century ago with
with of civil rights for women has not been systematic or to complete;
the female women's civil rights gains in employment, education, and
But the expansion these changes have usually been afterthoughts, late additions protections
rather, existing for other groups. Moreover, civil rights enforcement problems
already have limited the law's actual ability to rein in discriminatory practices. Gaps
in coverage, weakness in enforcement, and the slow pace of institutional change
have meant that the struggle for women's civil rights is ongoing.
HISTORY
In the 20th century, as in the 19th, part of the momentum for women's civil
rights came from the black civil rights movement. But feminists were slow to
demand national legislation to counteract sex discrimination. In fact, the
addition of a sex discrimination ban to Title VII of the Civil Rights Act of
1964 -- which initially banned only race discrimination in employment -- was not
prompted by feminists, but was due to Senator Howard Smith's (D-VA) attempt to
defeat or weaken the legislation.
As a consequence of this curious accident (in the words of social historian
Sheila Rothman), the sex discrimination ban in Title VII "was not taken seriously
by the Congress that passed it, the President who signed it, the administrators who
were to enforce it, or the employers who were to obey it." As a result, although
Title VII affected employment policies toward minority males, it was significantly
less potent for women. From the early 1960s to the mid-'70s, the income of
minority males relative to white males rose from 64% to 75%. But the income of
white women relative to white men actually dropped from 60% to about 58%, an
income level almost matched by minority women.
These efforts to ban wage discrimination and to promote equal pay for men
and women performing the same jobs were by no means new. Women workers had
organized against wage discrimination as early as the 1800s, and during World
Wars I and II, war labor boards established equal pay as a national policy.
The Women's Bureau began lobbying for federal equal pay legislation in 1945,
and twenty-two states enacted equal pay laws in the 1940s and 1950s.
Yet wage discrimination continued to be pervasive. In fact, a 1962 Wall
Street Journal survey of employment prospects for college graduates noted:
"Starting salaries for women will edge upward this year but will still lag by
$50 to $100 a month behind offers to men for equivalent positions."
Congress responded to this situation by passing the Equal Pay Act of 1963,
the first comprehensive national prohibition against wage discrimination. The
Act mandated equal pay for men and women performing the same jobs, but signifi-
bill's cantly original did not include version. any of the "comparable worth" language contained in the
Employment
including attention rights movement to other of discrimination civil the 1960s rights and was '70s, a critical but this concern movement of also the widening women's
the National Organization reforms. for Women Newly (NOW, founded 1966), women's the directed Women's organizations, Equity national
- 7 -
Action League (WEAL, 1968), and the National Women's Political Caucus (1971),
were committed to passing an Equal Rights Amendment (ERA), a constitutional
amendment for women parallel to the comprehensive civil rights protection
granted to blacks by the 14th Amendment.
Initially introduced in 1923, ERA was first brought to the House floor in
1970 under a discharge petition because Rep. Emanuel Celler (D-NY), Chairman of
the House Judiciary Committee, refused for over 20 years to report the legislation
or even hold hearings on it. But by 1972, ERA passed both houses, and 33 states
ratified it within the next two years. Yet in succeeding years, ERA supporters
were unable to secure its passage in a sufficient number of the remaining states,
and in 1982 the Amendment expired three states short of the number needed for
ratification. Most recently, in November 1983, the ERA failed by six votes to
reach the two-thirds majority required for passage in the House of Representatives.
Despite the failure to enact the ERA, the belief that it would eventual y
pass stimulated numerous specific reforms during the 1970s. Sex discrimination
bans were applied to federally funded employment training (CETA, 1973), housing
and credit transactions (Housing and Community Development Act, Equal Credit
Opportunity Act of 1974), Small Business Administration assistance (Small
Business Act of 1974), and education programs (Title IX of the Education Amend-
ments of 1972).
Title IX, banning sex discrimination in "any education program or activity
receiving Federal financial assistance," had a rapid and widespread success.
Girls' participation in interscholastic athletic programs shot up by over 500%;
and because Title IX opened the doors to professional schools for women, their
enrollments grew between 1972 and 1981 from 11% to 26% in medical schools, from
2% to 17% in dental schools, and from 10% to 34% in law schools.
While Congress passed Title IX as a direct attack on sex discrimination in
education, other civil rights protections for women developed less systematically.
Moreover, where civil rights laws included coverage for women, implementation
and enforcement were almost non-existent. A 1973 report by the U.S. Commission
on Civil Rights described federal enforcement efforts as "so inadequate as to
render the laws practically meaningless." The problem was acute at the Equal
Employment Opportunity Commission (EEOC): by 1975, there was a backlog of over
100,000 cases and by 1978 it had risen to more than 130,000. About 30,000
cases were lost through misfiling or neglect, and at least 10,000 were "resolved"
because, according to investigators, "people gave up, moved, or were not available."
By 1978, confusion, lack of coordination, overlap and inefficiencies among
the over 25 federal agencies responsible for civil rights enforcement led to
Reorganization Plan No. 1, intended to consolidate and coordinate federal enforce-
ment activities. Yet the reorganization did not address the tangle of inconsistencies
in time frames, sanctions, and coverage, which by 1982 characterized over 40
federal civil rights provisions. Moreover, discretionary enforcement of some
statutes (e.g., Title VII), the failure of agencies to issue civil rights
regulations for existing laws, and what the U.S. Civil Rights Commission described
as "sheer inertia," further weakened even those civil protections to which women
were legally entitled.
- 8 -
CURRENT SITUATION
Women still have less civil rights protection under federal statutes than
racial and ethnic minorities, the aged, and the handicapped. The latter three
groups are protected (respectively) under Title VI of the Civil Rights Act, the
Age Discrimination Act of 1975, and Section 504 of the Rehabilitation Act of
1973 from discrimination in all federally assisted programs and activities. But
the only corresponding statute for women -- Title IX -- is much narrower, banning
sex discrimination only in federally assisted education programs. Moreover,
the recent Supreme Court decision in Grove City College V. Bell severely curtails
Title IX's coverage, narrowing its applicability from an entire school to the
specific school office which receives federal funds.
Consequently, women remain unprotected, for example, against discrimination
in numerous health and social service programs. Sex discrimination in some (but
not all) health and social service programs was first outlawed by the Omnibus
Reconciliation Act of 1981 (OBRA), but the law contained no enforcement provisions,
and the Office of Civil Rights in the Department of Health and Human Services
has not issued regulations to implement the civil rights guarantees established
by OBRA. In fact, even in the case of Title IX, which is more than a decade
old, only four of the more than 20 federal agencies with Title IX responsibilities
have issued regulations for implementing the law.
Women also have less civil rights coverage than other groups in federally
operated (as distinct from federally assisted) programs. Federal programs
which do not have prohibitions on sex discrimination include the Veterans
Administration (at $25.8 billion in FY'84, the fifth largest item in the domestic
budget) and the Public Health Service. Handicapped persons are protected
against discrimination in all federally operated programs by the Rehabilitation
Act; minorities are protected under the Constitution (as shown by the Supreme
Court's 1954 decision in Bolling V. Sharp).
Uncoordinated and inconsistent laws and enforcement practices also continue
to sap the spirit of civil rights statutes. Time frames for enforcement are
unstated or inconsistent: for example, EEOC requires charging parties to file
suit within 90 days after receiving a "right-to-sue" notice from the agency.
But a 1981 GAO survey showed that EEOC itself averaged more than seven months
to file suit after settlement efforts failed. Various civil rights provisions
also offer inconsistent coverage; an employer with 17 employees is covered by
Title VII, but not by the Age Discrimination Act.
Civil rights enforcement for women remains a significant problem under
EEOC. The Commission handles a high volume of charges: 54,145 were filed in
FY'82 (the latest available information). According to Commission Chairman
Clarence Thomas, about 40% of EEOC cases involve sex discrimination charges.
While EEOC has largely eliminated its once monumental backlog, most charges
are currently handled under a "rapid charge processing" system which emphasizes
quick "no-fault" settlements achieved through face-to-face meetings among the
employee, the employer, and EEOC staff. In 1981, when about 50% of all charges
were being resolved through this process, a GAO report criticized the agency
for inflating the number of apparent settlements. It noted that many of the
- 9 -
complainants of the case. Moreover, a sizeable number of charges investigation (8,585 in
(48%) who received settlements reported dissatisfaction with
EEOC's FY'82) were handling closed without investigation, placing the burden of
back on the complainant's shoulders.
Sex-based discrimination charges classed as "pay equity" or "comparable EEOC
worth" charges wage are being "warehoused," according to one Commissioner. charges
Chairman Thomas has declared that the Commission can't act on such
it doesn't have a policy. Yet EEOC issued a Ninety-Day Notice on
because September 15, 1981, based on the Supreme Court decision in County of Washington
V. Gunther, advising agency officials that they "should accept and investigate
these charges under Title VII." That notice remains in effect.
