Inequality and Stratification Commons^™

Gaining Ground On Equal Pay: Empowering Boston's Women Through Salary Negotiation Workshops, A Report On Year One Of Aauw Work Smart In Boston, Jecynta Azong, Ann Bookman, Christa Kelleher

Publications from the Center for Women in Politics and Public Policy

This report is a case study, not an evaluation. Its focus is on a particular program, AAUW Work Smart in Boston, over a defined period of time (September 2015 – October 2016) in order to understand the program’s impact on the women who participated in it. This report explores several key questions: In what ways do AAUW Work Smart in Boston workshops have an impact on the women who complete them? What are the main barriers that prevent women from addressing their compensation level and/or achieving pay equity? What are primary factors that facilitate women’s capacity to achieve successful salary …

Lessons From Lived Experience: From Fresh Insights To Effective Action, Lisa Deangelis, Maureen A. Scully, Andrea Wight

Emerging Leaders Program Team Projects

The 34 fellows in the 2014 Emerging Leaders Program worked with community partners to generate the theme, “Learning from Lived Experience: From fresh insights to effective action." Each year, the projects draw upon a theme or lesson from the prior year. Last year and this year, fellows saw how the lived experiences of both their stakeholders and themselves generated nuanced and appropriate approaches to problem-solving. The fellows worked with six community partners, giving their time and professional skills to understand how to frame complex social challenges, engage new partners and resources, and sharpen strategic plans. They conducted surveys, interviews, open …

Low Wage Earners And Low Wage Jobs In Greater Boston, Anneta Argyres, Brandynn Holgate, Susan Moir

Susan Moir

Anybody who has ever been employed can readily list the qualities of a good job. Some are easily identified factors, such as good wages, health benefits, paid sick and vacation time, and a pension plan. Others are harder to measure, such as job security, reasonable workloads, flexible work schedules, workplace safety and health, or being treated with respect. In either case, it’s clear that job quality is something to which every working person pays attention. We should also be concerned about job quality as a society. A society that is characterized by jobs with family sustaining wages and benefits will …

Why Not A Dollar?, Evelyn Murphy

New England Journal of Public Policy

Statisticians point out that women do not yet have quite as many years’ experience in the workforce as men have. It’s true that for the generation that began working in the 1960s, fewer women than men have a steady forty or fifty years of on-the-job experience. So maybe there should be a gap of a few pennies (at most!) to reflect that slight disadvantage. But not 23 cents’ worth! Social scientists hedge their conclusions about what causes that broad gap with disclaimers. They acknowledge that biases exist in their measurements. They admit that they cannot say for sure that differences …

Rethinking Retirement Policy In Massachusetts, Ellen A. Bruce

New England Journal of Public Policy

Women are significantly poorer than men in old age. One major cause of women’s disproportional poverty is retirement income policy that bases pensions and savings incentives on earned income. This paper describes the structure of our retirement policies and argues that some policies should be implemented that are not associated with earned income as a way to both support women’s caregiving roles and insure their economic well-being in old age.

Growing Disparities Among Greater Boston Communities During The 1990s, David Terkla

Economics Faculty Publication Series

During the 1990s, rich communities in the Greater Boston area got richer, and the richest made gains that were proportionally greater than the gains made by those communities only slightly less rich. At the same time, the poorest communities stayed poor, and in fact became more poor in comparison with communities slightly less poor. This dynamic is even more striking when the ten poorest communities are compared and contrasted with the ten wealthiest communities. Census figures show a rapidly expanding differential between the communities of the Greater Boston area. As a commonwealth, we should be considering policies designed to ameliorate …

Closing The Growth And Equity Policy Divide: Rethinking The Role Of The Federal Government When Promoting Economic Development In Distressed Urban Communities, Edwin Melendez

Gastón Institute Publications

The objectives of this policy briefing memorandum are two-fold: first, to review the historical record concerning economic growth policies, particularly those overseen by the Economic Development Administration (EDA), and the experience with block grants for urban economic development; and, second, to discuss new roles the federal government might play in promoting the convergence of these two broad policy areas.

Latinos And Labor: Challenges And Opportunities, Andrés Torres

New England Journal of Public Policy

The growing presence of Latino workers in the Massachusetts labor force presents opportunities as well as challenges for the labor movement. An overview of occupational, industrial, and unionization patterns helps to describe the potential for Hispanic contribution to renewed union strength in the region. But revitalizing the house of labor in the twenty-first century requires an innovative interplay of workplace and community strategies. As labor comes to terms with its multiracial/multicultural constituency, the relationship between class and race/ethnicity is being revisited, as is the very definition of "labor movement."

Myths And Realities Of Puerto Rican Poverty, Edwin Melendez

Trotter Review

The following remarks were made as the closing keynote address at the conference, "Mainland Puerto Ricans: Myths and Realities on Poverty," held at Yale University in New Haven, Connecticut, on October 22 and 23, 1993.

There are two "stories" frequently cited to explain the causes of the poverty among Puerto Ricans: the first suggests that Puerto Ricans are poor because they are going through a transition as they move toward full assimilation; the second proposes that Puerto Ricans are becoming part of an urban "underclass." Neither of these explanations stands the test of reality.

Race, Economic Development, And The Role Of Transportation And Training, Joan Wallace-Benjamin

Trotter Review

As Massachusetts confronts its economic future and develops strategic plans for seizing competitive advantages, accessibility promised by proposed development plans for the transportation infrastructure must not only provide commuters with the means to get to work, but also increase the opportunity for participation in the economy for all citizens of the region. Changes in the transportation infrastructure will not ensure accessibility unless workers receive adequate training for the new types of jobs being offered. According to a recent report issued by the Joint Center for Political and Economic Studies, authored by William P. O'Hare, "Black people who live in urbanized …

Providing Quality Leadership In Roxbury: A Profile Of Leon T. Nelson, Harold Horton

Trotter Review

Poor leadership is often the cause for the inept functioning and eventual collapse of an organization or agency. This is because the leader sets the tone and to a great extent determines whether or not an organization will be viable. Leon T. Nelson, president of the Greater Roxbury Chamber of Commerce, has done his utmost to live up to the organization's motto, "Quod facis bene fac," which means doing whatever you do as well as you possibly can.

In a community that underwent drastic demographic changes during the 1970s and 1980s, when numerous businesses led the "white flight" to suburbia, …

The Role Of Black Political Leadership In Economic Development, Curtis Stokes

Trotter Review

One of the most striking things about the United States is the degree to which racial inequality remains a pervasive fact of life. Indeed, since the end of the 1960s the black-white gap in life chances (for example, jobs and income) has worsened for large segments of the black community. To persistently face high unemployment and declining income is especially troublesome in a capitalist economy like that in the United States, where goods and services are rationed by a harsh market and where there is, at best, a very modest social safety net. The United Nation's Human Development Report 1993, …

On The Decomposition Of Wage Differentials, Jeremiah Cotton

Economics Faculty Publication Series

The often used method for decomposing wage differentials into human capital and discrimination components is reformulated so that both the disadvantage, or "cost," discrimination imposes on a black or minority wage earner and the advantage, or "benefit," it bestows on a white or majority wage earner can be estimated.