In honor of Women’s History Month, we’re not only celebrating women’s past accomplishments — we’re looking at ways in which we can make the future better for women and girls right here in our own community.  We’re exploring what we can all do to help women and girls achieve more, go further and have a brighter future.

Throughout the month and beyond, we’ll be highlighting findings from our new report 2010 Portrait of Women & Girls in the Washington Metropolitan Area in a wide variety of areas. Portrait Project 2010 gives a clear and current look at the lives of women and girls across the region and it is divided by subject matter.

For women in our community, the surest path to economic security is a job with family-sustaining wages, benefits and opportunities for career progression.  But not every woman has access to these critical elements, and Portrait Project 2010 takes a look at why this is the case – and how to improve the situation – in two sections titled: “Education, Training, Employment, and Earnings” and “Work Supports.”

An Overview of Education, Training, Employment & Earnings

A look at the gaps:

In the first section, the statistics about education and wages really highlight the divide in region.  Women in the DC area have much higher than average education levels: half of all women have bachelor’s or graduate degree compared to 27 percent of women in the U.S. overall. Women in the region also have higher labor force participation rates (68 percent) than the national average (60 percent). And 72 percent of Latinas and 71 percent of black women are in the labor force, compare to 66 percent of white and Asian women.

Additionally, the median annual earnings for women working full-time in our area are $51,338 – significantly higher than the national median of $35,471.

Despite those strengths, 27 percent of the women in the region only have a high school diploma or less.  And Latinas and African American women are especially likely to have low educational attainment: 57 percent of Latinas and 39 percent of African American women have a high school degree or less.

And there are wage gaps that are dictated not only by gender, but by ethnicity, too. The median annual earning for white men in the region is $83,299.  For white women, it’s $60,779.  African American women who are employed full time make 45 percent less than white men ($46,138), while Latinas make 63 percent less than white men ($30,831).

Starting With Stronger Foundations:

According to Portrait Project 2010: “education is crucial to women’s economic success, with higher levels of education consistently leading to higher earnings.”

Starting early with a strong educational foundation is critical and research shows that quality early care and education can provide children with skills that will help them improve their chances of completing high school.  The benefits of a good educational foundation early on are particularly profound for low-income children.

Nationwide, community colleges are playing a significant role in helping adults gain skills and credentials to improve their career and earning prospects.  This is particularly true for women who make up the majority of community college students.

Portrait Project 2010 suggests educating policymakers, opinion leaders and funders about the unique education, training and employment needs of women and girls to ensure that they are well-prepared for lifelong learning and economic success.

The report also notes that it is likely that, in the future, more jobs will require post secondary education or training beyond high school; it recommends that we work to determine which industries and occupations are likely to grow in the futures so as to determine the best ways to prepare women for those positions.

Work Supports Can Help Level the Playing Field

Having a job with good wages and the opportunity for mobility isn’t enough.  In spite of a major shift in womens’ work patterns, women continue to shoulder the majority of childcare, eldercare and household responsibilities, leading to substantial stress.  Work supports can help women better balance work and family.  “This is especially important for low-income mothers who typically face steep work-related costs,” according to Portrait Project 2010.

Subsidized child care, paid sick leave, assistance with transportation costs and public assistance can help women get jobs and keep them.

Portrait Project 2010 found that the average annual cost of full-time, center-based infant care in DC is 52 percent of the median annual income of a single mother.  The cost is more than one-third of the average annual income of a single mother in Maryland and Virginia.  In spite of those high costs, federal cutbacks led to significant reduction in the number of subsidized child care slots in our region.

Although it is women who handle most of the child care in our country, women receive less sick and vacation leave in comparison with men.  Nationwide, 47 percent of women lack paid sick days.  And low-wage workers – most of whom are women – are the least likely to have paid sick days.

Portrait Project 2010 also points to the Temporary Assistance for Needy Families (TANF) program as one way to provide support for low-income families.  “States can use TANF to provide financial support for services needed by low-income families to enter the workforce and stay employed.  For example, states can choose to finance child care both through direct TANF expenditures and by transferring TANF funds to CCDBG [Child Care & Development Block Grants],” according to the report.

