/economy

The Lifelong Effects Of The Gender Wage Gap | ThinkProgress
▻http://thinkprogress.org/economy/2015/09/03/3698300/gender-retirement-gap

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When men and women’s incomes and retirement savings are stacked up against their projected health care costs and life expectancies, women are much farther behind men. At the same time, women will end up needing to make their money stretch further.

A new report from Financial Finesse found that both genders won’t have enough to replace at least 70 percent of their income in retirement. But 45-year-old men today who will retire at age 65 will fall $212,256 short, while women will be behind by $268,404.

The analysis looked at median incomes, deferral rates, retirement savings, life expectancy, and projected healthcare costs to determine how much the median 45-year-old man and woman would need to save in order to replace 70 percent of their income in retirement. “While both the median man and woman face a significant shortfall, the median woman has a lower lifetime income, has saved less, and yet faces higher overall retirement and healthcare costs due to a longer life expectancy,” it notes.

Thanks to the gender wage gap, men make a median income of $45,292 compared to women’s $37,388. That makes it easier to save for retirement, both because a given percentage of a man’s paycheck that gets put away in an account will be higher than a woman’s, and also because men have more financial cushion to use for savings. Men’s median retirement savings, then, is $63,875, while women’s is $43,446.

But women end up living longer and spending more on their health care. If they both retire at age 65, the average man can expect to live another 19.3 years, but a woman will live for another 21.6. And in that time, a man will spend a projected $275,035 on health care while a woman will spend $294,975.

Add it all up, and women will face a shortfall that is 26 percent bigger than men’s.

A big factor is a longstanding problem for women of all ages: the gender wage gap. Women who work full-time, year-round make 78 percent of what men make, and the gap is far larger for women of color. That means women will make an estimated $530,000 less over their lifetimes. Then they end up getting smaller Social Security checks based off of their smaller payroll contributions. And while men and women participate in retirement plans at the same rate and women even save more of their salaries, since those salaries are lower they end up with less money in their accounts.

Their lower earnings also lead to financial stress that can demote retirement savings on women’s list of financial priorities. While both genders rate it as the number one concern, women are much more likely to follow that up with prioritizing managing their cash flow and getting out of debt.

The gap in retirement savings, coupled with women’s longer lifetimes, puts them in a very tough financial situation in their golden years. Women over the age of 65 have a poverty rate of 11.6 percent, compared to men’s rate of 6.8 percent, and they make up more than two-thirds of all the elderly poor. And the number of elderly women living in extreme poverty has been climbing recently. That leaves them exposed to scams, foreclosure, and other serious financial trouble.

Beyond potential solutions for closing the gender wage gap over women’s lifetimes, there have also been proposals to expand Social Security so that it offers more of a cushion in old age. And some have discussed including Social Security credits for caregivers who have to take time out of the workforce to care for a family member, such as children or elderly parents, and miss out on payroll contributions. Those who take that kind of time off are overwhelmingly women.

#genre #vieillesse #femmes #femme

The Jobs Added In Today’s Economy Pay A Quarter Less Than The Ones We Lost In The Recession | ThinkProgress
▻http://thinkprogress.org/economy/2014/08/12/3470463/jobs-recovery-pay-less

The jobs that have been added to the economy during the recovery pay 23 percent less, on average, than those that were lost in the recession, according to a report from The U.S. Conference of Mayors (USCM).

A Quarter Of Americans Go To Work When Sick No Matter What
▻http://thinkprogress.org/economy/2014/02/20/3312661/quarter-workers-sick/#

It’s not necessarily that they prefer to be at work; many of the reasons they give are economic. Nearly 40 percent of workers say they go to work sick because they can’t afford to miss a day. Another quarter say they have to show up because their boss expects them to come in no matter what.

Coworkers also recognize these barriers to taking a day off: about 60 percent think sick colleagues who come in just can’t afford to miss a day of work, while only 16 percent think they come to work because they don’t care about the health of their colleagues.

