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BUILDING a PROSPEROUS MAINE: a Roadmap to Economic Security for Women and Their Families

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BUILDING a PROSPEROUS MAINE: a Roadmap to Economic Security for Women and Their Families BUILDING A PROSPEROUS MAINE: A Roadmap to Economic Security for Women and Their Families LEARN • SHARE • LEAD This project would not have been possible without the generous support of: Elmina B. Sewall Foundation Family Values @ Work John T. Gorman Foundation Maine Community Foundation Maine Women’s Fund PRBB Foundation Sam L. Cohen Foundation The Betterment Fund The Bingham Program We also appreciate the organizations and individuals who provided assistance with the content of this book, as well as the individuals who shared their stories: A Better Balance, especially Dina Bakst and Elizabeth Gedmark Cheyenne Donovan Family Values @ Work, especially Ellen Bravo Heidi Hart Mabel Wadsworth Women’s Health Center, especially Ruth Lockhart Maine Children’s Alliance, especially Claire Berkowitz and Rita Furlow Maine Center for Economic Policy, especially Jody Harris and Garrett Martin Maine Equal Justice Partners, especially Chris Hastedt and Robyn Merrill Maine Family Planning, especially Kate Brogan Maine Head Start Directors, especially Rick McCarthy Maine Housing Authority, especially Denise Lord Louise Marsden Vivian Mikhail National Partnership for Women and Families New Ventures Maine, especially Gilda Nardone Danielle Papsis Planned Parenthood of Northern New England, especially Nicole Clegg Preble Street 2 Maine Women’s Policy Center LEARN • SHARE • LEAD Dear Reader, Maine Women’s Policy Center Board of Directors The Maine Women’s Policy Center has worked to improve the social, political, and Gillian Schair, Chair economic status of women and girls in Maine since 1990. For 28 years, we have Lauren Sterling, Vice Chair Erin Cinelli, Treasurer conducted the research to identify the issues that women face and the policy solutions Elizabeth Riotte, Secretary Lauren Jacobs that can make life better for them and their families. Concurrently, we have taught both Michelle Lamb women and girls how public policy affects their lives, and how to play an active and Lisa Miller Pat Ryan effective role in making good laws, rules and spending decisions. Maine Women’s Lobby We focus in four areas: freedom from violence, freedom from discrimination, access Board of Directors Gillian Schair, Chair to health care, and economic security. Economic security—money—is the overarching Leah Coplon, Vice Chair issue that affects all others. Whether a woman has money, and what she has to do to get Erin Cinelli, Treasurer Elizabeth Riotte, Secretary it, determines her health, her ability to escape a violent relationship, her ability to chart Andrea Berry her own future, her children’s prospects. Deborah M. Burd Lucia Chomeau Hunt Elizabeth Mahoney We know that when women thrive, society thrives. Yet in 2018, too many Maine women Destie Hohman Sprague Malory Otteson Shaughnessy are struggling to make ends meet and too many children are living in poverty, with Sally Struever consequences for all of us. Kristina Yurko Advisory Council It doesn’t have to be this way, and that’s why we have published Building a Prosperous Karin Anderson Maine: A Roadmap to Economic Security for Maine Women and Their Families. Here you Danielle Conway Stephanie Cotsirilos will find an overview of the issues that shape a woman’s ability to support herself and her Joanne D’Arcangelo Kathleen Fleury family, along with specific solutions that we can implement to build pathways toward Ellen Golden prosperity and build a strong middle class. Karen Heck Mary Herman Fatuma Hussein Ideas are only as valuable as the actions that follow. Our sister organization, the Maine Andrea Irwin Women’s Lobby, will work to make these policy recommendations a reality. I ask you to Judy Kahrl Cathy Lee join us in working to make Maine prosperous by ensuring that we make policy choices Gilda Nardone that invest in the health and well-being of our residents, in the future of our children and Catherine York Powers Jean Principe the dignity of our seniors. Sharon Rosen Betsy Clemens Saltonstall Together we can build a Maine that we are proud to call home and where our children Rebekah Smith Carol Wishcamper and grandchildren can prosper. Staff Eliza Townsend Executive Director Whitney Parrish Sincerely, Director of Policy and Program Kathy Durgin-Leighton Director of Development Jennifer Sorkin Community Organizer & Program Assistant Margaret Clark Eliza Townsend, Executive Director Executive Assistant Fall 2018 3 INTRODUCTION When women thrive, Maine’s economy and society thrive. Building pathways to prosperity for all Maine women and their families must be a priority for our policy makers at both the state and federal levels. Sadly, too many women are living in poverty or struggling to avoid it. 13% of Maine women fall below the poverty line.1 Nearly 20% of Maine children under the age of 5 are living in poverty. 