Statement: As Election Looms Unemployment Among Women Rises

AS ELECTION LOOMS UNEMPLOYMENT AMONG WOMEN RISES?
Women’s Unemployment Rate Jumps 7.5% to 7.7%

Wismer: “This economy has been anything but friendly to women. Women deserve better than an increasing — 7.7 percent  — unemployment."

(Washington, D.C.) – In the last jobs report before Tuesday's election the Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS) announced the U.S. added 171,000 jobs and the unemployment rate increased to 7.9 percent in October. While the unemployment rate shifted marginally for the overall population, it jumped up from 7.5 percent to 7.7 percent for women nationwide. An additional 160 thousand women are categorized as unemployed. 

Women consistently rank the economy as the most important issue driving them to the polls on Tuesday. 

Emily Wismer, policy analyst at the Independent Women’s Forum, said:

Women drive the economy. We tend to be the ones to pay the bills and oversee our household's consumer purchases. This economy has been anything but friendly to women. Women deserve better than and increasing — 7.7 percent — unemployment. 

Today's numbers provide a picture of what the administration's over reaching, expensive economic policies have done for the American people. Despite having four years to free up the economy the unemployment rate remains dismal — rising to 7.9 percent. 

The economy needs to add 150K jobs per month just to track with population growth.  In October, our economy added 171,000 jobs.  This isn't enough.  With only 58.8 percent of the population at work, we need a real recovery not political posturing about added jobs when it's not even enough to accommodate new graduates and others entering or re-entering the work force.

Consumers, employees, and businesses are smothered from weighty regulations and fear of a fiscal crisis. The administration has increased the federal debt by 52 percent and left many regulatory decisions undecided until it's "safe" following the election.

Independent Women's Forum is a non-partisan, 501(c)(3) research and educational institution dedicated to expanding the conservative coalition, both by increasing the number of women who understand and value the benefits of limited government, personal liberty, and free markets, and by countering those who seek to ever expand government in the name of protecting women.