Fact Sheet

Fast Facts: Economic Security for Wisconsin Families

The right policies can go a long way toward helping all Wisconsin women gain economic security.

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The right policies can go a long way toward helping all Wisconsin women gain economic security. (AP/Carrie Antlfinger)
The right policies can go a long way toward helping all Wisconsin women gain economic security. (AP/Carrie Antlfinger)

For a more recent version of this fact sheet, see:State Fact Sheets: Economic Security for Women and Families” by the Women’s Initiative

In Wisconsin and across the United States, we need policies that promote economic security for women and families. Working families need higher livable wages, women need and deserve equal pay for equal work, and parents need to be able to maintain good jobs that allow them to work and raise their children simultaneously. Strong economic security policies will enable Wisconsin’s women and families to get ahead—not just get by.

For most Wisconsinites, the days of the stay-at-home mom are history: Mothers are the primary or co-breadwinners in 69.2 percent of Wisconsin families. This is not surprising since most women in the state work—nearly 8 in 10 of Wisconsin women are in the labor force. To promote women’s economic security, Wisconsin’s policies should address the needs of working mothers and reflect the roles that women are playing to provide for their families. Here are seven areas in which policymakers and advocates can help women bolster their families’ economic security.

Provide access to paid sick days

Everyone gets sick, but not everyone is afforded the time to get better. Many women go to work sick or leave their sick children at home alone because they fear that they will be fired for missing work. Allowing employees to earn paid sick days helps keep families, communities, and the economy healthy.

  • About 40 million U.S. employees, or 40 percent of the nation’s private-sector workforce, do not have access to paid sick days. In Wisconsin, the rate is even higher: 45.5 percent of private-sector workers, or more than 1 million people, do not have paid sick days.
  • If employees must stay home from work because they or their children are ill, the loss of pay can take a serious toll—particularly on low-income workers, who are the least likely to have access to paid sick leave.

Expand paid family and medical leave

Access to paid family and medical leave would allow workers to be with their newborn children during the crucial first stages of a child’s life, to care for an aging parent or spouse, or to recover from their own illness.

  • The United States is the only developed country that does not guarantee access to paid maternity leave and one of only three developed countries that do not offer broader family and medical leave insurance. Only 13 percent of workers in the United States have access to paid family leave through their employers.
  • The National Partnership for Women & Families gave Wisconsin a grade of “C” for its policies that help parents of newborn children. While Wisconsin offers private-sector workers and state employees broader access to leave than under federal law, the state provides less generous amounts of time off than the federal Family and Medical Leave Act.

Ensure equal pay

Although federal law prohibits unequal pay for equal work, there is more to do to ensure that both women and men enjoy the fullest protections against discrimination across Wisconsin.

  • Women are the primary, sole, or co-breadwinners in nearly two-thirds of U.S. families but continue to earn less than their male counterparts. Latinas and African American women experience the sharpest pay disparities.
  • Wisconsin women earn just 78.3 cents for every dollar that Wisconsin men earn. The wage gap is even larger for black women and Latinas in Wisconsin, who respectively earn 61.3 cents and 53 cents for every dollar that white men earn.

Expand quality, affordable child care

Families need child care to be able to work, but many families lack access to high-quality child care options. Parents want and need child care that supports young children’s development and adequately prepares them for school.

  • Seventy-three percent of Wisconsin children younger than age 6 have all available parents in the workforce, which makes access to affordable, high-quality child care a necessity.
  • For a Wisconsin family with one infant and one 4-year-old, child care costs an average of $21,348 per year, or almost one-third of the median income for a Wisconsin family with children.
  • Under the Center for American Progress’ High Quality Child Care Tax Credit, families in Wisconsin would, on average, save $8,142 annually compared with current child care costs. CAP’s proposal would also create a financial incentive for child care providers to improve their quality, therefore expanding access to high-quality child care programs for Wisconsin families.

Increase the minimum wage

Women make up a disproportionate share of low-wage workers, and raising the minimum wage would help hardworking women across Wisconsin better support their families.

  • Women make up nearly two-thirds of all minimum wage workers in the United States.
  • Increasing the minimum wage to $12 per hour would boost wages for 392,000 women in Wisconsin and nearly 20 million women nationally. Almost 60 percent of the workers in Wisconsin who would be affected by raising the minimum wage to $12 are women.

Guarantee access to quality health care

Women need comprehensive reproductive health services—including access to abortion care—in order to thrive as breadwinners, caregivers, and employees.

  • In 2013, 631,430 Wisconsin women were in need of publicly supported family planning services and supplies.
  • Because federal Title X funding—which covers contraception, pregnancy testing, and cancer screenings—has not kept up with inflation and often faces the threat of cuts at the federal level, Wisconsin should step in and ensure that women have access to quality family planning resources.

Promote women’s political leadership

Across the United States, women are dramatically underrepresented in political office: They make up 51 percent of the population but only 29 percent of elected officials.

  • Women make up 51 percent of Wisconsin’s population but only 25 percent of its elected officials.
  • Women of color make up 9 percent of the state’s population but only 3 percent of its officeholders.

Ryan Erickson is the Associate Director of Economic Campaigns at the Center for American Progress. Danielle Corley is a Research Assistant for Women’s Economic Policy at the Center.

The positions of American Progress, and our policy experts, are independent, and the findings and conclusions presented are those of American Progress alone. A full list of supporters is available here. American Progress would like to acknowledge the many generous supporters who make our work possible.

Authors

Ryan Erickson

Associate Director, Economic Campaigns

Danielle Corley

Research Associate, Women\'s Economic Policy

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