Obama's 'New Deal' Won't Help Women As Much - Building Gender Balanced Business

• With most economists expecting stimulus spending from Barack Obama to concentrate on pumping money into the economy and creating and safeguarding existing jobs, how will women fare? Not well, argues Page S. Gardner, president of Women’s Voices. Women Vote, a national nonpartisan organisation that promotes civic participation by unmarried women.

• The 53 million single, separated, divorced and widowed women in the US won’t benefit, she argues, from an economic stimulus concentrated on rebuilding the nation’s physical infrastructure and jobs that mostly employ men.

• Gardner says money should also go to services (and jobs) that repair the US social infrastructure.

• “By helping state and local governments to avert layoffs and hire more teachers, school aides, childcare workers, homecare workers, and public librarians, an economic stimulus package could improve public services at a time of increased needs, while generating jobs that are likely to be filled by women, including those who support themselves and their children on their own.”

The Page Gardner column