A new Century Foundation poll shows that while both men and women are struggling in Trump’s economy, women—especially young women—are bearing the brunt of rising costs, growing debt and dwindling faith in the American Dream.
Economy
Around the world, women’s labor is undervalued and exploited. These are stories about national and global economies through the eyes of feminists.
Why Big Business Is Trying to Defeat the ERA: The Economic Implications of Equality (May 1976)
On Nov. 7, 1975—more than half a year ago as you read this—the voters of New York and New Jersey defeated amendments to their state constitutions which said that men and women should be treated equally before the law. It was one of those old-fashioned political events that the rise of the pollster is supposed to have leeched from our body politic—namely, a surprise. It set off a period both of private introspection on the part of individual women who had previously taken ratification of the federal Equal Rights Amendment for granted, and public reconsideration on the part of the organizations and politicians to whom stewardship of the ratification movement had fallen.
Listen to the latest episode of Looking Back, Moving Forward, “The Feminist Fight For The Equal Rights Amendment Is Far From Over—and More Urgent Than Ever (with Pat Spearman, Ellie Smeal, Carol Moseley Braun, Kathy Spillar, and Ting Ting Cheng)” on Spotify, Apple Podcasts or wherever you get your podcasts.
From Alligator Alcatraz to National Guard Patrols: What Is the Cost of the Trump Administration’s Cruelty?
Reserve forces of the U.S. Army, 800 National Guardsmen, and for some reason, 120 FBI agents, are being newly assigned by El Presidente to patrol our national capital—citing crime as his motive, though it’s dropped by a third in recent (Biden) years. He’s already done this in Los Angeles for the last 60 days and predicts other cities are on his list: Baltimore, Chicago, Oakland, New York City—all places that just happen to vote blue.
Early on, the Pentagon testified it would spend about $134 million for the LA deployment, which sounds like a low-ball figure to anyone who’s recently shopped for groceries to feed 5,000 hungry young men three meals a day. And now, California’s governor is asking for the total cost to taxpayers of this “unlawful” deployment—because whether it’s political theater or not, we’re the ones footing the bill.
How Rising Prices and Policy Cuts Are Squeezing Moms and Families
Articles on tariffs, the labor market, and economic growth or decline often neglect to report how these policies are affecting real people’s ability to keep a roof over their head or put food on the table for their families each night.
When U.S. companies face higher costs for importing goods, those costs get passed directly to consumers, which means everyday goods—from diapers to carrots—become more expensive. Women, in particular, shoulder the brunt of these increased costs.
When we make sure moms and babies have what they need to thrive, we’re not just addressing today’s crises … we’re building tomorrow’s prosperity.
‘Care Is Baked Into a Healthy, Functioning Economy’: Economists Lenore Palladino and Rakeen Mabud on How to Advance Economic Justice
The experts and Ms. contributors assessed the state of the U.S. care crisis and women’s economic inequality in the latest episode of the Ms. podcast Looking Back, Moving Forward—and broke down why investing in women and care workers is good policy.
Rakeen Mabud: “We’re at a really pivotal moment and a really complicated moment. We have conservative, pronatalist voices, with more institutional power than they have ever had, at least in modern times. They are advancing an agenda of deep progressive patriarchy, whiteness—and wealth, frankly, is the third prong of that. And they are co-opting progressive policy ideas to do it.”
Lenore Palladino: “There are schools, and there are childcare centers, and there are hospitals being shut down right now. Investing in those would be a really important way to move this whole conversation forward. … Within economic policy, there’s such bifurcation. There’s tax policy over here. There’s care over here. It’s still a women’s issue.”
“Economics is still seen as a man’s game. Women actually make most financial decisions in households, but men are the ones who are seen as the experts, and our financial system is shaped around their life cycles.”
Listen to the latest episode of Looking Back, Moving Forward, “Women Can’t Afford to Wait for a Feminist Economic Future (with Premilla Nadasen, Rakeen Mabud and Lenore Palladino, Aisha Nyandoro, Gaylynn Burroughs, and Dolores Huerta)” on Spotify, Apple Podcasts or wherever you get your podcasts.
‘It Was Never Mine’: August, Autonomy and the America We’re Losing
Welcome, August! When my kids were young, I used to refer to it as the juiciest month of the year, loving its bloated days, all sunshine and sweat.
In 2025, I have to admit this month is yet another joy I am doing my best not to let the relentless news-and-doom cycle ruin. Curating a round-up of breaking headlines about gender and democracy is surely not for the faint of heart or spirit.
I’ll be doing all I can to channel Taylor Swift (Trump only wishes he could) and trying to salvage August so that it is “sipped away like a bottle of wine.”
From Dobbs to Bitcoin: The Economy of Control
We now have a president enriching himself with cryptocurrency, so I have to wonder: Why and how did our real dollar’s value go down by 10 percent during the first six months of Trump’s term—and yet our mainstream media is not screaming at us, like the Body Snatcher’s guy: “You fools! You’re in danger! They’re after all of us!”
Today’s economic absurdities reveal just how far power will go to silence women and automate thought.
Why Dolores Huerta Is Hopeful About the Fight for a Feminist Future: ‘We’re Going to Be Able to Overcome’
Dolores Huerta has spent 70 years at the frontlines of the intertwined fights for economic justice and women’s rights. Huerta has pioneered campaigns to expand political representation for women and people of color; advance policies that improve the lives of women, LGBTQ+ folks, farmworkers, communities of color, and the poor; and spark dialogue around the intersectional fight for economic justice, and the ways it is intertwined with our democracy.
“This is a very, very scary time—and god knows it’s a time for women to rise up!” Huerta told Ms.
Listen to the latest episode of Looking Back, Moving Forward, “Women Can’t Afford to Wait for a Feminist Economic Future (with Premilla Nadasen, Rakeen Mabud and Lenore Palladino, Aisha Nyandoro, Gaylynn Burroughs, and Dolores Huerta)” on Spotify, Apple Podcasts or wherever you get your podcasts.
Poverty Is a Policy Choice—and Women Deserve More
In the third episode of the Ms. Studios podcast Looking Back, Moving Forward, economists and advocates break down how our economy is leaving women behind and lay out strategies for advancing a feminist economic future.
“Poverty is the result of systems that have been intentionally put in place that the majority of us benefit from,” said Aisha Nyandoro, founding CEO of Springboard to Opportunities, home to the Magnolia Mother’s Trust guaranteed income program.
“So much of the conversation among economists and among policy people about infrastructure has always been about male-dominated infrastructure,” Lenore Palladino said. “We cannot rebuild our economy or build back better, as it were, with male-dominated sectors and not female-dominated sectors.”
“We have to continually ask: In whose interests are we fighting? Who will benefit from the work that I’m doing right now? Who should we put at the center of our organizing campaigns?” said Premilla Nadasen, labor and women’s historian.
The newest Ms. podcast, Looking Back, Moving Forward is out now on Spotify, Apple Podcasts or wherever you get your podcasts.
How Trump Gave America License to Roll Back Women’s Equality—And How We Take it Back
For decades before Trump’s political rise, we fought for women’s equality, advancing one hard-won victory at a time. Reproductive freedom. Economic independence. Workplace equity. Protection from harassment and violence.
In 2022, fewer than 30 percent of Republican men believed women should return to traditional roles. By 2024, that number jumped to 48 percent.
This isn’t just political polarization. This is a fundamental rejection of women’s equality fueled by a sitting president intent on rolling back women’s progress.
Trump’s presidency has unleashed a cultural and political backlash that threatens generations of progress toward women’s equality—demanding a bold, collective response.
Every woman and man who believes in equality can fight back.