RECOMMENDATIONS
In the area of civil rights, action is necessary as a result of the February
1984 Supreme Court decision in Grove City College V. Bell to narrow Title IX's in
November 1983 in H. Res. 190. Legislation to clarify Congressional intent that
applicability, a decision which ignored the intent of Congress manifested
the sex discrimination statute apply throughout an educational institution
which receives either direct or indirect federal financial assistance should be
passed without delay.
But while this vitally needed legislation would restore Title IX's potency
for women and girls, problems with civil rights coverage for women remain, and
additional Congressional action is needed. Reforms to empower civil rights
laws by making enforcement mandatory have yet to be made, for example.
1. Standardized Civil Rights Coverage
Congress should give women broader civil rights protection in federal
programs by amending Title VI of the Civil Rights Act of 1964 to include
a ban on sex discrimination in all federally assisted and federally
operated programs and activities.
Amending Title VI would put sex discrimination on the same plane as discrim-
ination on the basis of race, age, or handicap in federally assisted programs.
There is no rational justification for excluding women from such coverage, or
for providing women with piecemeal and patchwork surrogate protections. Federally
assisted programs and activities should have consistent, clear, and unambiguous
guarantees of civil rights for women, as well as for other groups of citizens.
Congress should require all federal agencies to publish regulations on the
enforcement of civil rights statutes.
Civil rights protection for women under existing statutes is weakened by
the failure of many federal agencies to issue regulations for long-established
laws. The absence of regulations makes implementation and enforcement virtually
impossible. Agencies which have neglected to issue regulations are delinquent
(as the Supreme Court ruled in Cherry V. Matthews (1974) with respect to the
Rehabilitation Act), and have derailed the intent of Congress when it passed
such legislation. All delinquent agencies should be required to issue implementing
regulations by a specified date.
- 10 -
Congress should amend Title VII to cover Congressional employees.
Even as Congress considers the issue of sex-based wage discrimination in
federal agencies and in society at large, its own employees remain unprotected
by Title VII. The wage gap between male and female Congressional staff members
is SO great that 80% of those making $20,000 or less are women, and 78% of
those making $40,000 or more are men. While Members of Congress should be able
to make employment decisions about personal staff on the basis of geographic
and political affiliation, in all other respects Congressional employees should
be protected from discrimination in hiring, wages, promotion, and all other
terms of employment covered by Title VII.
2. Mandatory Enforcement of Civil Rights Laws
Congress should pass legislation requiring mandatory enforcement of Title
VII of the 1964 Civil Rig Act, the Equal Pay Act, the Age Discrimination
in Employment Act, and all other civil rights laws by all enforcement
agencies and the Department of Justice.
There is no deterrent value to laws that are not enforced, and enforcement
of one of the most important civil rights statutes for women -- Title VII -- is
discretionary. In other words, even after an administrative finding of discrim-
ination, the federal government is not required to enforce its finding. For the
thousands of women who each year bring Title VII complaints to the federal govern-
ment, this is a continuing testimony to a half-hearted federal commitment to
rectifying sex discrimination.
Legislation establishing uniform and mandatory enforcement procedures in all
agencies should require either an administrative or judicial determination of every
charge. EEOC should retain jurisdiction over all employment-related statutes, and
the Justice Department should litigate non-employment related statutes, based upon
administrative findings by those agencies charged with investigative responsibility.
Congress should require civil rights enforcement agencies to conduct
periodic compliance reviews of those organizations previously found to
have discriminated.
Data to conduct off-site compliance reviews are already regularly collected
by EEOC. Without mandatory compliance reviews, the federal government's role
in enforcing civil rights is passive, despite the fact that it has the statutory
responsibility to monitor civil rights enforcement. Moreover, when citizens
alone bear the burden of policing civil rights practices, only those with the
resources and education to pursue complaint actions are likely to receive
protection under the law.
*
*
*
- 11 -
Economic Equity
Women's entry into paid employment during the past fifty years has partly
bridged the gulf between male and female work roles, but the gulf between male
and female income remains as wide as ever. While civil rights laws of the past
two decades increased women's educational and employment opportunities and
stimulated considerable progress for women in certain areas, such as professional
and managerial occupations, these changes have not systematically altered women's
traditional occupational segregation and lower pay. Yet today many women hold
jobs which wholly or partially support themselves and their families. For
these women and others, ending employment and wage discrimination, and increasing
opportunities in non-traditional fields of work continue to be pressing concerns.
HISTORY
The economic role of women in the 19th and first half of the 20th centuries
was clearly distinct from that of men. Women who entered paid employment often
followed their traditional "women's work" out of the home, and into textile
factories, domestic service, or teaching. Most jobs were known as "men's jobs"
or "women's jobs," though a job's sex correlation might shift depending on the
circumstances: factory jobs regarded as men's work in some factories were
regarded as women's work in others. Most women's employment was assumed to be
temporary or part-time, and it was agreed that women should be paid substantially
less than men.
With the advent in the 1880s of the typewriter and its revolution of clerical
work, many jobs opened up which were attractive to middle class women. The pay
and working conditions were better than in factory work; but accompanying the
specialization and mechanization of office work was a reduction in promotional
opportunities. For men, who had been more than 95% of stenographers in 1870, the
job had been a stepping-stone to managerial positions; for women, who had become
three-quarters of the vastly expanded field of typists and stenographers by 1900,
the position was a dead-end.
Women also entered the fields of nursing and teaching in large numbers
during the late 19th and early 20th centuries, as the school systems and medical
care systems expanded. In 1870, women made up 60% of all teachers; by 1910
they were 80%. Women teachers generally worked for much lower salaries than
men, which made them especially attractive to school boards: in 1893 the Massa-
chusetts school board paid $35 per week to men and $14 per week to women who
performed the same teaching assignments. Moreover, although women teachers
averaged almost ten years on the job, they were not promoted to administrative
positions, and in many states were not even allowed to hold them.
When the Women's Bureau was established in 1920 within the Department of
Labor to improve working conditions for women and to "advance their opportunities
for profitable employment," Census figures showed 21.2% of all women held jobs.
But women's economic role in the 1920s and 1930s was still pre-eminently that
of homemaker and mother. This role was encouraged by numerous protective laws
passed between 1900 and 1920, which limited women's working day to eight or
nine hours in most states, and banned night work and work immediately before
and after childbirth. In many states, protective laws outlawed jobs for women if
- 12 -
they were thought to endanger women's health, morals, welfare, or capacity for
motherhood.
Opponents of protective legislation for women workers, including the
National Women's Party which supported an equal rights amendment, argued however
that protective laws denied women freedom of choice, and did not necessarily
protect women from physically arduous "women's work" -- in laundries, for example.
Instead, they had the effect of keeping women out of many better-paying men's jobs.
This situation did not change appreciably until the Second World War. The
Depression sent many women into unemployment. But men, as the primary wage
earners, had priority for jobs under many government-run public works programs.
With the outbreak of World War II, however, women were exhorted to fill nontrad-
itional jobs left temporarily vacant by men who had joined the armed forces.
Even though women were encouraged to leave their jobs at the war's end,
women's employment continued to grow steadily during the post-war decades, from
27% of the work force in 1947, to 34% in 1950, and up to 37% in 1956. Among
black women, work force participation rates were considerably higher. The
post-war development of service industries, and a decline in the "family wage"
resulting from 1960s inflation, continued to draw many women into the job market.
The rising divorce rate -- which grew by 51% during the 1970s -- also caused
more women to seek jobs. In fact, the growth in women's employment was remarkable:
it increased by 173% between 1947 and 1980, rising from 16.7 million to 45.6
million women (men's employment grew by 43% during the same period). By 1980,
53% of all women were employed, and women made up 43% of the total work force.
While female participation in the work force increased dramatically during
this period, most of these new workers entered "women's" jobs. Job listings in
the 1950s, '60s, and '70s often asked for "men only" or "women only." Before
passage of the Equal Pay Act, jobs open to both sexes could specify different
hiring rates. For example, in 1961 in one state employment office, a bookkeeping
job offering $75 per week to a man was listed at $60 to $70 per week for women.
In another city, a newly hired male assembler in electrical manufacturing would
start at $1.55 an hour, but a woman in the same job would start at $1.40. In
fact, a 1961 survey of more than 1,900 employers found that 33% reported they
had a double standard pay scale for male and female office workers.
Most women workers entered traditional fields: teaching, nursing, sales,
and clerical work. But some, spurred by the women's movement which emphasized
"careers" rather than just "jobs," sought employment in traditionally male
fields such as accounting, engineering, police work, law, and medicine. In
addition, affirmative action provisions established by Executive Order 11246
(September 24, 1965), required federal contractors to take positive steps to
insure that women were employed and advanced in employment. In businesses
subject to these requirements, women's employment rose by 15.2% between 1974
and 1980 (compared to 2.2% at other companies), according to an unpublished
study by the Labor Department's Office of Federal Contract Compliance Programs.
