Download JANUARY 2016 BPW/PA LEGISLATION UPDATE PENTAGON

JANUARY 2016 BPW/PA LEGISLATION UPDATE
PENTAGON AUTHORIZES WOMEN IN COMBAT:
Defense Secretary Ashton Carter announced in December that American female troops are
now able to fill any of the 220,000 military jobs previously open only to men. A New York Times
editorial noted that women have proved they could perform and have been “serving, dying and
getting decorated for their heroism” in both Iraq and Afghanistan. U.S. allies in Canada, Israel
and several European countries have women serving in combat roles. “Being blocked from
combat prevents women from rising to the highest ranks,” noted Washington Post columnist
Kathleen Parker. After 15 years of war the U.S. all-volunteer military is failing to reach its
targeted recruitment goals even after significantly lowering entry standards. As Captain Kristen
Griest and 1st Lt. Shaye Haver made history last summer by graduating from the Army’s
rigorous Ranger course, they proved able to perform the most arduous and grueling military
tasks. They opened doors to more qualified women capable of filling military recruitment goals
in years to come.
S.2251 S.A.V.E. BENEFITS Act to RESTORE 2016 SOCIAL SECURITY COLA:
The present system of annually assessing Cost-of-Living Adjustments for 70 million Social
Security and veteran recipients determined that inflation in 2015 declined due to lower fuel
costs. Therefore, there will be no benefit increase in 2016 unless Congress acts to remedy
what is a serious loss, particularly for elderly women over the age of 80. Lifetimes of pay
discrimination hindered generations of women from adequately saving for retirement. Well
into their 80’s, it is common, even for women who have saved, to see that their life-savings
are exhausted. Their dependence on Social Security is all the more critical in that women tend
to live longer. According to CNN, elderly seniors don’t benefit as much from lower gas prices as
the average American worker because most are no longer driving. Meanwhile medical costs
have increased faster than overall inflation. A greater percentage of seniors’ spending is on
health care. A study by the Senior Citizens League found that Social Security benefits have lost
about 22% of their buying power since 2000, despite prior benefit increases that haven’t kept up
with the actual cost of living.
As a remedy Senator Elizabeth Warren (D/MA) introduced S.2251 last November. S.2251
does not expand Social Security. It corrects a failure to ensure that benefits keep up with the
inflationary costs actually experienced by seniors whose spending patterns are very different
from those in the paid workforce. According to Boston.com, S.2251 provides a one-time $580
payment to recipients which is equal to the 3.9% increase received by CEO’s of top U.S. firms in
2014. In 2009 there also was no inflation calculated in the cost-of-living. Congress authorized a
one-time emergency payment of $250 to assist Social Security recipients after the U.S.
economy crashed. 2016 will be just the third time since COLA’s went into effect in 1975, that
recipients will not get the annual raise intended to adjust Social Security to the current rate of
inflation. Senator Warren argues that if Congress chooses to subsidize CEO pay through
preferential tax treatment and loopholes that allow deductions for corporate bonuses, Social
Security recipients should get the same treatment. Warren estimates that the $40 billion cost
of S.2251 would be paid for by closing the “performance pay” loophole that allows unlimited
corporate tax deductions on performance-based pay. As of 12/18/15, S.2251 had 21 cosponsors including Pennsylvania Senator Bob Casey. BPW/PA members concerned by the
toll on elderly women losing a 2016 Cost-of-Living Adjustment, should contact Senator Pat
Toomey’s office and request that he also become a co-sponsor of S.2251. (See pg. 4)
2.
U.S. MATERNAL DEATH RATE CONTINUES TO RISE:
It is a fact that countries providing universal access to health care have the lowest maternal
mortality rates. Although the United States is one of the world’s wealthiest countries, and
spends far more on health care than other developed nations, America is just one of 13
countries—including North Korea and Afghanistan—where maternal mortality rates are rising.
