For the first time since the recession began, the unemployment rate for adult women surpassed that for adult men, indicating that while the U.S. might have been a “mancession,” it also appears to be experiencing a “mancovery.”
The unemployment rate for women 20 years and older rose to 7.3% in December, from 7% the month before. Unemployment for men of the same age remained at 7.2% in December.
Guess why that is… I’ll wait.
Times up. Here’s why:
You know all those government jobs that have been cut? The ones that Republicans want to cut even more because they hate government so much? 13,000 government jobs were lost from November to December, and 68,000 since December 2011. Those jobs include teachers:
Women occupy about two-thirds of public sector jobs, according to Joan Entmacher, vice president for Family Economic Security at the National Women’s Law Center. Women make up a large part of local government payrolls because they are a large proportion of the teachers in the country. The nation lost 53,900 local government education jobs in the last year.
So guess who’s feeling the brunt of unemployment these days? That’s right, the very women who educate our children. Hey, I used to be one of those!
Not only do women make less money than men, but this also happened:
Unemployment rose for single mothers, indicating that households headed by women could be especially vulnerable in the recovery.
5.1 million women, aged 20 and over, are still out of work. Those nice white GOP men on the Hill are salivating over the thought of slashing even more government jobs, which means more women will be jobless. Which means their families will suffer. Meaning their children. Which means they’ll be more vulnerable. Which means they’ll need more health care. Which they won’t be able to afford.
How many of those nice white GOP men boast that they’re big “pro life, family values” guys?
Of course, according to those same legislators, the ones who also deny that their zillions of abortion bills trump jobs bills in Congress, there is no War on Women.
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