For more details, you can read Portrait Project 2010 online by clicking here.

On March 2nd, Washington Area Women’s Foundation and five Grantee Partners discussed financial literacy and education for women and girls with members of the White House Council on Women and Girls.

The meeting was the second of three listening sessions The Women’s Foundation is convening with the White House Council on Women and Girls.  The meetings are an opportunity for local nonprofits to inform administration staff about the needs of low-income women and girls in the region, highlight work being done to improve the lives of this population, and discuss how federal policies are being implemented. The Women’s Foundation was asked to organize the meetings after releasing a new report, 2010 Portrait of Women & Girls in the Washington Metropolitan Area (Portrait Project 2010).

Portrait Project 2010 provides a clear and current look at the lives of women and girls in the District of Columbia, Montgomery County, MD, Prince George’s County, MD and northern Virginia and in coming years will serve as a critical tool locally and beyond for policymakers, community‐based organizations and funders.

“In our region, more than 177,000 women and girls are living in poverty,” said Nicky Goren, president of Washington Area Women’s Foundation. “Giving them access to resources that improve their financial literacy and education means that we’re giving them the tools they need to move towards long-term economic security and self-sufficiency.”

The meeting coincided with the unveiling of the Obama Administration report, “Women in America: Indicators of Social and Economic Well-Being,” which was released at the beginning of Women’s History Month.

At Wednesday’s meeting, The Women’s Foundation was joined by representatives from five Grantee Partners – nonprofit organizations that have received funding from the Foundation.  The represented organizations were CASA de Maryland, Capital Area Asset Builders, Community Tax Aid, Doorways for Women and Families, and Manna, Inc.

All five nonprofits have identified ways to address the needs of the population that faces the greatest number of barriers to economic security: female-headed families.

Representatives from Capital Area Asset Builders discussed their matched savings accounts that help low-income families move towards self-sufficiency and long-term prosperity.  Because the program matches funds that students save, the students are more likely to go to college and break the cycle of generational poverty.

A representative from CASA de Maryland discussed the organization’s financial literacy efforts with immigrant workers at their workers center.

The Earned Income Tax Credit was discussed by representatives from Community Tax Aid, who outlined the challenges low-income families face while trying to access credits available to them.

Two representatives from Doorways for Women and Families discussed the benefits of creating a financial literacy model aimed specifically at women who are fleeing domestic violence situations.

And the challenges faced by would-be home buyers were discussed by representatives from Manna, Inc.

In honor of Women’s History Month, we’re not only celebrating women’s past accomplishments — we’re looking at ways in which we can make the future better for women and girls right here in our own community.  We’re exploring what we can all do to help women and girls achieve more, go further and have a brighter future.

Throughout the month and beyond, we’ll be highlighting findings from our new report 2010 Portrait of Women & Girls in the Washington Metropolitan Area in a wide variety of areas.  Portrait Project 2010 gives a clear and current look at the lives of women and girls across the region and it is divided by subject matter.  Today we’re focusing on health.

Our concentration on health coincides with National Women and Girls HIV/AIDS Awareness Day, which is on Thursday.  It’s critical that individuals, organizations and the community as a whole focus on HIV/AIDS solutions in our community.  According to Portrait Project 2010, the AIDS case rate for women in D.C. is nearly 12 times the national rate for women (90 cases per 100,000).  The AIDS case rate for African American women in the District is 176 cases per 100,000 women.  And 118 out of every 100,000 teens (both male and female) aged 13 to 19 are living with AIDS, nearly all of them African American.  According to Portrait Project 2010: “the District of Columbia Department of Health has called the HIV/AIDS rate among African American youth an ‘epidemic.’”

Portrait Project 2010 also reports that Chlamydia rates for women in D.C. are more than twice as high as the rates in Maryland and Virginia and almost three times as high as the national rate.  Similar differences exist for Gonorrhea.

