Month: June 2018

How are Women and Girls Faring in California? Check out the Women’s Well-Being Index

Are you an elected official? A social service provider or advocate? Perhaps you’re a philanthropist deciding where your donation can make the most difference.

Or maybe you’re just a run-of-the mill numbers nerd (like me).

If you’re any of the above, it’s well worth your time to dive into the data in the Women’s Well-Being Index – and check out how women and girls are faring in California.

An update of the online Index – developed by the California Budget and Policy Center in partnership with the Women’s Foundation of California – was released in a webinar this week.

CBPC’s Senior Policy Analyst Kristin Schumacher took the lead to develop the Index and accompanying issue briefs in four areas: Work Supports, Boosting Income, Building Wealth, and Safety Net.

What makes the Index particularly powerful is that it provides data for all 58 California counties, with multiple indicators for women’s health, personal safety, employment and earnings, economic security, and political empowerment.

The Index also ranks counties, and you can download county fact sheets.

For Sacramento, where I live, I learned we rank in the top 10 for only one indicator: mental health status. Just over 7 percent of women age 18 and over experienced serious psychological distress in the past year, placing us 7th out of the state’s 58 counties.

On a far less positive note, Sacramento ranked in the bottom 10 on 3 indicators: women’s commute time (52nd), hospital visits due to assault (52nd), and neighborhood safety (49th), the percentage of women who feel safe in their neighborhood all or most of their time.

Some of the Index’s statewide findings are especially alarming: In every age group, California women are more likely than men to live in poverty. And poverty is significantly greater for women who are African American (21.4%), Native American (21.3%); and Latinx (18.3%) than for women who are Asian & Pacific Islander (11.7%) or white (10.4%).

And consider these statistics for single mothers: On average, 60% of a single mom’s median income is needed to pay fair market rent, and 67.2% is needed for child care for an infant and school-age child.

Surina Khan, who directs the Women’s Foundation of California, points out that these “combined costs for housing and child care add up to more than 100% of median income in every county in California – which means there is nothing left over for other basic necessities like food, transportation and clothing. That’s why people are going into debt.”

Be sure to check out the Women’s Well-Being Index. You don’t have to be a numbers nerd to realize it’s a terrific tool for research, policy analysis and understanding more about the lives of women and girls in California.

 

 

 

 

 

 

Close the Gap’s Recruitment Strategy Works: Progressive Women Candidates Win Races

Susannah Delano, Executive Director at Close the Gap CA, had a good week – and it’s all because of the primary election results on June 5.

Her organization works to achieve gender parity in California’s State Legislature by recruiting progressive women to run for open seats, where no incumbent is running, or in purple districts, where most voters aren’t decisively red (Republican) or blue (Democratic).

Close the Gap CA targeted nine winnable districts in the primary with the goal of ensuring “at least one progressive woman was prepared to compete” in the general election.

And compete they did, with wins in eight of the nine districts:

Senate: Anna Caballero (SD 12); Melissa Hurtado (SD 14); Susan Rubio (SD 22); and Maria Elena Durazo (SD 24). Take note – all of these winning candidates are Latinas!

Assembly: Buffy Wicks (AD 15); Rebecca Bauer-Kahan (AD 16); Luz Rivas (AD 39); Tasha Boerner-Horvath (AD 76); and Elizabeth Warren (also in AD 76).

In AD 15, where Buffy Wicks was the top voter-getter, the results aren’t yet finalized: Candidate Jovanka Beckles is in a close 3rd place behind Dan Kalb. If the final vote count moves Beckles into 2nd place, the general election in AD 15 would then be another electoral contest with two progressive women, like AD 76.

As of next week, there will be:

·      10 women in the 40-member State Senate (6 Dems, 4 Reps);

·      20 women in the 80-member State Assembly (17 Dems, 3 Reps);

·      3 women of color in the State Senate (2 Asian Americans, 1 African American);

·      15 women of color in the Assembly (12 Latinas, 3 African Americans); and

·      2 LGBTQ women in the State Senate and 2 in the Assembly.

