Check out the latest tech, labor, and economic analysis below from IWF’s Center for Economic Opportunity.

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On June 26th, Carrie Sheffield, senior policy analyst at Independent Women’s Forum, provided expert testimony:

Prior to my current role, I founded Bold TV, which I ran from 2015 until 2019. Bold TV is a digital news media network featuring newsmakers across politics, business, and lifestyle news.

At Bold TV, we utilized tools from Facebook Live, Instagram, Twitter, Amazon Fire, Apple News, YouTube, and other tech and content distribution partners to grow our audience.

Ad exchanges are the lifeblood of small businesses, both for selling their content and promoting their content to external audiences. Reputational damage to small digital media competitors through reliance on biased rating systems can be a death knell for small businesses.

[watch | read her full testimony]

On June 27th, Inez Feltscher Stepman, senior policy and legal analyst at Independent Women’s Forum and Independent Women’s Law Center, will provide expert testimony before the House Oversight Committee. In a full committee hearing to discuss Title VII employment issues and oversight of the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission (EEOC).

Instead of upholding a system in which all employees, regardless of their race, sex, or other characteristics irrelevant to work performance, are judged on their merit, talent, qualifications, grit, intelligence, or any other of the myriad qualities that make a good hire, too often Title VII in practice as it exists today not only fails to do so, it does the opposite.

[watch | read her full testimony]

New Approaches to Work for Women in a Pressing Economy
To sustain the lifestyles sought, many women need jobs that support their pace and schedules as wives, moms, and young professionals. [keep reading]

This Juneteenth Let’s Stop Govt’s Heavy, Stifling Hand
Instead of promising more welfare to spur government dependency, policymakers should cut taxes to encourage entrepreneurial risk-taking, or professional advancement as people earn higher incomes. [keep reading]

An acute housing shortage due to the underbuilding of homes for decades is driving up shelter costs. The economy is short between 1.5 million and 5.5 million houses. 

Policies that help increase the number of accessory dwelling units are tested, bipartisan solutions to address this challenge. ADUs are defined as living units that are built on the same lot as single-family homes and boast a kitchen, bathroom and sleeping space. Think of guest houses, English basements, or mother-in-law suites.

ADUs commonly facilitate multigenerational living by housing aging parents who are being cared for by adult children, as well as young adults seeking more independence close to home.

[keep reading]

“The fact that we have to spend so much on the food we put on the table, the gs we put on the gas tank, the shelter we put over our head … the price that Americans are having to pay for the essentials is making it to where they can’t spend on things they want to spend on…” 

– Former Dallas Fed adviser Danielle DiMartino Booth weighed in on the state of the economy

Patrice Onwuka
Director, Center for Economic Opportunity
Independent Women’s Forum