While women made significant specific economic and educational gains
during the 1960s and 1970s, the larger picture shows the continuity of occupa-
tional sex-stereotyping and wage discrimination. Women made up 43% of the work
force in 1980, but 80% of them were in "women's" jobs. Less than 10% of women
- 13 - -
working fulltime made over $20,000 per year, and only 3% made over $25,000. In
1979, Census figures showed that fulltime year-round working males averaged
$24,473 with four years of college and $17,100 with four years of high school.
Fulltime year-round working women with four years of college averaged $13,303.
Even in fields they dominated, women continued to hold the lower-paid
and lower-prestige jobs. In 1980, for example, women filled 66% of teaching
jobs. But at the elementary school level, they earned only 82% of what male
teachers made. Among elementary and secondary school administrators -- whose
earnings are considerably higher than teachers' -- women earned 70% of what men
earned. Women also held relatively few of these higher paying jobs (25%), and
within this group they remained concentrated in the lowest ranks: more women
were elementary school principals, for example, than secondary school principals.
Predictably, at the school superintendent level women were almost invisible: in
1980, 154 out of 16,060 superintendents were women, or less than 1%.
CURRENT SITUATION
In February 1984, there were 49,139,000 women in the civilian labor force,
more than twice as many as in 1960. But twenty years after Title VII, women
are still occupationally segregated. In 1982, half of all women workers were
crowded into 20 out of the 440 occupations recognized by the Bureau of Labor
Statistics. The developing high-tech industries are reproducing the pattern of
sex-segregated employment: in 1980, men had 88% of managerial and professional
positions, and women were 75% of operatives and clerical workers.
Women still earn on average less than two-thirds of what men earn: median
income for fulltime workers in 1982 was $21,655 for men, and $13,660 for women.
The wage gap persists even among highly trained professionals: a recent Columbia
Business School study of men and women MBAs showed that they started out at the
same salary level, but after ten years women earned an average annual salary of
$40,022, compared with $49,356 for men. According to another study, average
salaries of Harvard School of Public Health graduates were $37,800 for men and
$21,300 for women. In fact, a new study of labor force entrants based on 1970
and 1980 censuses shows that while both white and black women increased their
educational attainment relative to white men's, relative wages at entry level
declined for white women, and rose only slightly for black women.
Women do better in some sectors of the economy than in others: state and
local government jobs provide the highest relative wages for women (68%-71% of
men's), while the private sector provides the lowest (56%). But in all occupat
women are concentrated at the low-paying end of the spectrum. A 1981 Labor
Department survey comparing median weekly wages for men and women in 91 occupa
showed that in every case women's wages were lower. Computer programmers' we
wages were $447 for men, $329 for women; male insurance adjusters earned $356
and females $230; male nursing aides earned $203 and females $167.
The popular assumption that women's work is worth less than men's has
women of the boys and 89% of the girls completely agreed with the statement, "Men
not been uprooted. In a 1980 national survey of high school seniors, only 6
social principle has been embodied in federal law for 20 years. Experimental
this should be paid the same money if they do the same work" -- even thoug
psychology provides very strong evidence that (according to one repo
- 14 -
"the mere fact of identifying a [job] performance as done by a woman results in
a lower evaluation and a lower likelihood of reward -- hiring, promotion, etc. --
than when the identical performance is attributed to a man."
In 1981 the National Academy of Sciences published a study on Women, Work
and Wages which had been commissioned by the EEOC. It reported that, at most,
44% of the wage differential between men and women could be explained by reference
to seniority, education, job tenure, or other conventionally accepted factors.
Although men's longer job tenure, for example, is frequently cited as a major
cause of the wage gap, data on occupational tenure collected in 1981 for the
first time by the Current Population Survey of the Census Bureau shows that it
accounts for only 4% of the difference. The NAS study concluded: "The [study]
Committee is convinced by the evidence, taken together, that women are systema-
tically underpaid."
The movement for "comparable worth" or "pay equity" -- to raise wages in
female-dominated occupations -- has expanded as states, unions, and private
litigants have grown increasingly active on this issue. Eighteen states, including
Michigan, Illinois, and Maine, have completed or are in the process of conducting
pay equity studies. Minnesota spent $21.8 million in the first year of implement-
ing a 1982 law mandating pay equity for state employees. At the federal level,
Congressional hearings in 1982 prompted an ongoing GAO study to determine whether
the federal government's job evaluation systems have incorporated sexually
discriminatory wage rates.
In 1981, the Supreme Court opened the door to complaints of sex-based wage
discrimination broader than those allowed under the Equal Pay Act. It ruled in
County of Washington V. Gunther that wage discrimination under Title VII, unlike
the Equal Pay Act, is not limited to those cases in which men and women perform
the same jobs. Most recently, in AFSCME V. State of Washington a federal judge
ruled that under Title VII the state of Washington is required to raise the
salaries of 15,000 underpaid workers in predominantly female jobs, and to
provide them back pay since 1979. A Washington state job evaluation study
revealed a pattern of underpayment in female-dominated jobs: in 1982, the
average monthly salary decreased by $4.51 for each 1% of women in the state's
job classification.
Constricted opportunities in the job market, as well as women's desire for
greater control over their own work schedules, may be stimulating more women to
become entrepreneurs. According to the latest available figures from the
Bureau of Labor Statistics, between 1972 and 1979 the number of self-employed
women nearly doubled. During those years, women went into self-employment at a
rate five times faster than that of men, and they are now estimated to own 25%
of the 13 million small businesses in the country, up from about 5% in 1972.
Despite these positive trends, women-owned businesses have disproportionately
lower gross receipts than male-owned businesses, in part because most are in the
lower-paying sectors such as services. Women entrepreneurs are also much more
likely to have credit problems, according to an American Management Associations
survey (1978) which reported that many women "found obstacles disappearing when
they approached the banking environment with support or assistance from spouses,
family members, or male friends, and found that borrowing had suddenly become
possible."
- 15 -
Historically, it has been federal policy to assist small business owners
and minority business owners through special procurement programs, loan programs,
and subcontracting programs. Currently, such programs exist for several categories
of small business owners, including minorities, the handicapped, and Vietnam
veterans. For example, the SBA 8 (a) program, designed for "socially or econ-
omically disadvantaged business owners," includes a set-aside for a portion of
federal contracts. But women as a group are not included in the 8 (a) definition
of disadvantaged business owners.
Women business owners have not been the object of any loan or procurement
programs. This is so despite 1977 SBA testimony that "It has conclusively been
shown that women business owners encountered more obstacles and face more
risks, financially, socially, economically, culturally, and legally than men
business owners face."
In 1978, the Interagency Committee on Women's Business Enterprise was
established to facilitate and strengthen women's business opportunities; and
in 1979 the Office of Women's Business Ownership was set up within the Small
Business Administration with the primary purpose of providing information and
training assistance to women. But no capital, loan or procurement programs
were involved.
According to the U.S. Commission on Civil Rights, women-owned and minority
businesses have encountered "problems of staggering proportions" in obtaining
government contracts (1975). Overall, women are awarded a tiny fraction of
federal contracts: in FY'82 (the latest period for which figures are available)
they received 0.4% of the total value of federal prime contracts awarded, and 2.7%
of the value of prime contracts awarded to small businesses. No records are kept
on federal subcontracts awarded to women (though they are kept for minority and
small business owners), so the picture is necessarily incomplete; there are no
legal incentives, however, for prime contractors to contract with women-owned firms.
Another employment issue which concerns women is the current movement to
reform federal training and retraining programs. These changes could diminish
women's participation, despite the fact that employment training is more cost-
effective for women than for men, according to recent studies. Specifically,
the Job Training Partnership Act (JTPA) which replaced CETA on October 1, 1983,
is based on that portion of CETA which served considerably more men than women
during its brief trial period. In fact, according to Department of Labor
reports for FY'81, this program served 55% men and 45% women. Yet because of
JTPA's minimal reporting requirements, there is no way to ascertain whether
women are being equitably served under the nation's major job training program.
Employment training opportunities for AFDC parents (93% women) under the
Work Incentive Program (WIN) also continue to be inadequate; in fact the program
was cut from $383 million in FY'81 to $271 million in FY'83. The program has
never treated women equitably: although about three-quarters of WIN registrants
are women, the program has always placed a higher proportion of male than female
registrants in jobs (in fact, until relatively recently, fathers had legislative
priority under WIN). WIN provides no incentives to train women for higher-paying
or non-traditional occupations, and consequently most women are placed in lower-
paying clerical, service, and sales jobs.
