In today’s rundown: Helping low-income residents file taxes and claim their credits. | A new report on the working conditions of local restaurant workers. | The changing income and ethnicity of Washington. | Raising awareness about the right to breastfeed in public.
— The D.C. Earned Income Tax Credit Campaign kicked off today. The mission: to encourage low-income District residents to “file their taxes and claim their credits for free at 11 sites in the city,” reports The Washington Post. The campaign is managed by Capital Area Asset Builders, a Women’s Foundation Grantee Partner.
— If you eat out today you certainly won’t be alone: Valentine’s Day is typically the busiest day of the year for the restaurant industry. And that’s why Restaurant Opportunities Centers United – DC (a Women’s Foundation Grantee Partner) has released a report detailing the working conditions of restaurant employees. Among the info in the report: the minimum wage for tipped workers is $2.13 per hour; paid sick days and access to health insurance are also limited. Click here for more details.
— A job market that is creating high-paid, high-skilled positions is changing the face of Washington, D.C. reports NBC Washington, citing information from the Brookings Institution. There’s an increase in the number of households with incomes of $75,000 or higher, while the city lost a nearly equal number of households with incomes under $50,000. There’s also an ethnic change in the city: the city’s proportion of black residents has gone down while the proportion of white residents grew.
— A weekend demonstration at the Hirshhorn Museum raised awareness about a mother’s federally-protected right to breastfeed in public, reports The Washington Post. The demonstration was organized after a Smithsonian guard told a woman to stop nursing on a bench and g0 into a restroom.