Women's eNews (https://womensenews.org/author/susan-feiner/)
There are two big reasons to hope Janet Yellen zooms through her confirmation process. For one, she’ll be the first woman to lead the U.S. Federal Reserve. For another, she’s likely to help Americans reduce their consumer debts and gain jobs.
A few weeks back Susan Feiner spoke at a conference in Valladolid, Spain, to counter this week’s micro-credit summit there. Austerity programs like those proposed for Europe, she says, are women’s real nemesis, not the lack of tiny, high-priced loans.
An out-of-the way village in India has attracted an after-school field-hockey program run by a female player from Germany. At first the parents thought it was just for boys. But after a while that changed.
As the U.S. waits to hear the particulars of Obama’s latest jobs initiative tonight, Susan Feiner points out the importance of women’s re-employment after almost a million cuts to the female-dominant public-sector work force.
Susan Feiner calls GOP lawmakers’ craze to turn federally funded programs over to states through “block grant” payments a block-headed approach to cost control that will do great harm to women.
The GOP budget proposal for 2012 moves the federal food stamp program to state control. That recklessly puts 44 million Americans and a disproportionate number of women at risk. It’s wrong and costly to boot.
It’s Equal Pay Day, a time to remember those 600 extra hours that women work each year to catch up with male wages. For female teens exploitation at work is advancing, as GOP lawmakers in several states try to relax child labor laws.
Right smack dab in the middle of Women’s History Month we’ve been treated to the spectacle of Wisconsin’s new GOP Gov. Scott Walker taking apart public-sector workers’ bargaining rights and women’s labor gains in the process.
After U.S. senators declined to debate the Paycheck Fairness Act in November, Ann Michaud commended them for doing so in a Newsday opinion piece. Susan Feiner tackles Michaud’s arguments, starting with her analysis of the wage-gap figure.
Obama’s discussion of the economy on CNBC last week included what Susan Feiner sees as an alarming reference to Social Security as an “entitlement.” In fact, it’s a self-funded jobs insurance program that women can’t afford to lose.