- 16 -
RECOMMENDATIONS
In the area of economic equity for women, numerous important initiatives
are currently before Congress. A bipartisan coalition of House and Senate Members
has sponsored the Economic Equity Act, which is a comprehensive package of separate
proposals in areas such as taxes, pensions, insurance, and dependent care. With
regard to wage discrimination, Senate and House Republicans have introduced
legislation which would establish a commission to do a pilot study of possible
wage discrimination in a federal agency and to make recommendations to Congress.
Because equal opportunity in the marketplace is essential for women, and
linked to the prosperity of women's families as well as their own retirement
security, this is a critical area for intensified Congressional activity and
further initiatives.
1. Wage Discrimination
Congress should require EEOC and other appropriate federal agencies to
investigate in a timely fashion all sex-based wage discrimination charges,
and correct any cases in which a finding of discrimination has been made.
This action is necessary in order to ensure that charges are seriously and
promptly investigated, rather than (as in thousands of cases currently) delayed,
or returned to the complainant with a "right to sue" notice -- a mere technicality
to which every complainant is legally entitled, and which involves no finding by
the enforcement agency.
Sex-based wage discrimination is prohibited under both the Equal Pay Act
and Title VII. But Title VII's scope is much more comprehensive. Enforcing Title
VII to eradicate the pervasive wage discrimination in our society is probably
the single most important step we can take to improve the economic situation of
women. Congress should require EEOC and other agencies to act immediately to
investigate all sex-based wage discrimination charges filed under Title VII.
It should be pointed out that "comparable worth," "pay equity," and similar
expressions are popular terms, not legal ones. Too often their use has disguised
the fact that what is at issue is sex-based wage discrimination, outlawed under
Title VII. The Supreme Court's 1981 Gunther decision stated explicitly that the
Court did not endorse "comparable worth," but it also stated that wage discrimination
claims could be brought under Title VII even in cases where men and women were
not performing identical jobs. Individual employers are clearly obligated under
Title VII to avoid discriminatory wages, but Title VII does not in any way call
for federal wage-setting.
The arguments made against action on this issue are: 1) different jobs,
like apples and oranges, cannot be compared; 2) attacking institutionalized sex-
based wage discrimination would interfere with the free market's establishment
of wages; and 3) the costs would be prohibitive. These charges are misleading,
however. First, an estimated two-thirds of workers are already covered by some
form of job evaluation system which compares dissimilar jobs within the same
organization in order to establish salaries; in fact, the Labor Department
publishes a Dictionary of Occupational Titles as an aid to firms in setting
salaries. The problem is that few of the systems have been properly screened
for sex-bias.
- 17 -
Secondly, numerous investigations of male and female wages reveal that women's
wages in some occupations are currently not responsive to the free market. For
example, acute shortages of secretaries and nurses (the hospital nursing shortage
was recently estimated at 65,000 to 70,000 nationwide) have not driven up the wages
of these workers; and there are documented cases of wage-fixing in these occupations.
Depressed wages for women are an inherited structure which antedates the Equal
Pay Act, rather than the creation of a non-discriminatory market.
But elimination of sex-based wage discrimination would not require federal
wage controls or national wage boards. The wages of nurses in Maine, for example,
should not be compared to the wages of truckdrivers in Illinois. Under Title
VII, only wages within (not across) firms would be affected. Job evaluation
plans in themselves do not set wages or replace collective bargaining; rather,
they establish the relative ranking of jobs, leaving the employer free to set
the actual wages.
Finally, estimates vary wildly on the costs of correcting sex-based wage
discrimination, from $2 billion to $320 billion. Yet, under a 1982 Minnesota
law, the cost of making up wage disparities in female-dominated jobs was $21.8
million in the first year, or 1.25% of the state's budget for salaries. Since
only an estimated one-half of the wage gap in this country is due to sex discrim-
ination, the long-term dollar costs of remedying the problem would be significantly
less than the current difference between male and female pay.
Congress should direct the Labor Department to establish a Job Evaluation
Program to research the development of bias-free job evaluation techniques.
An estimated two-thirds of all employees are covered by some kind of
job evaluation system which serves as a guide to employers in setting wages,
and which is also susceptible to sex-bias. In order to help employers screen
their wage scales and job evaluation systems (if any) for sex discrimination,
the Department of Labor should be directed to establish a Job Evaluation Program.
This program would research and develop job evaluation techniques which are
free of sex-bias, and provide interested employers with guidelines and models
of successfully adopted job evaluation systems which attempt to correct wage
discrimination (such as the one recently adopted by AT&T).
2. Equity in Federal Job Training Programs
Congress should ensure that the Job Training Partnership Act (JTPA)
meets its legislative goals and provides equal opportunity for women.
Congress should require the Department of Labor to amend its recently published
data-gathering standards in order to collect data on how well JTPA meets the needs
of women participants. DOL should require: 1) cross-referencing of JTPA participants
by race, age, sex, and AFDC status; 2) data on the availability or lack of support
services (including child care and transportation), and their impact on participants
with respect to program completion, dropping out, or other negative termination;
and 3) the occupation(s) for which participants receive training.
Second, performance standards should be amended to include incentives to
train women in non-traditional occupations. JTPA provides a strong motive for
including such performance standards. The main purpose of the Act, according
- 18 -
to Section 106 (a) (2), is to increase the employment and earnings of participants
while reducing welfare dependency. Non-traditional occupational training for
women (encouraged in Section 141 (d) (2)) provides the best chance for increasing
women's earnings and reducing their welfare dependency. Traditional women's
jobs are less likely to enable them to support themselves and their families,
but these are the kinds of jobs for which women are likely to receive training.
Congress should remodel and upgrade the Work Incentive Program (WIN) to
provide non-traditional occupational training for unemployed women on welfare.
Although JTPA includes provisions for AFDC recipients, its limitations on
child care and other support services may inhibit adequate service of AFDC
parents. Moreover, JTPA alone may not fill the need which WIN was intended to
accomplish: training and placing AFDC parents in jobs SO that they can leave
public assistance behind.
WIN funding should be significantly increased. Current funding levels are
inadequate, and disproportionate to other training programs: for example, the
Administration's budget request for JTPA's Title III program for dislocated
workers is $240 million to serve an estimated 96,000 workers - whereas WIN,
funded at $271 million in FY'83, had 1,325,879 registrants. Moreover, WIN
serves a population which requires considerable expenditures in support services.
Increased WIN funding is also an important investment in reducing AFDC expendi-
tures, for which the FY'85 budget request is $7.1 billion.
Congress should further restructure WIN in the following ways: first, the
program should establish incentives for providing training and placement of women
in nontraditional and better-paying occupations, instead of counting merely the
number of job placements. Second, the program should encourage (rather than exempt,
as currently) registration and participation by AFDC recipients with children
under six, while ensuring that child care is available for such participants.
WIN programs can operate successfully. For example, in Louisiana, a WIN
pilot program is training and placing AFDC women as electromechanical technicians,
starting at $7 to $9 per hour. The program's costs are in line with those of
other WIN programs in Louisiana, whose costs-per-placement are among the lowest
in the nation. It is counseled and assisted by a private Industry Board, uses
local vocational-technical education facilities, and provides hands-on training.
The Manpower Research Demonstration Corp. has also developed successful programs
for different groups of AFDC women with different needs, including women age
17 and under, and long-term welfare mothers. For the latter group, MDRC's
Supported Work Experiment found that long-term welfare mothers were more likely
to find and keep jobs than any other group taking part in this program (youths,
ex-offenders, and ex-addicts).
3. Strengthen Women-Owned Businesses
Congress should act to encourage federal contractors to increase subcontract
awards to women business owners.
When President Reagan announced a National Initiative Program to Assist
Women Business Owners on June 22, 1983, he noted: "Almost 3 million businesses
owned by women bring in about $40 billion a year -- a solid contribution to the
- 19 -
health of our economy at every level of society." Women are making a strong
contribution to the critically important small business sector of the economy,
the sector which employs at least half of all U.S. workers, provides at least
80% of all new jobs, and is responsible for the highest levels of productivity
and innovation in our economy.
The federal government should not only stimulate private sector aid to
women-owned businesses but take an active role, as it has in the case of small
and minority businesses. As the 1978 report by the Task Force on Women Business
Owners declared: "women business owners require specific programs if they are
ever to assume their rightful place in the economic mainstream of our country.
Women have, in the past and still today, experienced social or economic disadvantages
that affect their ability to gain earnings, training, capital, and management
track records all of which affect their competitiveness in the marketplace."
For this reason, Congress should should act to encourage federal contractors
to subcontract with more women business owners. Federal prime contractors and
federal procurement officers should be required to negotiate a subcontracting
plan to award a reasonable proportion of subcontracts to women business owners.
The contractor would be required to make a good faith effort to adhere to this
plan. (This procedure would not apply to small business prime contractors, to
contracts under $500,000, or to contracts not offering subcontracting possibilities.)