The report also found that local heart disease rates are similar in our region to the national rate of 3.4 percent.  A large disparity does exist, however when it comes to race.  In the District, the percentage of African American women with heart disease (4.1 percent) is almost six times that of white women (0.7 percent).  Latinas are also considerably more likely to have heart disease (2.0 percent) than white women.

More than one in four women in our area is obese, reports Portrait Project 2010, and obesity is more prevalent among women of color in our region.  More than one in three African American women in our area is obese.  Latinas are also at significant risk for obesity.  And the percentage of children who are overweight in Virginia has been on the rise in recent years.

Our region has cancer mortality rates for women that are close to the national cancer mortality rate (158 per 100,000).  Maryland has the highest cancer death rate for women in the region, with 166 deaths per 100,000.  Virginia has the lowest with 160 deaths per 100,000.

Finally, the report shows that Washington, DC has had the highest teen pregnancy and birth rates in the nation.  In our region, Latinas are the most likely to have babies as teens.

In spite of the challenges, Portrait Project 2010 shows that our region has high rates of health insurance coverage for women: about nine out of 10 women in the region is covered (compared to eight in 10 nationwide).  The report also shows that nearly all girls aged 17 and younger in the region have insurance.

But the rates of health insurance also show a theme that is repeated throughout Portrait Project 2010: a gap in access to resources that doesn’t bridge the poverty line.  Income, race and ethnicity play a major role in whether or not women are insured.  “Women with incomes below the poverty line are much less likely to be insured (77 percent), in comparison with women who have incomes above 200 percent of the poverty line (93 percent).  Women of color are also at a disadvantage… Latinas have the lowest levels of health insurance in our region in Prince George’s County, fewer than seven in 10 are covered.”

Tomorrow we’ll take a look at some of The Women’s Foundation’s Grantee Partners that are helping women and girls lead healthier lives.

To read more from Portrait Project 2010, please click here.

Caduceus photo credit: CogDogBlog via Creative Commons.

Yesterday I shared findings from our new report, Portrait Project 2010, that focused on the housing challenges face by female-headed families in our community.  Portrait Project 2010 showed us that this family type is the most likely to live an unaffordable and over-crowded housing, particularly in Montgomery and Fairfax Counties, respectively.  The report also showed that while homelessness has remained steady throughout the region, it has dropped significantly in Prince George’s County.

In addition to data and anecdotal evidence, Portrait Project 2010 also includes recommendations for what policymakers and individuals can do right now to help alleviate the barriers to economic security faced by women and girls.  The recommendations for housing include:

Policies and Strategies to Strengthen Our Communities

• Create a region that invests in affordable housing for all families.
• Educate policymakers, opinion leaders and funders about the role of affordable housing in fostering economic security for women, especially female-headed families.
• Encourage the region’s governments to work together, along with community-based programs, to increase the availability of affordable housing for families ad different income levels, particularly vulnerable female-headed families with children.
• Empower women and girls to understand their financial options and advocate for affordable housing.
• Enhance awareness of the effect of the current foreclosure crisis on the economic security and stability of female-headed families, and support efforts to assist households that have been negatively affected by the crisis.

What You Can Do Now

• Advocate with policymakers so they support and sustain affordable housing for all, including first-time home buyer programs (particularly those with a financial education component), rental housing and rental and utility assistance that prevents homelessness, and transit-oriented development.
• Become a philanthropist who invests in programs that prevent homelessness and expand housing options for all families.
• Inquire about housing policies in your own community, including how foreclosures are affecting women and girls.

For more information and to read more from Portrait Project 2010, please click here.

In honor of Women’s History Month, we’re not only celebrating women’s past accomplishments — we’re looking at ways in which we can make the future better for women and girls right here in our own community.  We’re exploring what we can all do to help women and girls achieve more, go further and have a brighter future.

Throughout the month and beyond, we’ll be highlighting findings from our new report 2010 Portrait of Women & Girls in the Washington Metropolitan Area in a wide variety of areas.  Portrait Project 2010 gives a clear and current look at the lives of women and girls across the region and it is divided by subject matter.  This week we’re focusing on housing.

