The Working Poor

The topic that I am picking to do my Policy Brief on is the working poor. I find this topic to be very interesting. I watched a video in another class about how a family still needed to go to a food pantry, even when both parents are working. There are many families that are facing the same problems and I would like to know more about the policies that are in place to help this specific population of people.

The gender gap

The issue that I choose to look at is the gender gap in pay in America. The article that I read, "The gender gap in pay: Both real and overstated", was written by Mike Meyers, from a very interesting viewpoint. The author talked about how the gender gap is often blow out of proportion to make a point. The actually pay gap between men and women it much smaller that what it is sometimes made out to be. Meyers thinks that because the gap is made to be seen like an insurmountable problem, that no one tries to fix it because everyone believes that it would take too long, too much money, or too much work. Since the gap is actually much smaller that most think, Meyers comes up with a few suggestions on how it can be fixed like, increasing minimum wage, not allowing pay secrecy any more, "invest in early education and child care", pass legislation that would allow women to have more sick days to take care of sick children.

At first I thought the author's views were slightly sexist, but after reading the article I think that he make great points on how to actually overcome this gap.

http://www.startribune.com/the-gender-gap-in-pay-both-real-and-overstated/304011721/