The data are unfortunately unsurprising in a country that doesn’t guarantee that all workers can take a paid day when they or their loved ones get sick. The United States is the only country out of 22 developed peers that doesn’t have policies that make sure workers can take paid leave for illness. That leaves 40 percent of all private sector workers, and 80 percent of those in low paying jobs, without access to paid time off for sicknesses.

21 things Republicans have demanded in exchange for not shutting down the government:
▻http://thinkprogress.org/economy/2013/09/30/2699221/21-things-republicans-demanded-shutdown-default #shutdown #USA
Those are the policy issues deemed critical by the Republicans. Who votes for these guys ?

How Booting 5 Million Off Of Food Stamps Would Cost More Than It Saves
▻http://thinkprogress.org/economy/2013/07/31/2390101/5-million-kicked-off-food-stamps

Food stamp cuts proposed by Republicans could boot over 5 million people off of the program and create health problems that would cost the country more than the cuts save, according to a new analysis by the Health Impact Project.

If Congress cuts $20.5 billion from the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP), as the initial House farm bill would have done, “as many as 5.1 million people could lose eligibility for the program,” the report found. The vast majority of those affected – 83 percent – already live below the poverty line. On average, losing SNAP benefits would slice the group’s incomes by 38 percent.

Further weakening an already vulnerable population would increase disease rates and thereby raise the country’s health care costs. Building off of previous research that found children who receive food stamps become healthier adults than low-income kids who grow up without food aid, the report predicts a $15 billion increase over 10 years in health care costs related just to diabetes. The cuts would also increase the incidence of heart disease, asthma, and various mental health problems, making it very likely that the SNAP cuts would cost more than they save.

The report adds to the pile of evidence that cutting food stamps would do more harm than good. The program generates economic returns far greater than its costs, producing around $1.70 in economic activity for every dollar it spends. That makes it one of the most efficient ways to stimulate economic activity through government programs.

’U.S.’ Chamber Of Commerce Is Fueled By Foreign Oil | ThinkProgress
▻http://thinkprogress.org/economy/2010/10/23/126082/chamber-foreign-oil

The United States Chamber of Commerce is running an unprecedented $75 million campaign to unseat progressives from Congress, in defense of a big-oil agenda. As a ThinkProgress investigation has learned Chamber’s donors — who send their checks to the same account from which the political campaign is run — include multinational oil corporations, and even oil companies owned by the Kingdom of Bahrain. The oil-fueled Chamber has hammered candidates who voted to limit our dependence on oil, falsely claiming they supported a “job-killing energy tax” (like Rep. Paul Hodes (D-NH), Rep Joe Sestak (D-PA), Rep. Betsy Markey (D-CO), Rep. Alan Grayson (D-FL), and Rep. Harry Teague (D-NM)).

The U.S. Collects Less In Taxes Than All But Two Industrialized Countries | ThinkProgress
▻http://thinkprogress.org/economy/2013/04/08/1834981/the-us-collects-less-in-taxes-than-all-but-two-industrialized-countries/?mobile=nc

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Mitt Romney’s Biggest Donors Are Wall Street Bankers | ThinkProgress
►http://thinkprogress.org/economy/2011/07/21/274921/mitt-romney-biggest-donors-wall-street

On the campaign trail, former Massachusetts Gov. Mitt Romney (R) has rarely missed an opportunity to lambast President Obama’s handling of the economy. The centerpiece of his argument is that Obama has fostered uncertainty among business leaders, and no place has that uncertainty had a greater impact, Romney argues, than in the financial sector. The passage of the Dodd-Frank Act, the financial regulatory overhaul that passed a year ago today, has become Romney’s number one enemy.

And while Romney blasts Dodd-Frank on the trail, the law’s major opponents — Wall Street bankers — are filling up his campaign coffers, the Washington Post reported today:

The largest corporate sources of money for Romney are mostly finance industry leaders, including Morgan Stanley and Bank of America. Goldman Sachs employees have given nearly a quarter of a million dollars in contributions. [...]

Nearly three-quarters of Romney’s money came from donors giving the maximum $2,500 contribution, and one in eight of Romney’s donors live in New York City and its suburbs.