Portrait Project 2010’s housing chapter focuses on what was lurking beneath the housing boom in our region eight years ago.  Subprime lending during that time tended to be “concentrated in neighborhoods with lower home prices, particularly those with larger shares of African American and Latino households.  The collateral damage from the ensuing foreclosures now threatens to undermine many of these communities.”

There’s a segment in Portrait Project 2010 dedicated to overcrowding.  The report found that “female-headed families with children are almost twice as likely to have inadequate living space as households overall, with 4.3 percent of such families living in overcrowded housing….”  Fairfax County has the highest rate of women-headed families with children living in overcrowded housing.

The report also addresses the lack of affordable housing in our region – a prominent issue.  “Over one-third of all households in the region pay more than 30 percent of their monthly income on housing costs…. 16 percent of households in the region pay more than half of their monthly income on housing, a level that HUD deems as ‘severely unaffordable.’”

62 percent of female-headed households with families in the region have unaffordable housing costs. 68 percent of this family type in Montgomery County live in housing that costs more than 30 percent of their monthly income and 39 percent live in housing that costs more than half their income.

Portrait Project 2010 also explores homelessness.  The research found that while the size of the homeless population across the region overall has remained steady in recent years, the number of homeless families in the District has increased 37 percent since 2008.  Meanwhile, Prince George’s County has seen the largest drop in homelessness overall.  The homeless population there has dropped by a third since 2008.

Now that we know the issues, what can we – as a community – to do help?  Tomorrow, we’ll explore policy and strategy suggestions for ways we can create more affordable housing opportunities and prevent future foreclosure crises.  We’ll also take a look at the ways in which The Women’s Foundation and its Grantee Partners are helping women achieve their home ownership dreams.

Click here to read more of Portrait Project 2010.

A new report from The Women’s Foundation takes a detailed look at women, poverty and economic security.

This week, the U.S. Census Bureau released new numbers showing that the recession has raised the national poverty rate to a 15-year high. According to the Census Bureau, 4 million additional Americans were living in poverty last year, bringing the national total to 44 million. That means that one in seven Americans is poor.  And the poverty rate for women was four points higher than that of men.

As always, The Women’s Foundation is keeping an eye on the big picture, while at the same time focusing our attention and resources on the women and girls of our region.  For more than a year now, The Foundation has been working with a number of partners to determine both the needs and strengths of this community, and we’re excited to report that our groundbreaking study will be released to the public soon.

Next month, Washington Area Women’s Foundation will be unveiling 2010 Portrait of Women & Girls in the Washington Metropolitan Area.  This landmark report will take a comprehensive look at the lives of women and girls in the Washington metropolitan area and guide The Women’s Foundation’s future grantmaking.  Portrait Project 2010, as we call it, will contain new information about income, education, housing, health and and safety, and philanthropy and leadership in our community.

Portrait Project 2010 will be unveiled to the public on October 14^th at The Women’s Foundation’s 12^th annual Leadership Luncheon and Community Briefing. Between now and then, we will be releasing some of the most compelling facts from the report.  Visit our blog frequently for new information.  We’ll also have updates on Facebook, Twitter (using #PortraitProject) and LinkedIn, so be sure to join us there, too.

Today’s fact from Portrait Project 2010 is about women and poverty.  While these numbers are separate from the recent Census Bureau statistics, they are just as startling and even more critical to the residents of our community.  In our region, 160,551 women and girls live below the poverty line.  There are more than 22,000 women-headed families with children living below the poverty line, making this the family type with the highest poverty rate. And the poverty rate in the District is much higher than in the surrounding region.  Even within D.C., there’s a gap in the poverty rate across the board. For example, the poverty rate in Ward 3 is estimated at six percent, while Wards 7 and 8 are estimated at 27 percent.

These are among the reasons why The Women’s Foundation focuses its grantmaking on improving the economic security of low-income, women-headed families with children.  And it’s why Portrait Project 2010 will have recommendations for what we can do right now to improve the outcomes for these families.