Around the world maternal mortality rates are falling dramatically, but not in the United States,
according to the 12/15/15 issue of THE WEEK magazine. New research conducted by the
U.N.’s World Health Organization finds that in developed nations, women’s risk of dying as a
result of pregnancy and child birth has fallen 48% since 1990. Over that same period U.S.
maternal deaths increased, making our rate twice as high as Canada’s and more than four
times higher than Greece and Ireland. The lack of access to quality health care by the poor
in many states is identified as a primary cause of rising maternal deaths.
DISCRIMINATION AGAINST U.S. WOMEN WORSE THAN IN MOST DEVELOPED NATIONS:
Upon completion of a 10-day mission to Alabama, Oregon, Texas and Washington, D.C., a
delegation of United Nations Human Rights Monitors concluded their official United States visit
on the issue of discrimination against women in law and practice. A EURONEWS.com 12/14/15
report stated that the monitors found America is “allowing women to lag behind.” Their
preliminary report will be released in full to the United Nations Human Rights Council next year.
While acknowledging the U.S. as a leading state in formulating international human rights
standards, the group of experts found substandard conditions for American women in areas like
economic and social life, access to health care, reproductive health and rights, as well as
women’s safety. The monitors told reporters some of their findings were “shocking” and “mythshattering.” These U.N. experts expressed concern that though women constitute 57% of the
U.S. labor force and have been an important factor in driving decades of economic growth, “this
crucial labor force participation by women is not accompanied by equal economic opportunity.”
They expressed particular concern for American women who are poor, belong to Native
American, Hispanic and Afro-American ethnic minorities, migrant women, women with
disabilities and older women who they saw as “desperately vulnerable.”
“We are shocked by the lack of mandatory standards for workplace accommodation for
pregnant women, post-natal mothers and persons with care responsibilities, which are required
in international human rights law,” monitors said. The gender wage gap is more than 20%,
affecting women’s income throughout their lives, increasing women’s pension poverty.
Another severe problem identified by the U.N. monitors was wage theft, particularly in
manufacturing, construction and some service jobs. This impacts low-income and migrant
workers, in particular undocumented women.
Among advanced economies the United States stands alone in not mandating paid maternity
leave at the federal level for new mothers. Monitor Frances Raday called this “unthinkable in
most other societies.” Paid maternity leave is only provided in three states (California, New
Jersey & Rhode Island), and in federal government employment, but it is for just six weeks.
This is beneath the international minimum of 14 weeks. Perhaps the most stunning revelation is
the sharp increase in U.S. maternal mortality rates. The ratio went up by 136% between 1990
and 2013. Afro-American women are nearly four times more at risk to die in childbirth, the
report says. After witnessing intimidation and harassment at clinic visits in Alabama and Texas,
the monitors noted that U.S. women face ever-increasing obstacles in accessing reproductive
health services both as a result of legislative restrictions in many states and because of violent
attacks on abortion clinic staff and patients.
3.
American women hold only 20% of Congressional seats and their representation in state
legislatures varies widely between 13% and 46% with an average of just below 25%. This
represents the highest level of legislative representation ever achieved by women in the United
States. However, it still places the United States at only #72 in a global raking of all nations.
GENDER BIAS PERSISTS IN MEDICAL RESEARCH:
Women have been excluded or under-represented in medical and scientific research for as long
as those fields have been studied. Though women make up 51% of the U.S. population, their
exclusion or underrepresentation in clinical trials means women are forced to accept secondclass health care almost every time they receive health services. In a Huffington Post 11/9/15
report Erin Schumaker writes that although historically, research and government policies were
designed to protect women of child-bearing age from experimental risk, those policies effectively
eliminated all women from trials. When the 1993 National Institutes of Health Revitalization Act
passed, the law did not require that women be equally included in trials, nor did it require that
study results be analyzed by gender. Carolyn Mazure, Women’s Health Director at Yale, said in
a recently published article on the history of gender disparities in biomedical research that “we
moved from one extreme to the other.” Science’s rate of change in response to the genderresearch gap has been downright glacial and plagued with misinformation.
That knowledge gap can be deadly for women as demonstrated in a Journal of Circulation study
published in 2009. It analyzed 6,000 people who called 911 reporting cardiac symptoms, and
found that women had a 50% greater chance of being delayed in an emergency room setting.