Such subcontracting plans are currently required of federal prime contractors
with respect to minority business owners, as part of the 8 (a) program. But it
should be noted that the proposal outlined here would not establish a set-aside
or quota system for women business owners. In fact, many leaders in the women's
business community have expressed their opposition to such programs, preferring
that women-owned businesses be "mainstreamed" into the economy. Winning federal
subcontracts is, for many women business owners, the best means to that end.
Congress should act to demonstrate a strong federal commitment to giving women
access to federal money that filters down to state and local levels. That
commitment would influence contractors at those levels to give greater attention
to women entrepreneurs - virtually all of whom operate at the subcontracting level.
Congress should require the Federal Reserve Board to extend all enforcement
provisions of the Equal Credit Opportunity Act of 1974 to commercial lenders.
Congress should require private lending institutions to give women in
business equal access to credit. Key enforcement provisions of the Equal Credit
Opportunity Act of 1974, banning sex discrimination in credit, were extended to
consumer loans but not to commercial loans. The rapid growth of women in business
since the Act was passed makes the extension to commercial loans imperative.
Recently, the Federal Reserve Board decided again not to extend these enforce-
ment provisions to commercial creditors, responding to bankers' claims that the
regulation would mean too much paperwork and expense (the enforcement provisions
would require record-keeping for all loan applications, and a letter to unsuccessful
applicants explaining the reasons for denial). Meanwhile, women entrepreneurs
have little protection against what is widely perceived to be discrimination by
commercial loan officers, whose decision-making is partly subjective and who
are often unfamiliar with or unreceptive to women business owners.
*
*
*
- 20 -
Family Care
Major changes in the economic structure of American families, including the
ever-increasing employment rates of mothers of infants and young children, have
led to rapidly expanding family care needs. These include child care, elderly
dependent care, and more flexible employment arrangements which can accommodate
family life and growth when both husband and wife are employed. But public
policy and current employment practices have not recognized these rapidly
changing conditions.
HISTORY
In the late 1940s, about 80% of households were married couple families, and
wives had earnings in about 20% of these families. But by 1979, the two-earner
marriage had become the dominant form: only 33% of marriages preserved the arrange-
ment of earning husband/non-earning homemaker, while 50% of white marriages and
57% of black marriages had two earners. In addition, there was a spurt in the
number of women who were single heads-of-household. In the early 1970s, 12% of
families had single parents (usually women), but by 1980 20% of all families did.
The federal government first began funding child care centers in the 1930s.
Administered by the WPA, these centers were not designed to help women enter the
job market, but were created primarily to provide meals for poor children. In
1943, the federal government again appropriated funds to provide care for some
of the children whose mothers had filled job vacancies during World War II. But
this was a temporary measure, and federal funds were cut off when the war ended.
After the war, the number of mothers entering the work force continued to
grow. In 1950, 12% of married women with children under six were working; by
1960, 19% were in the work force; by 1970, 30%; and by 1981, 48%.
In response to this trend, as well as efforts by women's organizations and
the 1970 White House Conference on Children, which urged the development of
"comprehensive child care programs," Congress made several attempts during the
1970s to pass major child care legislation. But these efforts were frustrated
by child care critics, including President Nixon, who vetoed a 1971 $2 billion
child care appropriation passed by Congress.
Yet child care services continued to expand during the 1970s, along with an
increasing perception of their positive contribution to children's cognitive and
social development. Nursery school enrollments doubled during the decade, with
most of the children from families earning $25,000 or more. Child care for low-
income families was funded through direct subsidies (under Title IV and later
Title XX of the Social Security Act). By the late 1970s, states were using nearly
one-fifth of federal social services funds (about $650 million) to provide licensed
child care for about 750,000 low or moderate income children. Available spaces
in centers remained few, however: by 1975 there were about one million spaces
in licensed programs for 6 million pre-school children. Moreover, the expanding
family day care market, where several children are cared for in private homes,
was largely underground and unlicensed.
- 21 -
With the 1970s political climate unfavorable to comprehensive child care
legislation which was criticized by opponents as intrusive and anti-family
as well as formidably expensive - proponents of child care turned to the tax
code to help parents cover some of their work-related child care expenses.
The 1976 Tax Reform Act changed what had been a modest child care deduction to
a tax credit for 20% of employment-related expenses for dependent care. In
1981, the maximum dependent care tax credit was raised, and for taxpayers earning
less than $10,000 the rate of credit increased from 20% to 30% of expenses.
During the 1970s, the private sector began to provide some assistance to
employees with child care responsibilities. By 1982, an estimated 415 employers
-- including Wang, Johnson and Johnson, Corning Glass, Honeywell, and
General Mills -- contributed to some form of child care assistance, ranging
from on-site child care (at about 60 sites) to parenting seminars. About half
of these employers were hospitals, three-fourths of whose workers were women.
A survey of employers providing child care found that many reported significant
benefits, including reduced absenteeism and turnover, increased productivity,
and improved recruitment.
The largest employer to provide child care services during this period has
been the Defense Department, according to a 1982 Women's Bureau report. First
officially authorized in 1978, these services are funded through the Department's
appropriations, parent fees, and non-appropriated funding at the installations.
In 1982, The Army's 281 child care programs (about 60% of them in the U.S.) served
approximately 23,000 children with the objectives of "[reducing] conflict between
parental responsibilities and unit mission requirements" and contributing "to the
quality of life and well-being of families in the command with young children."
CURRENT SITUATION
Today the majority of mothers (54%) are in the paid work force, and most
mothers who work do SO fulltime. Work force participation among women with
infants and children under three has grown rapidly, to 46% in 1983. The prosperity
of American families increasingly depends on the wife's as well as the husband's
income. More than two-thirds of black children in families with incomes over
$15,000 have mothers in the work force. Further, about 60% of all children who
are growing up in families with incomes over $25,000 have mothers in the work
force.
While women's rate of labor force participation is expected to continue
to increase, men's participation is expected to continue its current decline.
Experts predict that by 1990, 77% of men and 60% of women will be in the work
force. By 1990, then, women are expected to make up 46% of American workers.
At the same time that more women are entering the work force, the population
for which women have traditionally cared . children and the elderly -- is
increasing. The Census Bureau projects that by 1990 there will be over 23.3
million children under age 6, up from 18.9 million in 1980. During the 1980s,
the elderly population will grow even faster, by 6.3 million people.
Adding to the need for dependent care has been the rapid increase in
single-parent families, nearly all of them headed by women. The proportion of
- 22 -
children living with one parent has risen from 12% in the early 1970s to about
20% in 1980, and 50% of all American children are expected to live with only one
parent at some time before they are 18. At a minimum, then, one-fifth of all
children now live with a single mother who must work (65% of single mothers do)
or else survive on public or private assistance. Families headed by single
women are the group with the highest poverty rate in the nation: in 1982, they
made up 46% of families living below the poverty line.
In a 1979 survey of over 80,000 employed women, one-third of those with
dependent children reported that child care continued to be a serious problem:
29% of clerical, sales, service, and blue-collar workers, and 36% of managerial,
professional, and technical workers found it a significant problem. While there
is no definitive data on the numbers of "latchkey" children who go without care
while their parents work, most estimates indicate that this is the case for
millions of children, perhaps as many as 7 million. Moreover, inadequate
dependent services can also be a problem when women are not in the work force.
One out of eight retired women in 1975 said they retired because they were
needed at home to care for elderly dependents. Further, according to a November
1983 Census Bureau report, 36% of mothers staying at home with preschool children
in families earning under $15,000 would look for a job if affordable child care
were available.
Despite recent increases in child care support for middle and upper-middle
income families through the Dependent Care Tax Credit (an estimated $1.5 billion
in FY'83), direct child care funding for low income families has been cut
substantially over the last several years. According to a recent survey by the
Children's Defense Fund, the 1981 cut of 21% in federal funding of the Social
Services Block Grant triggered further state cuts, and 32 states are consequently
providing care for fewer children than three years ago.
Another major concern in the area of family care is the lack of reliable
and comprehensive data on national, state, and local needs and services. The
most recent (and only) national survey of child care centers was done at the
direction of the Administration for Children, Youth, and Families (Department
of Health and Human Services) in the mid-1970s. No national survey has ever
been done of before and after school care services, or of the approximately 700
adult dependent care programs. Moreover, states no longer need to report how
much they are spending on child care under the Social Services Block Grant.
Flexible work schedules is another area of concern to women and families.
Schedules such as job-sharing and flexitime, flexible leave policies, and part-
time jobs with pro-rated benefits were recommended by more than 90% of delegates
to the 1980 White House Conference on Families as a means to ease work/family
conflicts. But few employers and managers have shared this concern.
