Res. No. 1281
Resolution calling upon President George W. Bush and the U.S. House of Representatives to support the amendment co-sponsored by Senator Hillary Clinton and passed unanimously in the U.S. Senate, to ensure that the Bureau of Labor Statistics collects data on women workers in the Current Employment Statistics Survey (CESS).
By Council Members Clarke, Boyland, Brewer, Comrie, Fidler, Gerson, James, Liu, McMahon, Nelson, Recchia Jr., Stewart, Weprin and Jackson
Whereas, Despite progress toward a narrowing of the wage gap, women still earn approximately 76 cents for every dollar that men earn in comparable jobs; and
Whereas, According to the Government Accountability Office, this gap in earnings has not changed significantly over the last 20 years; and
Whereas, Disparities in the earnings of women and men depress wages of working families and undermine women’s retirement security; and
Whereas, The Current Employment Statistics Survey (CESS) collects data from households and individuals based on the payroll of more than 300,000 businesses, and until August of 2005, included the Women Worker Series, which comprised specific information regarding women workers; and
Whereas, Data from the CESS Women Worker Series was utilized for a recent report by the Center for Economic and Policy Research, entitled “Gender Bias in the Current Economic Recovery? Declining Employment Rates for Women in the 21st Century”, which found that unlike during previous economic recoveries, there has been a sustained decline in the employment to population ratio among women between the ages of 25-54, and that women lost a disproportionate share of jobs in certain sectors, indicating that women have been hit very hard by employment losses; and
Whereas, The Bureau of Labor Statistics decided to stop collecting data specific to women workers in the CESS, despite the fact that such data has been instrumental in efforts to gauge and analyze the wage gap between genders, as well as to formulate policies to curtail this gap; and
Whereas, This critical information on women workers is not collected in any other survey, and without such statistics researchers cannot obtain a complete and accurate picture of the economic status of women in the country; and
Whereas, According to Senator Clinton, “ensuring equal pay for equal work is a complex problem and we need data like this to help understand and ultimately overcome it”; and
Whereas, On October 27, 2005, the United States Senate unanimously passed an appropriations bill that included an amendment requiring the Bureau of Labor Statistics to reinstate the collection of data on women workers; now, therefore, be it
Resolved, That the Council of the City of New York calls upon President George W. Bush and the U.S. House of Representatives to support the amendment co-sponsored by Senator Hillary Clinton and passed unanimously in the U.S. Senate, to ensure that the Bureau of Labor Statistics collects data on women workers in the Current Employment Statistics Survey (CESS).
LS # 3772
JP 12/05/05