Now that the elections are over we are still faced with actions that our federal and state legislators took or failed to take that directly affect women and girls. These are a few examples of what has happened in the past year:

• Congress has forged ahead with an agenda that can best be described as detrimental to equality and fairness for women and girls. In short they have:
  • Pushed new welfare policies that would hurt women and families by not providing them with access to the education and training they need to become independent.
    
  • Backed federal judicial nominees we can’t trust to protect women’s equality.
    
  • Placed our retirement security at risk by moving forward with reckless tax cuts that put Social Security in jeopardy.
    
  • Placed new restrictions on our reproductive freedoms and the right to choose.
    
• Our state representatives have allowed childcare and family support to reach an all time low:
  
  • 528,600 children are uninsured (14.4% of children.)
    
  • 40,000 children are on waiting lists for subsidized child care.
    
  • 4 out of 10 child care teachers leave their jobs each year.
    
  • Fewer than 25% of Florida’s licensed child care programs are accredited.
    
  • Florida has the second highest number of child abuse and neglect cases in the nation.
    
  • The percentage of children living in poverty in Florida grew 11% between 1990 and 2000
    

• Florida legislators have worked to defeat efforts for women to:
  
  • Change being among the "worst states for women" in 200 (ranked 44th nationwide.)
    
  • Reduce the discrepancy between women’s and men’s earnings. Women earn 77 cents to each dollar earned by men.
    
  • Retain affirmative action in public employment, public contracts, and university admissions.
    
  • Retain physical exams for poor women with life threatening medical situations as well as family planning services.
    

Last Updated on Nov 2002

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