A press release from the Permanent Commission on the Status of Women (PCSW) FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE

HARTFORD – A new report released today from the Institute for Women’s Policy Research (IWPR) in Washington, D.C., shows that implementing a paid sick leave bill would actually save Connecticut businesses nearly $73 million each year.

IWPR and the Permanent Commission on the Status of Women (PCSW) are releasing the report in conjunction with Pay Equity Day because paid sick day benefits are considered a critical companion to equal pay in eliminating workplace discrimination and ensuring women’s economic security.

Calculated weekly, IWPR estimates that the cost per covered worker would be just .19 cents per hour worked (or $6.87 per week), which is minimal, considering that the benefit to employers would be $12.32 weekly, for a net savings per worker of $5.45.

According to the study, funded by the Ford Foundation and the Annie E. Casey Foundation, universal paid sick days such as those being proposed in Senate Bill 63, would mean that the cost of implementing paid sick days would be far outstripped by a large reduction in costs associated with employee turnover. The report, “Valuing Good Health in Connecticut: The Costs and Benefits of Paid Sick Days,” authored by Dr. Kevin Miller, estimates businesses would save nearly $165 million in reduced workforce turnover and the prevention of communicable diseases such as influenza. Actual costs to businesses of wages, wage-based benefits, payroll taxes and administrative expenses associated with paid sick leave would total about $92 million, leaving a net savings of $73 million.

“Women continue to be the main caregivers in their families and therefore tend to lose more work time in order to care for a sick child or elderly relative, which increases workplace insecurity,” said Teresa Younger, executive director of the PCSW, a 37-year-old, non-partisan public policy arm of the Connecticut General Assembly. “This new study is more proof that it’s in the best interest of companies to allow dedicated workers to care for their own health, and the health of their families. This report shows that abuses of paid sick leave are minimal – half of all workers currently with paid sick days do not take off any time for illness in a given year. Clearly, the majority of people who take time off when they are ill are not only preventing the spread of disease, but are also coming back to their jobs more productive and ready for work.”

“Our research has repeatedly found that the monetary benefits of implementing paid sick days policies substantially defray and even outweigh the costs of implementing such policies,” IWPR’s Kevin Miller said in recent testimony before the Labor and Public Employees Committee. The General Assembly is now considering S.B. 63: An Act Mandating Employers Provide Paid Sick Leave to Employees.

Currently, about 553,000 Connecticut workers lack paid sick days, and of those, fewer than half (257,000) would be covered by the proposed law and would receive new paid sick days under the proposed law.

Key provisions of the proposed paid sick days law (SB 63)

- Workers (both full and part-time) at businesses with 50 or more employees would accrue paid sick time up to a maximum of 5 paid sick days (40 hours) per year, usable after 120 days of employment.

- Paid sick time may be used for diagnosis or treatment of a worker’s or child’s health condition or for preventive care, or to address the effects of domestic violence, sexual assault, or stalking.

For additional information, contact:

Kevin Miller, PhD.

Senior Research Associate

Institute for Women’s Policy Research

1200 18th Street NW, Suite 301

Washington, D.C. 20036

202/785-3398

Miller@iwpr.org

Ritter made it clear that Perez’s trial is a sideshow that he would prefer to to avoid. “This has been a difficult time for the city,” Ritter said. “We have a budget to pass. We have to pass a balanced budget – that’s the priority. The trial is a distraction.” Ritter described the House passage of a deficit mitigation plan which maintains municipal aid as “positive”, but lamented the continued plight of cities such as Hartford that have to continuously look at tax increases as a means of maintaining vital services. “We have to focus on the effect on raising taxes on homeowners,” Ritter said. “I’ll be stunned if we don’t have to raise city taxes.”

Community residents, activists and legislators gathered at the State Capitol Wednesday to raise awareness about the Ban the Box bill, which would provide fair employment opportunities for formerly incarcerated individuals by deferring the criminal background check until after a conditional job offer is made by the employer. BTB has encountered resistance from lawmakers, which Ritter chalks up to misconceptions about the legislation. “Ban the Box isn’t meant to dupe employers. It’s meant to give people a real opportunity,” Ritter said. “The bill hasn’t been accurately portrayed during the legislative session.”