From this starting point of 23 Democratic women in both houses, Delano expects the number of Democratic women in the State Legislature to tick upwards after the general election in November, approaching 30.

“It’s already clear that 2018 has been an extraordinary year for women candidates,” said Delano. “Close the Gap CA will keep preparing women to run,” she added, “but lasting change depends on whether or not voters will continue to elect them.”

Can Sacramento Bee Add More Leaders From Front Lines to Influencer Series?

The Sacramento Bee and its sister news organizations launched their California Influencer Series on election day with a list of 60 prominent leaders and a commitment to a “long-lasting conversation between you and the leaders and influencers in our state.”

It’s a worthwhile and important effort.

The series, introduced by Lauren Gustus, the new regional editor who oversees the Sacramento Bee and four other McClatchy papers in California, is brilliantly designed to spur public debate – not to mention “clicks” to online articles that will generate ad revenues.

Take a look at the list of 60 influencers. While heavy with administrators and analyzers, it’s a thoughtful assemblage of California’s public voices.

I just wish the list could be expanded to 75 – and include more leaders who represent low-income workers and families struggling to get ahead or make ends meet.

Especially folks on the front lines fighting to secure quality child care, fix our child welfare system, expand health care, guarantee access to abortion and contraception for women of all income levels, create affordable housing, establish workplaces free from gender discrimination, and guarantee income security.

All of these issues will be front and center when Californians elect a new governor in November.

And because counties, cities and school districts deliver most of the services California residents depend upon, wouldn’t it be great if the influencer list included a sitting mayor, supervisor and school board member?

I started to make a list of folks I’d like to see added – like Jessica Bartholow from the Western Center on Law and Poverty or Noreen Farrell with Equal Rights Advocates and Stronger California, Mary Ignatius with Parent Voices, Kimberly Alvarenga with the California Domestic Workers Coalition, or Kellie Todd Griffin with the State of Black Women in California.

But I stopped, because the deliberation needed to augment the influencer list needs to match the research and review that went into its initial creation.

So how about it, Sacramento Bee: Can you add a few more influencers to the list?

California Could Elect Three Women to Statewide Constitutional Officers in November

Could three women serve in California’s statewide constitutional offices for the first time in the state’s history?

It’s possible – maybe even likely.

It will take several more days for the Secretary of State to finalize election results from the June 5 primary, but here – as of 11:38 am on June 6 – are the results that could lead to a history-making general election:

Lieutenant Governor – Two Democrats emerged as top vote-getters, with Democrat Eleni Kounalakis (23.4%) besting expected front-runner Ed Hernandez (20.8%) – setting up a fierce contest in November.

Treasurer – Democrat Fiona Ma had a strong finish with 43.2% of the vote, and will most likely defeat Republican Greg Conlon (22%) in the general election.

Controller – Incumbent Controller Betty Yee trounced her opponents with 60.9% of the vote, and should have no trouble dispensing with Republican Konstantinos Roditis (35%) in November.

According to the Center for American Women & Politics, only ten women have ever held statewide elective office in California, including two appointed to fill vacancies (see table).

While there have been many instances where two women served simultaneously in the state’s eight statewide executive offices, never before have three women served at the same time.

California voters have never elected a woman governor, insurance commissioner, or lieutenant governor, though Mona Pasquil was appointed lieutenant governor when John Garamendi vacated the position to serve in Congress.

Tracking Women Candidates at the Polls

Are you hoping 2018 will be another Year of the Political Woman? (And no doubt, you’re backing up that hope with your vote, campaign donations and maybe even a little phone banking!)

You can keep tabs on the record number of women candidates running for public office by checking the Election Watch page compiled by the Center for American Women and Politics. For decades, CAWP has been the go-to source for dependable data on women in politics at all levels of government.

Want a quick snapshot of how the nation’s 601 women candidates for Governor, House or US Senate are faring in the 2018 midterms?

Check out the Women Candidate Tracker. It’s a collaboration among Politico, CAWP and the Women in Public Service Project at The Wilson Center.