Two groups especially interested in flexible schedules are working parents
and older workers. More than three-fourths of Americans age 55 and over reported
in a recent survey that they would prefer part-time work to fulltime retirement.
Management expert Peter Drucker has predicted that "Flexible age retirement is
going to be the central social issue in the United States during the next
decade." In a 1978 survey of women by the National Commission on Working
Women, 25% of respondents employed fulltime felt that not being able to work
part-time was a significant problem.
- 23 -
A very different family care issue which has become a significant public
policy concern during the last decade is domestic violence. Violent assaults
within the family usually directed against women and children -- are increasingly
defined as criminal acts rather than private acts of violence outside the scope
of the law. The consequences can be deadly: according to a 1982 FBI report, 30%
of all female homicide victims are killed by husbands or boyfriends.
Domestic violence is still widely underreported, and even when reported rarely
leads to arrest or prosecution. Providing shelter and assistance for battered
wives, and increasing arrests of offenders are two ways in which states and
localities are attempting to decrease domestic violence. For example, Virginia,
which reported in 1980 that spouse abuse is the most frequently committed crime
in the state, enacted a new law to fund shelters for family violence victims.
In 28 states, recent laws make it possible for police to more easily arrest
offenders, a proven effective deterrent to subsequent attacks.
RECOMMENDATIONS
In the area of family care, Republicans have provided crucial leadership on
child support enforcement legislation, a proposal which would ensure that women
receive court-ordered child support payments. After Republican women legislators
initiated a series of meetings with White House advisers, compromise agreements
were worked out on child support enforcement and other provisions of the Economic
Equity Act, including the Dependent Care Tax Credit. The child support legislation
has passed both houses of Congress and has the support of the Administration.
It is necessary that this legislation be implemented and tracked effectively to
help break the link between poverty and single women who head families.
House Republicans also gave strong support to the Child Abuse Amendments
(H.R. 1904) which in addition to authorizing funds for child abuse prevention
programs, provides for shelter and assistance to family violence victims, and
for family violence program training for governments and agencies.
TO encourage employers to contribute to employees' child care needs, the
White House Office of Private Sector Initiatives has been holding meetings with
business executives around the country. Among the many successes of the program
was the response in Portland, Oregon where $35,000 was raised from involved
corporations to set up a citywide computerized "information and referral system"
for child care services. Further creative government/private sector initiatives
would help to extend a network of dependent care services which are essential
to the well-being of American workers and their families.
1. Dependent Care Development
Congress should require the Department of Health and Human Services to
establish a Dependent Care Development Program to sponsor and promote new
approaches to high quality cost-effective programs of dependent care.
As discussed earlier in this report, the reality today is that the majority
of mothers are not at home with their children: they are at work, and most
working mothers work fulltime. As former President Gerald Ford recently wrote,
"We can no longer accept the argument that by providing child care, or day
- 24 -
care, we are enticing women out of their homes and away from their primary care
responsibilities. Women are already outside the home and searching for quality
care for their children Today, any working parent needs to be able to find
good care at a reasonable cost."
Congress should require HHS to develop an appropriate program to promote
the development of high quality, varied, and cost-effective dependent care
services. Currently, our country has no federal commitment to planning, policy-
making, development or promotion of these essential services. While the federal
government could not administer or fund care for all dependent children and
adults without massive tax increases, there are numerous dependent care initiatives
that HHS could undertake.
These actions include: regular surveys of dependent care services nationwide;
giving states access to the most effective licensing and/or registration programs
for child care providers; encouraging states to implement before and after
school care; developing programs for special dependent care needs such as
elderly dependent care, sick child care, and disabled dependent care (there are
approximately 4.1 million disabled school-aged children, and about 500,000
under six years of age); and encouraging employers to adopt flexible work schedules
and parental leave policies.
2. Restore Social Services Block Grant Funding
Congress should restore part of the reduction in the Social Services Block
Grant by raising it from $2.7 billion to $2.9 billion for FY'85, and it should
re-establish a minimum for dependent care expenditures under the block grant.
Most families using Title XX child care under the Social Services Block
Grant are headed by women. Working mothers who lost Title XX child care
when block grant funding was cut in 1981 from $3.1 billion to $2.4 billion
(a 21% cut) have had to choose between poorer child care, no child care, or
leaving their jobs. In a majority of states, Title XX child care has been cut
even as the need is increasing; and in a significant number of states, child
care has been cut by more than the general 21% cutback. Moreover, parents
eligible for Title XX care are precisely those who cannot take advantage of the
Dependent Care Tax Credit because they pay little or nothing in taxes.
Congress should restore a part of the cutback in the Social Services Block
Grant (which adjusted for inflation, would have grown from $3.1 billion in FY'81
to $3.4 billion in FY'84), and re-establish a minimum expenditure under the grant
on dependent care -- both for children and for elderly dependents. Previously,
Title XX had a $200 million minimum for child care, but this was eliminated
when funding was cut.
3. Alternative Work Schedules
Congress should require the Department of Labor to do a study of disincentives
to the expansion of alternative work schedules such as flexitime, compressed
workweeks, job-sharing, flexible leave policies, and part-time jobs with pro-
rated benefits (including part-time work at middle and upper levels).
- 25 -
Flexible or alternative work schedules can be a "win/win" situation for
employers and employees. They have been proven effective in increasing productivity,
reducing absenteeism and lateness, and making more efficient use of transportation
facilities. They are usually no-cost or low-cost, and some (e.g. compressed
workweeks) can be cost-saving. Part-time, job-sharing and other flexible
schedules are a highly attractive option to many parents; among other advantages,
they reduce the need for expensive non-familial child care and allow parents to
provide more care for their own children. Many Americans 55 and older (expected
to be 25% of the total population by 2010) would also prefer for personal and
economic reasons to continue working in a part-time capacity; and increased
part-time work could help reduce Social Security pay-outs.
Yet alternative work schedules are not used as widely as they could be.
Labor unions oppose expanded part-time and job-sharing opportunities; employers
do not recognize the value of reducing work/family conflicts through alternative
schedules; and unintended tax disincentives (such as the unemployment insurance
tax) may inhibit expansion of certain alternative schedules. Congress should
require the Department of Labor to investigate any disincentives to such schedules
with regard to management, labor, and tax issues, as a basis for action to
encourage the expansion of these schedules in the private sector.
As a model employer, the federal government should authorize the use of
flexible schedules in federal agencies to meet the goal of reducing parents'
reliance on non-familial child care.
Congress should amend the requirements for using flexible schedules under
the Federal Employees Flexible and Compressed Work Schedules Act of 1978
(reauthorized in 1982). These schedules have been widely approved: over 90% of
federal employees and over 85% of federal supervisors wanted to retain them.
In 1982, flexible schedules were reauthorized in order to increase productivity
and better serve the public. Congress should also explicitly authorize their
use in order to reduce employees' work/family conflicts and their need for
dependent care services.
*
*
*
- 26 -
Health and Retirement
Society's conception of the norm in retirement, as in employment, is
modeled on the life patterns of men, or on the needs of families with one
(male) breadwinner. But in fact the majority of those affected by retirement
programs are women, often women who are living alone rather than in families.
In health programs too, as well as retirement programs, policies and programs
often do not recognize those ways in which the needs of male and female users
inevitably differ, as well as coincide. Equity for women in such programs
requires that the circumstances which characterize women's lives, women's
health, and women's retirement be granted normative stature equivalent to men's.
HISTORY
Health care for women in the U.S. has historically been intimately linked
to the care of infants and children, beginning with the passage of the first
federally funded health program, the Sheppard-Towner Act of 1921. Yet women's
health issues have often been complicated by competing moral considerations.
For example, abortion legislation and family planning legislation (which began at
the federal level with the Family Planning Act in 1970) have often been surrounded
by controversies which have little to do with the physical and mental well-being
of women and their dependents.
In 1975, some new ground was broken when women's mental health became a
federally acknowledged issue in a long-established area of criminal law: rape.
The National Center for the Prevention and Control of Rape was established
within the National Institutes of Health, and in 1980 it began funding services
for rape victims. By the late 1970s, rape was by far the most rapidly increasing
violent crime: between 1976 and 1980, the forcible rape rate rose by 38%.
By far the most extensive national support for general health care for
women and men came with the 1965 enactment of the Medicare and Medicaid programs.
Medicare was designed to provide health insurance for the elderly and disabled
covered under Social Security. Medicaid was to provide health services for
low-income people, primarily those receiving federal aid under the AFDC or
Supplemental Security Income (SSI) programs. By 1979, according to Census
figures, Medicare served 14.3 million women and 10.4 million men; Medicaid
served 11.1 million women and 7.1 million men.
In retirement as in health issues, the conception of women as individuals,
as well as family members, gained ground during the 1970s. The notion that
women were dependents to be supported by a dependent's benefit under Social
Security increasingly seemed outdated and inequitable.