While the Democrats and Republicans at the Capitol and in Washington D.C. have focused on job creation for the middle class, the poor in urban and rural communities have been overlooked. Hartford leads the nation with a 33.5% poverty rate. While the national unemployment rate for whites has decreased since December, it has increased for people of color. President Obama has resisted calls from the Congressional Black Caucus to initiate targeted job creation for communities with the highest unemployment rates as a means of addressing the racial disparities in joblessness, income and net wealth between whites and blacks / Latinos. Ritter believes that a two-fold strategy is needed to address the poverty issue, which cuts across racial lines. “There is a preparation gap in Connecticut. Kids in West Hartford and Greenwich are entering kindergarten with strong literacy skills. That’s not happening in Hartford. This will be a big focus for me,” Ritter said. “Also, towns should have been given more hiring flexibility with federal stimulus dollars. Here in Hartford we were unable to hire more city workers due to a technicality regarding the employees who took early retirement. The restraints on local and state government in terms of hiring must be removed.”

Ritter believes that the state must address the lack of revenue which has contributed to the budget crisis. The poor and working class in Connecticut pay more in taxes than the wealthiest 1% of state residents, while corporations ship hundreds of millions of dollars in profits to states such as Nevada which have no income tax. “Everyone should be a good corporate citizen,” Ritter said. “We could be more responsible as citizens, legislators and corporations. Everyone should be more honest in conversations about generating revenue for the state.” Ritter supports alternative measures such as consolidating school half days while extending random school days by a hour as a means of saving the state money. “We have to get creative in terms of cutting spending,” Ritter said.

The debate over the merits of public and charter schools has reached a fever pitch. Proponents of charter schools cite underperforming city schools as justification for an alternative, while supporters of public schools point to segregation and union busting as arguments against the charter school concept. Ritter echoed the opinion of those in the urban community who believe that socioeconomic status shouldn’t determine the quality of education that their children receive. “You have to give people options,” Ritter said. “Charter schools are working. There are public school teachers who are reaching kids. The focus must be on addressing the preparation gap. It should be a fundamental right for kids to attend school at 3-4 years of age.” Ritter cited a Courant op-ed by Weslyan University freshman Corey Guilmette, which calls for the state Department of Education to include funding for a more comprehensive pre-K system in Connecticut’s second round Race to the Top application for federal education dollars. According to Guilmette’s research, pre-K programs have produced a $7 return for every $1 invested, due to a reduction in learning or behavioral problems as children become older. “I’m all about options,” Ritter said. “The momentum for charter schools is there. Pre-K is key to wiping out the achievement gap.”

While pundits such as Haar pontificate on the issue of job creation then return to their comfortable homes and full refrigerators, single mothers in Hartford are selling their food stamps in order to buy necessities like shoes for their children. The draconian state public assistance program has a term of 21 months, the shortest in the country, and doesn’t allow clients to get back on if they can’t find work or experience some type of financial hardship.

Racial disparities in income and net wealth between people of color and whites continue to widen. The Insight Center for Community Economic Development released a report on disparities in gender wealth to mark International Women’s Day. The report finds that close to 50% of all single black and Latina women have zero or negative wealth. Single women of color possess about $100 of net wealth, while white women average $ 41,000.

Urban community residents aren’t the only ones who are suffering. Qualified job applicants all over Connecticut who have gone into debt due to circumstances such as medical bills are being rejected by employers due to credit background checks. These people have been caught up in a vicious cycle of falling into debt because they can’t find a job and being unable to get hired because they’re in debt.

Representative Matthew Lesser has introduced legislation which would restrict employers from doing credit checks unless they are relevant to the position for which a person is applying. Lesser says that the strongest opposition to his bill, which appears to be a no brainer in terms of helping people get back to work, are unregulated companies who are “making a killing” off of doing credit checks.

The state tax structure continues to be a monument to injustice. The General Assembly imposed slight tax increases on Connecticut’s wealthiest residents last year. The Institute on Taxation and Economic Policy finds that 20% of non elderly taxpayers with the lowest family incomes ( $26,000 per year) pay an average of 12% of their income for state and city taxes. Connecticut’s wealthiest 1% of taxpayers only pay about half that amount – 6.5%.

It’s not just the big, bad Republicans who are protecting the rich – during the 2009 legislative session Democrat Senator Andrew McDonald called for the income threshold of taxpayers classified as wealthy to be raised above $250,000, claiming that income is considered “middle class” by many of his constituents. A real progressive income tax would bring in revenue which could be used toward balancing the state budget, prevent cuts of already underfunded social services and contribute to an economic climate which would be conducive to job creation.

It’s going to take a grassroots movement to bring about the changes that are needed to put people back to work and balance the state’s books, while bringing about economic justice. The Democrats, with a few exceptions, are acting like a watered down version of the GOP while Governor M. Jodi Rell continues her campaign to finish off people of color and vulnerable populations of all races in Connecticut.

