Too Many Women Live Paycheck to Paycheck

Too many women and their families are living paycheck to paycheck, working in low-paying jobs without benefits and with few prospects for advancement. Over 14 million adult women in the United States live in poverty, while millions more struggle at incomes just above the poverty line.

Women are more likely to be poor than men.

  • There are over 14 million adult women in the United States living under the federal poverty line, compared to 9.5 million adult men. Almost 6 million women live in extreme poverty, defined by having an income of less than half of the federal poverty level.1
  • Women are 40 percent more likely to be poor than men. One in eight women is poor, compared to about one in eleven men.2
  • Women represent 60 percent of the total number of adults in poverty,3 but only 51 percent of the total adult population.4

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Women Re-entering the Workforce Face Substantial Barriers

Despite their increasing presence in the workforce, women are more likely than men to experience interruptions in their careers. This is due largely to time spent caring for children or elderly family members. Women still face real barriers when re-entering the workforce; many return to less skilled, lower paid positions than those they left.

Women remain much more likely than men to experience career interruptions, largely due to domestic responsibilities.

  • One in four women leaves her job around the time of the birth of her first child.1
  • Among mothers with children younger than one year old, only 53.8 percent are in the labor force.2
  • Caring for an elderly relative is also often the reason for a gap in workforce involvement. Thirty four million adults (16 percent of population) provide care to adults 50+ years.3Women are more likely than men to be family caregivers. Research suggests that between 59 and 75 percent of family caregivers are women.4, 5, 6
  • For women, eldercare has a significant impact on advancement at work. One third of caregivers decrease their work hours, 29 percent pass on promotions, training or assignments, 22 percent take a leave of absence, 20 percent switch from full to part time employment, 16 percent quit and thirteen percent retire early.7

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Women in the Workforce

Women have an enormous presence in the current workforce in the U.S.

  • Women comprised 46 percent of the total U.S. labor force in 2006.1
  • In 2006, there were a record 67 million employed women in the U.S.2
  • 70 million women were labor force participants—working or looking for work—in 2006.3
  • The labor force participation rate for all women was 59.4 percent in 2006.4
  • The labor force participation rate for mothers is 70.9 percent.5
  • By race the rates are:
    • Black women 61.7%;
    • White women 59 %;
    • Asian women 58.3 %
    • Hispanic women 56.1%.6

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What Makes a Recipe Easy?

What Makes a Recipe Easy?

A recipe that is complicated is something that most people try to avoid, especially if they don’t like cooking, or are time poor.  And people who have never learned to cook but just picked it up over time often find that they don’t like all the fuss and bother of finding those extra ingredients in the supermarket, not to mention paying for them at the checkout. Whatever reason you may have for looking up easy recipes, first you have to decide what exactly it is that makes a recipe easy?

Method counts

It is not always the number of ingredients, but also the method that can make a recipe difficult to make. If you have to cook or one or two out of several ingredients separately, this is going to add more time and effort to make the thing, whatever it is. Or if you have to stir some part of it on the stove very slowly so that it does something – or doesn’t do it – such as turning brown, then this too, adds to the aggravation factor.

Common ingredients = no shopping needed

So if you can find a recipe with fewer ingredients all of which you are sure to have in the pantry – so no special shopping trip needed; and if the method of cooking is just basically mix it all up and put it in the pan, then you’ll be a very happy cook. If that is you, here is a recipe for a cake you may be interested in. It has only four ingredients that can all be tossed into a dish, mixed up and then transferred to the cake pan.

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