Before the 1930s, relatively few American workers had pensions. Widespread
retirement benefits for Americans began with the enactment of Social Security
in 1935 when the Depression exacerbated the economic risks of unemployment,
aging, and disability. Social Security was designed to replace a portion of a
worker's earnings when the worker reached retirement.
- 27 -
In 1940, when payouts from Social Security began, 27% of covered women
were entitled to receive benefits as retired workers, while most (62.5%) received
a wife's benefit. Although upon enactment the program had made no provision for
the dependents of wage earners, amendments in 1939 did extend benefits to wives
and widows age 65 or over, children under 16, and widows caring for dependent
children. The wife's benefit was set at 50% and the widow's at 75% of the
wage-earning husband's benefit.
During the 1960s and 1970s, some reforms were made affecting divorced
women and widows: in 1965, divorced wives gained access to certain benefits if
they had been married to a covered worker for 20 years or more (lowered to 10 years
in 1977); and in 1972, the benefit paid to widows at 65 rose from 75% to 100%
of the worker's benefit.
Meanwhile, as more women entered the work force, the percentage of women
receiving benefits based on their own earnings steadily rose. By 1982, 58% of
female beneficiaries 62 and older had benefits based on their own earnings,
while 42% had benefits based on their husbands'.
But the Social Security program was not prepared to accommodate the growth
in women's employment, the rising divorce rate, and the increase in women's
longevity. As a congressionally mandated report on "Social Security and the
Changing Roles of Men and Women" pointed out in 1975, the system is "most
appropriate for the married couple consisting of a lifelong paid worker and a
lifelong unpaid homemaker." In particular, it did not work well for divorced
or separated dependent spouses, for spouses divorced after less than 10 full
years of marriage, for women who had taken time out from paid work to raise
children, or for families with two earners.
Since 1967, changes have repeatedly been proposed in and out of Congress
to address the perceived inequities of the system. These proposals have included:
reducing or eliminating the dependent spouse benefit; providing Social Security
credits for homemakers (as in some European countries); providing a minimum
benefit for all Americans, regardless of their earnings record; and making it
possible for married couples to average or combine their earnings for the
purpose of calculating benefits. Some of these proposals are still current;
none have been adopted.
CURRENT SITUATION
Women need different health care services than men, especially during their
childbearing years. Yet current programs and policies often do not recognize
these differences and in some cases have reduced the health care available to
women and their children. Cuts in nutrition programs and maternal and child
health funding (under Title V of the Social Security Act and Medicaid) have
substantially reduced already insufficient services for women and infants.
Numerous states have found that one result of such short-term savings is higher
net health care costs because more babies are born with low birth-weight,
physical handicaps, and retardation; and more babies die because of inadequate
prenatal care.
- 28 -
As indicated previously, sex discrimination in some but not all federal
health programs was recently outlawed, but virtually no attempts have been made
to ascertain whether women are receiving equitable health services. Women's
health advocates suggest that institutional sex-bias exists in health research
as well as services. For example, human and laboratory animal subjects in
medical research and drug tests are usually male. Most research on coronary
disease is on men: the largest medical study on cholesterol and heart disease
(just completed) studied 3,806 men and no women.
Yet according to 1980 national mortality statistics, "major cardiovascular
diseases" accounted for 457.7 deaths per 100,000 men and 416.2 deaths per
100,000 women. A 1983 American Journal of Epidemiology study urged further
investigation of sex-related differences in coronary disease, arguing that "the
risk factor profile differs in some respects among men and women."
Health care for older Americans is also of special concern to women. As a
1981 HHS report notes, "the [health] problems of old age will be largely the
problems faced by older women." In July 1982, there were 16 million women and
10.8 million men age 65 and older. While women and men have different health
problems at all ages, the cost aspects of these differences may be especially
important for the elderly. Uncovered costs amount to an estimated 19% of the
elderly's income, but about one-third of the income of elderly women.
Some important differences in men's and women's use of health services are
in hospital and nursing home use. Elderly women are twice as likely as elderly
men to live in nursing homes, a fact which reflects not only women's longevity
but the higher rate of nursing home use by unmarried persons of both sexes: 52%
of women age 65 and over are widowed, compared with 14% of men. On the other
hand, hospital utilization rates for men age 65 and over are higher than for
women. The 1981 HHS report concluded that elderly men "use a different and
more intensive mixture of hospital services than elderly women do." In 1978,
elderly men had more surgical operations than elderly women (197 per 1,000
population, compared to 155 for women), and required more days of hospital care
(4,330 days of care per 1,000 population, compared to 4,081 for women).
Under these circumstances, Medicare may be more adequately serving men
than women. Medicare covers acute medical care services such as surgery, but
not preventive services, prescription drugs, routine eye care, or disabling
chronic diseases such as Alzheimer's, which costs Americans an estimated $26
billion annually. Medicare also does not cover long-term institutional services:
it pays less than 3% of nursing home expenses, for example. If nursing home
residents "spend down" until they are poor, they may receive Medicaid benefits
for long-term care. However, benefits under Medicaid, unlike Medicare, vary
widely from state to state.
Like Medicare and Medicaid, Social Security covers more women than men,
yet the system fails to account for the different life patterns of women.
In 1983, Social Security was projected to pay approximately $170 billion in
benefits to about 36 million people, 52% of them women. The majority of women
(58% in 1982) receive benefits based on their own earnings record. But monthly
benefits for retired women workers averaged $362, compared with $470 for men.
- 29 -
For workers retiring at age 65, the benefit was under $200 for about 30% of women
(and 9% of men); it was over $400 for 18% of women and 54% of men.
Women's lower benefits are partly a consequence of lower monthly earnings
and fewer years in the labor force. But they are also a result of the Social
Security system's penalty against an interrupted earning career. Lifetime
homemakers are subsidized by Social Security, and lifetime earners who work
fulltime can acquire substantial benefits, but the system makes no allowance
for women who alternate between homemaking and employment. Years of low earnings
or zero earnings while a woman is raising children are averaged into her earnings
record and depress her monthly benefit.
Lower Social Security benefits also result when families have two earners.
Most two-earner couples actually get a lower benefit than one-earner couples with
the same income. For example, if the worker in a one-earner couple with average
indexed monthly earnings of $990 retired at age 65 in 1984, the couple would get a
monthly benefit of $814. A two-earner couple with the same total earnings and
retiring at the same time would get a benefit of $694 -- a difference of $120
monthly.
Divorced dependent spouses also suffer under the current system. About
two-thirds of divorces occur after less than 10 years of marriage, with no Social
Security entitlement for the divorced spouses. Dependent spouses divorced
after 10 or more years of marriage receive one-third of the married couple's
benefit, which is not usually enough to maintain a separate household (in 1982,
the average benefit for divorced women was $192 per month). Moreover, because
the burgeoning divorce rate is not yet reflected in the elderly population,
poverty among elderly divorced women is expected to worsen.
RECOMMENDATIONS
Recent Republican efforts on behalf of women in this area have succeeded
in passing pension reform legislation in the Senate and in the House. The
legislation, which is supported by the Administration, makes pension vesting
more flexible by lowering the eligibility age and allowing workers to leave and
return to jobs without losing pension benefits. The Republican Congresswomen's
meetings with White House advisers helped gain Administration support for this
reform.
Yet further reforms are needed if federal health and retirement security
programs are to adequately reflect the needs of women, the majority of those
they serve. Congress should take the following initiatives to make sure these
programs represent and treat women equitably.
1. Sex Equity in Health Care
Congress should pass legislation prohibiting sex discrimination in all
federally assisted and federally operated health care services and programs.
In the area of health care, civil rights can be a life and death matter, and
what constitutes civil rights in health care is not a matter of simple equality.
Certain groups, including women, the aged, and the handicapped, need more or
- 30 -
different kinds of health care than other groups. Yet many federally assisted
and operated health programs and services have no ban on sex discrimination,
though statutory protections exist for other groups. Congress should remedy
this inconsistency.
Congress should require the Secretary of Health and Human Services to
report by a specified date on: (a) what constitutes civil rights compliance by
health care providers; and (b) whether existing services and programs meet
these standards for providing equally effective health care for women and men.
There is no clear definition of what constitutes sex discrimination in
health programs and services, nor of whether existing services are providing
equally effective care for women and men. NO significant action has been taken
in this area since the passage in 1981 of non-discrimination provisions in some
but not all health programs and services. But regulations for enforcement
have never been issued by the Office of Civil Rights in HHS.
Women's health advocates believe that the Medicare system, for example, is
not responsive to the health care needs of older women, the majority of those
served by the program; this issue especially requires scrutiny now that Medicare
financing reforms are being considered.
For these reasons, Congress should require HHS to define what constitutes
civil rights compliance with regard to sex discrimination prohibitions in
health care, and to investigate whether existing services and programs (whether
or not they are currently covered by such provisions) meet these standards for
equally effective care.