49% of those children are living in households headed by a single woman.2 It doesn’t have to be this way. All too often, women and children live in poverty because of public policies that put education, health care, and housing out of reach for far too many people, and because work doesn’t pay enough to support family. That’s why the Maine Women’s Policy Center has produced Building a Prosperous Maine: A Roadmap to Economic Security for Women and Their Families. This book is a blueprint our leaders can use to make economic security for Maine women – and for all Maine people – a true reality. While there is no single solution, we can build a strong middle class by: Bringing our workplace policies into the 21st century; Meeting basic needs like food security and housing; Ensuring that our children get a strong educational foundation and adults have the tools they need to support themselves; and Making sure all Maine people have access to a full range of health care services. This multi-strategy approach to building a stronger economy will ensure a strong economic future for all Maine people. Accomplishing that goal will require the work and cooperation of all of us – political leaders, foundations and other funders, opinion leaders, the media, Maine citizens. We have included in this roadmap recommendations for action at the federal level, but we Mainers must not wait for Congress to act. We can build that Maine where we want to live, where we can thrive with our families and that we can proudly leave to our children. There’s not a moment to lose. ENDNOTES 1. Talk Poverty (2017). Working-Age Women Policy. Retrieved on March 8, 2018 from https://talkpoverty.org/ indicator/listing/women_poverty/2017 2. United States Census Bureau, American Fact Finder. (2017). Community Facts. Retrieved on March 8, 2018 from https://factfinder.census.gov/faces/nav/jsf/pages/community_facts.xhtml?src=bkmk 4 Maine Women’s Policy Center MINIMUM WAGE Nationally, women make up nearly two-thirds of minimum wage workers in the United States, and the minimum wage falls short of what it takes to live above the poverty line. Women work two-thirds of jobs that rely on tipping as well.1 How much a woman earns affects every aspect of her life. A worker earning minimum wage struggles to meet her basic needs and the needs of her family. Earning a livable wage has an effect on a woman’s ability to provide for her family and save for her future retirement. The minimum wage affects people of all ages, not solely younger people in the workforce. Raising the minimum wage and adjusting it annually to inflation is a common sense solution for workers and our nation’s economy. THE LANDSCAPE Currently 2 Maine’s minimum wage (excluding Portland) is $10.00 per hour. This is scheduled to increase one dollar a year until 2020, when the minimum wage will be $12.00. Thereafter, the minimum wage will be indexed. A full-time worker earning Maine’s minimum wage will earn $20,800 per year before taxes, which is only twenty dollars above the poverty line for a family of three.3 4 Portland’s minimum wage is $10.90 effective July 1, 2018. A full-time worker earning Portland’s minimum wage will earn $21,800, which is just barely above the federal poverty level for a family of three in 2018. Maine’s minimum wage for tipped employees is $5.00, and is scheduled to stay at 50% of the regular minimum wage through increases.5 The current federal minimum wage is $7.25 per hour, and has not increased since July 2009.6 A full-time worker earning the federal minimum wage will earn $15,080 in a year before taxes, falling $5,700 below the federal poverty level for a family of three. When adjusted for inflation, the Maine minimum wage of $1.25 in 1966 would be $9.74 in 2018. If the federal minimum wage had kept pace with the cost of living over the last fifty years, it would be more than $10.90. Who is Affected? 7 In Maine, more than 6 in 10 minimum wage workers are women. These workers will reap an economic benefit both from the increase in wages as well as the larger economic stimulus that will result from more money flowing into the economy. 57% percent of women working minimum wage jobs do not have a spouse’s income to supplement their own.8 80% of Maine workers who would be impacted by raising the minimum wage are over 20 years old.9 Fall 2018 5 RECOMMENDATIONS FOR MAINE ACTION The Tipped Eliminate the tipped minimum wage. Minimum Wage Maine should join the 7 other states (Alaska, California, Montana, Minnesota Nevada, Oregon, Washington) that have no tipped minimum wage, meaning all workers earn at least the minimum wage.10 The tipped minimum wage is the minimum wage earned by workers who receive income from tips.12 RECOMMENDATION FOR FEDERAL ACTION Enact the Raise the Wage Act Federal laws state that if a worker Introduced in 2017, the bill would raise the federal minimum wage to $9.25 per makes more than $30 in tips/ hour beginning on the date of enactment, and raise the federal minimum wage to month, the tipped minimum wage $15.00 per hour over a 7-year period.
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