It’s that time of year again! The Women’s History Month Q&A of the Day. Check us out every weekday morning during Women’s History Month for a new question. The answer will be posted in the afternoon. Leave your guess in the comments section (no Googling!).
Q: Founders of what sorority participated in the Women’s Suffrage March of 1913?
A: Delta Sigma Theta Sorority Incorporated participated in the Women’s Suffrage March in Washington, D.C. on March 3, 1913.
February was always one of my favorite months growing up. Being the shortest month of the school year definitely helped, but serving as the host of some of the best holidays of the year mainly sealed the deal for me. I recall the joy of exchanging candy and cards for Valentine’s Day and the pride I felt learning about my history while celebrating Black History Month. The month of February provided me with an opportunity to showcase my knowledge of African-American trailblazers and learn more about ones I was unfamiliar with. My love for Black History Month grew because it gave me a chance to learn about people that actually looked like me. It wasn’t until about the fourth grade that I realized that almost all of the black people I learned about during my black history lessons were men.
Conflicted by my new discovery I asked my mother, “Why do we learn about the same people during Black History Month every year?” My mother, a teacher by profession, simply replied, “Well whose fault is that?” She took that moment to share with me that it was my responsibility to find what was missing in my history books. So that evening in our local public library, we embarked on a journey navigating through the halls of African-American history that featured countless influential African-Americans who aren’t celebrated on a consistent basis. This journey through black history challenged me to learn more about notable young and female African-Americans who impacted our rich history. After reading about how Ida B. Wells-Barnett refused to give up her seat on a train and consequently sued the Chesapeake & Ohio Railroad Company, I was hooked. As an Ohio native, I had previous knowledge of the railroad company and was fascinated that a black woman in the 1800s was courageous enough to sue for discrimination. Although Wells-Barnett initially won her case in local circuit courts, the railroad company appealed and the Tennessee Supreme Court reversed the ruling. Rather than being discouraged, she used that experience as a catalyst to begin a career in journalism. As soon as I read about her, I found my new role model.
Luckily, I had great women in my life and a newly found hero, but too many girls today aren’t as fortunate. Young women shouldn’t have to wait until Black History Month to learn about a woman that they can aspire to be one day. It is imperative that women of color invest in young girls through volunteering and mentoring to ensure the success of our younger generation. Use this Black History Month to begin or continue “paying it forward.” Our girls are counting on you.
Top reasons working families should claim the EITC in 2013 – and that policymakers should protect and strengthen it
Article written by the National Community Tax Coalition
The federal Earned Income Tax Credit (EITC) represented nearly $60.7 billion in help for almost 26.5 million low- and moderate-income, working households in 2012. But about one in five EITC-eligible taxpayers fails to claim the credit, missing-out on valuable assistance in covering their families’ most fundamental expenses. Below are 13 of the many reasons that families should ensure they obtain the EITC for which they qualify – reasons that also illustrate the significance of policy efforts to maintain and strengthen this crucial tax credit.
Recently, Congress voted to retain key improvements in the EITC and other key tax credits for working families, but only through 2017. Congress must continue to prioritize these credits throughout federal tax-policy discussions in 2013 and beyond. Similarly, state governors and legislators should support families’ well-being in their own, state-level policy discussions – protecting and improving such credits in states that already have adopted their own versions of the federal EITC, and creating such state credits where they do not yet exist.
It’s important to remember that the EITC:
1. Reflects hard work. The credit is available only to taxpayers who work and have earned income.
2. Helps families to cover their basics. Groceries, rent, and utility bills are common uses for families’ EITC dollars. Another frequently-cited expense: car repairs, to help family breadwinners with the transportation necessary to get to and maintain their jobs.
3. Is particularly important to households with children. The amount of the credit is greater for families who incur the added expenses of raising kids. And this EITC assistance was responsible for keeping an average of 3.1 million children out of poverty annually from 2009-2011.
4. Is typically needed for only temporary stretches of time. Families only use the credit until they can get back on their feet. Indeed, among EITC filers studied between 1989 and 2006: 42 percent claimed the credit for only one year at a time, 19 percent retained it for two straight years, and only about one in five kept the credit for five or more consecutive years.
5. Helps struggling families who already pay a significant amount in federal taxes. In fact, the poorest one-fifth of Americans paid 8.3 percent of their incomes in payroll taxes in 2009, compared with the wealthiest 1 percent of households, who paid only 2.5 percent of their incomes in payroll taxes. And among those Americans who owed no federal income taxes in 2011, about 93 percent were either workers who still owed federal payroll taxes, elderly, not working due to illness or disability, or students.
6. Helps struggling families who also pay a significant amount in state and local taxes. In 2011, the poorest one-fifth of Americans paid 12.3 percent of their incomes in state and local taxes, while the wealthiest 1 percent of households paid only 7.9 percent of their incomes in state and local taxes.
7. Lifts more families out of poverty than any other federal policy. The EITC kept an average of 6.1 million people out of poverty annually from 2009-2011, and reduced the effects of poverty for another 21.2 million people.