A 2011 study published in Neuroscience and Behavioral Reviews analyzed sex bias in animal
research and found that bias for studying male rodents was evident in 8 of 9 biological fields.
This is important because animal studies are typically a precursor to testing in humans.
When the F.D.A. approved Addyi, a prescription drug for women with low libido last summer, it
did so with one caveat. Absolutely NO drinking while taking the drug or risk serious side effects.
There was one problem with these recommendations. The researcher who analyzed Addyi’s
drug interaction side effects tested the drug which was designed for women, on men. Since
women are both more likely to have adverse drug reactions and to metabolize alcohol differently
than men, the male results from the drug interaction study were essentially worthless.
Responding to calls for addressing gender inequity, the National Institutes of Health announced
last May that it would REQUIRE scientists to include both males and females in preclinical
research. “We now understand that sex matters in a significant way,” Dr. Janine Clayton, NIH’s
Associate Director of Research on Women’s Health, said.
BOOK RECOMMENDATION: -- UNFINISHED BUSINESS, WOMEN, MEN, WORK, FAMILY
By Anne-Marie Slaughter, New America Foundation CEO. Random House 2015
Named one of the best books of 2015 by the Washington Post & NPR, “Unfinished Business”
redefines what true equality between men and women really means. The former Princeton
Professor discards terms like “working mother” and “working father,” to be replaced by “lead
parent.” When fathers see themselves only as “helpers” in parenting, mothers continue to
shoulder the major and exhausting burdens as primary family care-givers AND full-time workers.
The Financial Times calls “Unfinished Business” a compelling read interwoven with research.
Slaughter explains why the next phase of the women’s movement will require more of men.
Lilly Gioia, Chair
BPW/PA Legislation Committee
4
______________________________
______________________________
_________________________2016
The Hon. Patrick Toomey
United States Senate
248 Russell Senate Office Bldg.
Washington, D.C. 20510
Dear Senator Toomey:
As a concerned member of the Pennsylvania Federation of Business & Professional Women,
(BPW/PA) I am asking you to co-sponsor S.2251, the S.A.V.E. Benefits Act introduced last
November to remedy the loss of 2016’s Social Security Cost-of-Living Adjustment.
Lifetimes of pay discrimination hindered generations of women from adequately saving for
retirement which is why too many frail elderly women so depend on Social Security benefits for
their very survival. Women live longer. Well into their 80’s, it is common, even for women who
have saved, to see their life-savings exhausted. Their resources are depleted by uncovered
medical expenses and skyrocketing pharmaceutical costs. The Consumer Price Index (CPI) is
a flawed model on which to calculate inflation for seniors since it does not include health care
costs incurred more frequently by the elderly. According to CNN, elderly seniors don’t benefit
as much from lower gas prices as the average American worker because most are no longer
driving.
A study by the Senior Citizen’s League found that Social Security benefits have lost about 22%
of their buying power since 2000, despite prior benefit increases that haven’t kept up with the
actual cost of living for seniors. S.2251 does not expand Social Security. It corrects a failure to
ensure that benefits keep up with the inflationary costs actually experienced by seniors whose
spending patterns are very different from those in the paid workforce. In 2009 there also was
no inflation calculated into the COLA. Congress authorized a one-time emergency payment of
$250 to assist Social Security recipients after the U.S. economy crashed. 2016 will be just the
third time since COLA’s went into effect in 1975, that recipients will not get the annual raise in
their Social Security Cost-of-Living Adjustment.
The cost of a 2016 one-time payment under S.2251 can be provided for by closing the
preferential tax treatment and loopholes that allow generous deductions for corporate CEO
bonuses. By closing the “performance pay” loophole that allows unlimited corporate tax
deductions on performance-based pay, elderly Social Security recipients would benefit. We are
aware that Pennsylvania Senator Bob Casey has already signed on as a co-sponsor of S.2251
along with 20 other co-sponsors. I trust that you will give the most serious consideration to
becoming a co-sponsor and await your response. It is my intention to inform the other members
of my local BPW organization of your position.
Yours truly,
____________________________
_____________________ B.P.W.