After ginning up a debt crisis, political leaders have built the budgetary equivalent of a Rube Goldberg machine. The debt ceiling has been raised at the political price of $900 billion in spending cuts over the next 10 years. And a 12-member joint congressional committee must recommend another $1.5 trillion in cuts by Thanksgiving, meaning […]
Author: Susan F. Feiner
Susan Feiner is a professor of economics and of women and gender studies at the University of Southern Maine. She writes frequently for Women's Enews.
Balancing the Budget on the Backs of Women
Watch out, women. Lock the doors and pull the shades. Congress, using the debt ceiling crisis manufactured by Tea Party radicals, has declared war on American women. If you think Tea Party misogyny is limited to restricting reproductive choice, think again. The looming possibility of the first-ever U.S. government default—a “crisis” that was deliberately created […]
A Feminist Economist Speaks Out: Deficits are a Grrrl’s Best Friend
Listen up, sisters! Deficit hawks will eat your lunch, your kids, your jobs and your retirement. An economy without a deficit is like a fish without water. Reducing the U.S. federal deficit will make unemployment and poverty worse–way worse. And that means that women’s economic condition will deteriorate even further. Today’s deficit hawks (and way […]
GOP State Legislators Want to Weaken Child Labor Laws
It’s Equal Pay Day, a time to review the reasons why so many hard-working women find themselves chronically running short on cash. Women need to work 15 weeks into 2011 to earn what men earned in 2010. Think about all that work: 40 hours multiplied by 15 weeks. That’s 600 hours. On top of that […]