8. Strengthens families’ health outcomes. The EITC is associated with decreases in maternal smoking and increases in infants’ birthweights, according to research.
9. Bolsters students’ education outcomes. The EITC is associated with increases in kids’ math and reading test scores, studies show.
10. Boosts the economic strength of local communities. As families spend the money they save through the EITC, small businesses benefit. In fact, studies have shown that one EITC dollar – spent at the local level – generates as much as $1.50 to $2 in economic activity for the area.
11. Is important to rural Americans as well as those living in other areas of the country. In fact, a higher percentage of rural tax-filers claimed the EITC in 2007 than did urban filers.
12. Helps families to begin or improve upon savings. Many families strive to set-aside some of their EITC to work toward long-term goals or to brace for emergencies. One survey found that about 39 percent of households receiving the credit devoted about 15 percent of their EITC refund dollars to savings.
13. Has historically enjoyed bipartisan support. The EITC was designed during the Nixon administration, established during the Ford presidency, and improved by bipartisan majorities of Congress working with Presidents Reagan, Clinton, George W. Bush, and Obama.
Content was produced by the National Community Tax Coalition. For more information, please contact Sean Noble at 312-630-0259 or visit their website at https://tax-coalition.org/.
An election, volunteering, a new logo, historic events, and opportunities to learn more about the needs and lives of women in our community. 2012 was a very busy year at Washington Area Women’s Foundation and much of it was captured on our blog. Here are our favorite blog posts of the year:
# 10: A Lot Left Unsaid at Presidential Debate Donna Wiedeman, executive assistant to the president of the Foundation, took the presidential candidates to task after the second debate when they failed to talk about Americans living in poverty and safety nets for low-income women and children.
#9: A New Look for The Women’s Foundation In this post, Foundation President Nicky Goren shared her excitement about unveiling our new logo and tagline, “Stand Together. So She Can Stand on Her Own.”
#8: The Women’s Foundation Supporters Volunteer on the MLK Day of Service Nearly 100 volunteers joined us as we helped A Wider Circle (a Foundation Grantee Partner) prepare donated items for families in poverty on the Martin Luther King, Jr. Day of Service.
#7: International Women’s Day – Celebrating the Impact of Women on the World Our Development Associate, Juliet Boye, shared how her mother’s entrepreneurial spirit in Ghana inspires Juliet’s work at the Foundation.
#6: Low-Income Women & Their Families Can’t Afford a Gender Wage Gap In this post, Nicky shared why working to “close the gender wage gap is part of ensuring that every woman and girl has the opportunity to reach her full potential and help her family and community thrive.”
#5: Food Stamp Challenge Foundation staff and other community members took part in the Food Stamp Challenge, spending a week learning how difficult it is to live on a food stamp budget – $30 per week. They reflected on the challenge in a series of blog posts.
#4: Closing the Achievement Gap for Students Begins Before Kindergarten After being extremely disappointed to learn about new educational goals for students based on race, I wrote to encourage educators to work on closing the achievement gap early on, so students and school districts won’t have to play catch-up later on.
#3: When the Clock is Ticking, Support Networks Become Lifelines for Working Parents Vice President Jennifer Lockwood-Shabat wrote about support networks that make all the difference to moms trying to juggle work and family.
#2: Witness to Olympic History Nicky recalled fulfilling her lifelong dream of attending the Olympics and how exciting it was to witness women’s history at the 2012 Olympics in London.
#1: Walk in Their Shoes How does safe, reliable transportation impact low-income women and their families? Walk in the shoes of a single mom who showed us her shockingly long commute in this short video.
A growing number of states, including Virginia, are opting out of mandates set by the No Child Left Behind law and in the process creating new goals for students that are sparking great controversy. NPR reports that Virginia has set “new education goals that are higher for white and Asian kids than for blacks, Latinos and students with disabilities.”
According to Virginia’s board of education, the new standards are based on students’ previous test scores in reading and math. Historically, minority, disabled and impoverished students have scored lower than their white, Asian, and wealthier counterparts on standardized tests and thus will be held to a different standard. Proponents of the plan say it will give underperforming students a chance to catch up. Critics argue that the practice will lower standards for minority students and won’t narrow the achievement gap.
Efforts to close the achievement gap need to happen long before students take their first test. According to researchers at the University of Texas Health Science Center at Houston, 37 percent of children enter kindergarten without the skills necessary for learning. And once they get behind, it’s incredibly difficult for them to catch up. Research shows a correlation between quality early care and education (ECE) and high school completion. Some studies even track the benefits of ECE into adulthood.
Access to high-quality ECE for all children is an effective tool that Washington Area Women’s Foundation is using to help close the achievement gap and put our community’s youngest residents on a path to prosperity early in life. Nationwide, investments in ECE will help mitigate the need to lower the bar for some students in the future and make for a better prepared workforce in the long term.
To learn more about The Women’s Foundation’s investments, please visit our Early Care and Education Funders Collaborative pages by clicking here.