The Obama campaign shows some moxie in an important arena:
Voice: Today many women work to help support their families but are paid just 77 cents to the dollar a man makes.
It’s one more thing John McCain doesn’t get about our economy. He opposed a law to guarantee women equal pay for equal work, calling it too great a burden on business.
McCain explains away the wage gap, saying women just need more education and training. A burden on business? How about the burden on our families? |
Sam Stein at the Politico reported earlier today that this is just the beginning of a concerted effort to nail McCain on the equal pay issue:
In addition, the Obama campaign on Monday rolled out the endorsements of "hundreds of national women leaders in fields ranging from business to women's rights, from astronauts to athletes, from former governors to cabinet secretaries." The list includes Stacey Snider, Chairman of DreamWorks, Linda Chavez-Thompson, Executive Vice President Emerita, AFL-CIO, and Olympic gold-medalist Dominique Dawes.
Speaking on the phone with many of these individuals, Obama implored them to start reaching out on their own to help recruit female support. "Don't wait for our call," he said. "I need you to talk to your colleagues get on the radio, write op-eds in the newspapers, talk about what is really at stake in this election."
While equal pay for equal work ought to be a no-brainer, there's a related issue:
When the unemployment rate for women went from 4.6 percent in July to 5.3 percent in August, it was the largest one-month spike in the jobless rate for women in more than 33 years.
Black women were hit even harder, as their unemployment rate jumped 21 percent, from 7.5 percent in July to 9.1 percent in August.
Among single mothers and women with families, unemployment climbed to 9.6 percent in August — the highest level in 15 years.
By themselves, the figures provide only a one-month snapshot of labor-market activity and may be merely an aberration in the business cycle. But the increases are a reminder of the 2001 recession, which was the first in decades to see men and women lose jobs on an almost equal basis.
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The Overnight News Digest is posted and includes the McClatchy story, Wall Street crisis is culmination of 28 years of deregulation.