money I UNEMPLOYMENT Jobs for Men


The economic recovery is still primarily benefiting male workers. Here’s how the U.S. can do better.


By Martha Burk “U


NEMPLOYMENT RATE EDGED down … Job growth was wide- spread.”


That was the leading message from


the latest U.S. Bureau of Labor Sta- tistics (BLS) Employment Situation Summary. For the second month in a row, employment rose by a substan- tial chunk and unemployment de- creased to 3.8 percent—down from 4 percent the previous month. The agency summarized the good news this way: “Growth was … led by gains in leisure and hospitality, professional and business services, health care, and construction.” Women workers have suffered the


most in the COVID-19 job market crash beginning in February 2020, and the situation has been especially dire across the leisure and hospitality sector, where women—more than a third of them women of color—held 54 percent of the jobs. So this is great news for women, right? Not so fast. A few paragraphs


down, the BLS news turned from sunny to sour. While the unemploy- ment rates for adult men declined in February, adult women’s jobless rates changed very little or not at all over the course of that month. Despite the fact that women comprise a majority of the workforce in a sector that’s seen the most growth (leisure and hospital- ity), the lion’s share of the jobs added in January (66 percent) and February (61 percent) went to men. And the “little or no change” in un-


employment for women didn’t apply to all women. While the statistic for the entire female population basically stayed even with the month before, Black women lost ground. Their un-


42 | SPRING 2022


employment rate increased from Janu- ary’s 5.8 percent to 6.1 percent come February. Nearly a third had been out of work six months or longer. By the start of 2022, men had al-


ready recouped their pandemic job losses. In fact, according to The 19th, by February 2022 approximately half a million more men were working than before the pandemic began. Meanwhile, about 1.1 million women are still missing from the labor force. It’s been clear from the start of the


pandemic that women, most notably women of color, lost far more jobs than men. Lack of childcare has been a primary reason. When day care and schools shut


down, it’s usually a straight-up eco- nomic calculation in a two-earner family for the lower earner (guess who?) to quit and take care of the kids. In a single-parent household (headed predominately by women of color) there are even fewer options. Fortunately there is some good


news for women in the labor market generally. Wages are ticking up, par- ticularly in women-dominated low- wage employment. This year, 26 U.S. states and Washington, D.C., will raise their minimum wages, but only California (for businesses with more than 26 employees), Washington, D.C., and parts of New York will mandate hourly pay of at least $15. The private sector is ahead of the


government in raising wages that will primarily benefit women workers. Last year marked the first time that the average wage for workers at su- permarkets and restaurants surpassed the $15 benchmark. T-Mobile is pay- ing its 75,000-person workforce at


least $20 per hour. Bank of America has pledged to pay hourly workers $25 per hour by 2025, and Target made headlines in early March by of- fering workers in certain markets starting wages of $24 per hour. Higher wages are, of course, wel-


come news. But as the pandemic (hopefully) recedes and jobs come back, we need to look deeper and think longer term about fixes for women that won’t disappear when the next superbug comes along. Here’s a partial list from the Cen-


ter for American Progress in Wash- ington, D.C.: • Create a solid care infrastructure, including universal preschool and affordable childcare, paid medical and family leave, and increased funding for long-term care services.


• Mandate fair wages by eliminating the tipped minimum wage, raising the federal minimum to $15 per hour and barring the use of salary history in setting pay.


• Enforce and improve laws against discrimination, harassment and retaliation—important not only to women but also to LGBTQ+ peo- ple and those with disabilities.


• Expand employment protections for part-time workers, independent contractors and temporary workers. Our country can and must do bet-


ter by the majority of our citizens— women and kids. Until that happens, we will continue to fall behind the rest of the developed world and, more important, miss a once-in-a- century opportunity to better the lives of all.


n MARTHA BURK is Money editor at Ms. www.feminist.org


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