2. Social Security Earnings Sharing
Congress should schedule additional hearings on reforming Social Security
to provide more equitable benefits for women and for two-earner families.
Before the end of this year, the Secretary of Health and Human Services is
expected to issue a congressionally mandated report on earnings-sharing, a
Social Security reform proposal which has been endorsed by the 1979 Advisory
Council on Social Security, the 1980 President's Commission on Pension Policy,
and the 1980 Justice Department Task Force on Sex Discrimination, as well as by
major women's organizations. This report, which will consider the costs and
implementation of various current earnings-sharing proposals, should provide a
basis for Congress to develop appropriate legislation.
Earnings-sharing, a system by which the earnings of husband and wife would
be pooled and divided equally for purposes of calculating benefits upon retirement
or divorce, is a long overdue reform. The Social Security program no longer
reflects the way Americans support themselves and their families, nor does it
provide individuals and married couples with a justly apportioned retirement
benefit. Today when 59% of married-couple families have two earners, Social
Security's unintended penalty for such families must be changed.
Earnings-sharing would protect a married couple both as a couple and as
individuals. It would eliminate inequities such as the arbitrary requirement
- 31 -
of a ten-year who move between homemaking and paid employment, benefits should
marriage before entitlement for dependent spouses, and the the lower penalty
for those couples compared to one-earner couples. Earnings-sharing for dependent
for be gradually two-earner phased in to ensure that benefits are not disrupted
spouses (for example) during the period of transition.
*
Conclusion
While this report has hi hlighted numerous specific issues of concern to
women in the areas of civil rights, economic equity, family care, and health
and retirement, it is by no means exhaustive. Many other women's issues also
need the attention and action of Congress. But the recommendations made in
this report indicate a broad range of the kinds reforms which need to be undertaken.
The essential point is that Congress and the Administration need to move beyond
piecemeal or occasional action on women's issues, to fully integrate women and
women's concerns into the planning and policymaking of our nation.
Specific action on behalf of women is essential, for while macroeconomic
improvements such as GNP growth and inflation reduction are vital to the
well-being of our nation as a whole, they are not sufficient to alter the
social and economic predicaments of women. Such improvements will not change
the relative poverty of women, or break down the institutional obstacles to
full integration of women into the American economic system. General improvements
will neither eliminate discriminatory wages, build up dependent care support
systems for working parents, nor protect women who have been workers or homemakers
against an unfairly impoverished old age.
But while "women's issues" need attention from legislators and policymakers,
these issues should not be seen as the special preserve of women, for that
attitude merely continues to fence off a private territory of female concerns
within the wider public sphere. Women's concerns, like the concerns of men,
are the larger public sphere. It is radically unrealistic to regard child
care, for example, as a working woman's problem, and not as an issue of general
public interest. Moreover, women's issues do not demarcate the boundaries of
women's political and economic interests, and must not be assumed to do so.
The problem of reform in women's issues is not only an organizational and
financial one: it is also a matter of vision. Specific reforms will never be
effective solutions unless they are accompanied by a recognition of women's
individual and collective right to acknowledgement by our social, legislative,
and economic institutions; an acknowledgement which, by recognizing both the
similarities and the differences in men's and women's lives, serves to empower
women rather than limit them.
THE WHITE HOUSE
WASHINGTON
July 9, 1984
Dear Mr. Donohue:
I want to thank you so much for sending me
the recent study report of the National
Chamber Foundation. It does look as though
it will be useful information, and I appre-
ciate your keeping me informed of your ef-
forts in the Hispanic-American arena.
With warm regards,
Sincerely,
MICHAEL K. DEAVER
Assistant to the President
Deputy Chief of Staff
Mr. Thomas J. Donohue
Executive Vice President
National Chamber Foundation
1615 H Street, N.W.
Washington, D.C. 20062
IICF
National Chamber Foundation
1615 H Street, N.W.
Washington, D.C. 20062
202/659-6242
Thomas J. Donohue
Executive Vice President
July 5, 1984
The Honorable Michael K. Deaver
Deputy Chief of Staff and
Assistant to the President
The White House
1600 Pennsylvania Avenue, N.W.
Washington, D.C. 20500
Dear Mike:
The attached study report has just been released by the
National Chamber Foundation. I think you will find it extremely
useful. It points out the remarkable success of the Hispanic
middle class and business community, and includes over thirty
recommendations aimed at continuing this success and bringing
Hispanic business into the economic mainstream.
The report shows a new and more accurate way for
Americans to view Hispanics, and appeals to Hispanic pride. It
also strongly indicates that Republican policies are far more
consistant with the needs of Hispanic-Americans than the
alternative.
If you would like a detailed briefing on the study,
please give me a call.
Sincerely,
Tom
Mike, Must reading few The people! Compaign
THE WHITE HOUSE
WASHINGTON
July 9, 1984
Dear Henry:
It was most thoughtful of you to send me copies
of the current edition of Leaders. I haven't had
a chance to look through the magazine yet, but I
look forward to doing so - particularly, to reading
the President's article.
Thanks so much for taking the time to keep me in-
formed.
With warm personal regards,
Sincerely,
MICHAEL K. DEAVER
Assistant to the President
Deputy Chief of Staff
Mr. Henry O. Dormann
President and Editor-in-Chief
Leaders
59 East 54 Street
New York, NY 10022
LEADERS
Thank Thank you you
1 July 1984
The Honorable Michael K. Deaver
Assistant to The President &
Deputy Chief of Staff
The White House
Washington, D.C. 20500
Dear Mike:
Here's the latest issue with the President's article which
you so kindly arranged, leading off our major "Technology
for Peace" issue.
As you are probably aware, I have been in touch with Paul
Laxalt and Bob Gray and I have met with the Attorneys for
the Republican National Committee to work out the idea you
and I discussed by mail and all is proceeding well.
Warmest regards.
Cordially yours,
President & Editor-in-Chief
HENRY Feary . O. DORMANN
P.S. Did you get my letter on
a) The cuff links and
b) China?
59 EAST 54 STREET NEW YORK 10022 212 758-0740 TELEX: 649333
File
THE WHITE HOUSE
WASHINGTON
July 9, 1984
Dear Mr. Turnmire:
I have just received your letter of July 3rd
requesting that the President address The
Executives' Club of Chicago in September or
October, and want you to know that I am for-
warding it to Fred Ryan - the President's
Director of Scheduling. You can be certain
that it will be given every consideration
and that you will be hearing directly from
Mr. Ryan.
Thank you so much for your interest in again
wanting the President to be with your group.
Sincerely,
MICHAEL K. DEAVER
Assistant to the President
Deputy Chief of Staff
Mr. Bruce M. Turnmire
President
The Executives' Club of Chicago
Suite 2045
20 North Wacker Drive
Chicago, Illinois 60606
The EXECUTIVES' CLUB of CHICAGO
E
SUITE 2045
20 NORTH WACKER DRIVE
CHICAGO, ILLINOIS 60606
TELEPHONE 312/263-3500
BRUCE M. TURNMIRE
President
July 3, 1984
Michael K. Deaver
Assistant to the President
The White House
Washington, D.C. 20500
Dear Mr. Deaver:
I remember with appreciation that your office served as primary liaison
for our invitation of June, 1983 to the President. Your office phoned
me at the Ritz-Carlton to express interest in our invitation, and the
President's Scheduling Office reaffirmed this interest several times
before the eventual decision to decline the invitation in early August
was made. At that time I was told to invite the President again
this year and to provide copies of the 1983 correspondence.
We would be extremely grateful if you would again serve as our liaison
to the President. Our letter inviting the President to address the Club
any date his schedule could accommodate in September or October is
enclosed and attached to it is a copy of Governor Thompson's June 11,
1984 letter to the President encouraging his acceptance of our invitation.
To the extent that I am able, I will see that all other supportive con-
tacts are channelled through you, or at least that copies of correspond-
ence are provided you. In addition to Senator Percy and Barbara Proctor,
other who have offered their assistance include Club Directors Gertrude
Crain (Crain Communications, Inc.) and Governor William G. Stratton,
Don Totten (1980 Illinois Campaign Manager), and, James Brady (through
Chicago relatives).
I also understand that Don Rosenthal, a Washington associate of our
Chairman (Diane Mayne of Seyfarth, Shaw, Fairweather & Geraldson),
has discussed our invitation with Ken Duberstein and Timmons & Company.
I know that a firm acceptance is rarely given longer than several weeks
in advance, but I would appreciate receiving occasional word as to the
status of our invitation. (I think my nerves can take it I'll draw against
the experience I gained last summer!)
Again, many thanks for your assistance.
Cordially,
Fruce Turnine
Bruce M. Turnmire
CC: Diane Mayne