Black and progressive leadership in the state has been demobilized by the election of President Barack Obama, while the Right continues to gain momentum as the Connecticut Tea Party organizes in a major way. Check out their website and their Facebook page if you think I’m kidding. The poor and working class in this state are in great danger of seeing their bleak existence become even worse.

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The new campaign slogan for the Permanent Commission on the Status of Women certainly gets right to the point. And if anyone is unconvinced of their assertion, then I wish you could have attended Women’s Day at the Capital on Tuesday.  Invited speakers and the public submitted testimony on Tuesday and called attention to many issues like health care, domestic violence and protection, education, employment, women in politics, and childcare.  Two high school students from the Young Women’s Leadership Program essay contest also read their winning essays which focused on breaking the cycle of domestic violence and the need for more women in leadership positions.

Women’s Day was really more just like the morning which was noted by two young women sitting behind me who discussed why there wasn’t a day full of activities.  Ironically, these two left a bit before noon but I internally hoped that was because they were heading over to Trinity College for their program on reproductive health “I had an illegal abortion: telling my story” at 12:15pm.  These women also noted the lack of diversity in the room.  True, most of the women there were white, well dressed and in 40+ age category.  There were several men in attendance.  The attorney general, a male photographer, the father of one essay contest winner, and two men who sat at the center table.  They didn’t have the appropriate name cards so I couldn’t find out who they were.  The morning must have been a bit boring for them because one left about an hour into the testimony and the other looked like he was sleeping.  After studying him for a few moments I noticed that it wasn’t because he was sleeping that he was so still, it was because he was typing on his phone…possibly updating his twitter page as a call for action on these women’s issues?

When one woman noted that the medical field has historically been dominated by females as midwives and mothers and it wasn’t until you could get paid $300k a year that men started taking over, the room erupted with laughter.  It wasn’t all jokes though, and Executive Director Teresa Younger took that very seriously.  I internally applauded Younger when she shushed two female political leaders talking during the testimony of Dr. Stefanie Chambers, which focused on the effect the recession had on women.

Younger has every right to be tense about this day.  For the second year, Governor Rell is calling for the elimination of the (Permanent) Commission on the Status of Women (which has been around for 37 years) in the state’s proposed budget.  Younger fought back last year and managed to save the commission but with a 65% cut in budget which eliminated half of the staff.  Community organizers presenting testimony also talked about the need to have the commission.  Several years ago a women’s clinic in New London faced closure due to funding. The PCSW stepped in to provide support and saved the clinic.

Enjoy this sprinkling of statistics from the morning!

- White women make .77 cents on the dollar compared to male counterparts while African American women make .70 cents and Latina women make .62 cents.

- 56% of medical bankruptcy filers are women.

- 1 in 7 women put off their annual obgyn appointment because of cost.

- Our current state childcare licenses can only care for 40% of children under the age of 5.

- Less than 4% of women serving on state commissions and boards are women of color.

- 80% of philanthropy is given by women, but only 10% of that reaches girls.

- 1 in 8 women are diagnosed with breast cancer, which is the 2^nd leading cause of death for women behind lung cancer.  The risk of getting the cancer is lower in African American women but are 35% more likely to die from the disease then white women because of financial barriers.

- Women spend 68% more on health care then men because of reproductive health.

The DSS line item funds housing and homelessness services, supports emergency shelters and transitional living programs, residences for persons living with AIDS, eviction and foreclosure prevention, rental assistance, security deposit guarantees, homelessness prevention interventions and other services. Funding for health care is on the chopping block. Adding insult to injury, the governor is also proposing to eliminate the municipal requirement to store possessions of evicted tenants. For more information visit www.cga.ct.gov and click on the February 11th date or contact the Appropriations Committee at 860-240-0390. You can also check out the HIMC site and my Facebook page.

Any interested individuals may testify by submitting oral and/or written or electronic testimony. For oral testimony, sign-up will begin at 9:00 a.m in the same room as the hearing. Oral testimony should be no longer than 3 minutes. Please refer to the Connecticut General Assembly website for testimony formats (http://www.cga.ct.gov/asp/Content/YourVoice.asp).

Please note the first hour of the hearing is reserved for invited speakers.

For written testimony, submit 25 copies on the hearing date or mail it (18-20 Trinity Street, Hartford, CT 06106) or email it to PCSW (pcsw@cga.ct.gov) by Friday, February 5, 2009.

Women’s Day at the Capitol (formerly known at Making Women Visible Day) is an educational opportunity for the public and PCSW to present testimony regarding issues that affect women in Connecticut to legislators.  The Young Women’s Leadership Program high school essay contest winners will also read their essays.