By Katherine Gallagher Robbins
You may have seen the recent release by the Romney campaign regarding women’s job loss since President Obama took office. The numbers cited by the Romney campaign are accurate, but the implication that President Obama’s policies are responsible is misleading. Putting aside the fact that President Obama inherited an economic crisis and that it took time for the effects of his policies to be felt, a more complete analysis of women’s job loss between January 2009 and March 2012 shows that President Obama’s policies, namely funding for state and local governments implemented under the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act (ARRA), actually forestalled women’s job loss during his administration.
Job losses in the public sector drove women’s job losses between January 2009 and March 2012: overall women lost 683,000 net jobs between January 2009 and March 2012. Public sector losses were a significant contributor - women lost 440,000 net public sector jobs during this period.
The majority of women’s public sector losses, nearly 80 percent, occurred after July 2010 when many states and local governments instituted budgets that no longer included the funding from ARRA that helped sustain them during the deep downturn and when additional cuts in funding for public services, not proposed by President Obama, were implemented.
For more information on women’s jobs during the recession and the recovery see NWLC’s analysis of last week’s job data.