Tens of thousands of Maine women are mired in poverty, and even more struggle to make ends meet in low-wage jobs. But instead of providing them with tools that will enable them to climb out of poverty, Maine policymakers have cut some much-needed supports for these women and their families while failing to take advantage of others. That adds up to a self-inflicted wound for our entire economy.
Over 14 percent of Maine women live in poverty, more than in any other New England state. Maine also has the highest r ate in the region of women struggling in low-wage jobs that keep them just above poverty.
As grim as these statistics are, they probably understate the number of Maine women who struggle financially. The U.S. Census Bureau devised the official measure of poverty in 1955, so it does not include some of today’s most common expenses, notably child care costs, in the calculation of how much workers must earn to make ends meet. If low-wage women workers also support one child, they drop into poverty ― even when working 40 hours per week.
Clearly, affordable child care is crucial to the 40 percent of Maine families with women as the primary breadwinners. But in recent years, Maine policymakers have cut child care assistance, especially for low-income Mainers pursuing college degrees or specialized job training.
This has created additional obstacles women must overcome as they aspire to better jobs and a better life for themselves and their families. For example, over half of student parents spend at least 30 hours per week caring for their children. Twenty-three percent of Maine residents without a college degree said that raising children prevented them from pursuing a degree.
Maine lawmakers may think they’re saving money by cutting child care assistance for students, but it will only hurt our economy in the long run. More and more employers need workers with a college degree or other specialized training, and those credentials are fast becoming the only sure tickets to the middle class for American workers.
Another area where Maine is shortchanging struggling families is the minimum wage. This is particularly true in rural parts of the state. More than 23 percent of workers, including 27.6 percent of working women, in Maine’s predominantly rural 2nd Congressional District ― which, geographically, covers nearly 80 percent of the state ― would benefit from an increase in the minimum wage, a larger number than in any other New England congressional district. Yet, Gov. Paul LePage vetoed an increase in Maine’s minimum wage to $9 per hour by 2016.
Maine’s weak recovery from the recession has hit women in rural Maine especially hard. Unemployment rates in Maine’s most rural counties have not dropped to the same extent they have in Portland, Bangor and Lewiston. But the state has refused to seek a federal waiver that allows some able-bodied adults to receive nutrition assistance without fulfilling work requirements, even though such waivers are routine in states with pockets of high unemployment.
One of the least-known facts about Maine’s unemployment rate is that it counts as employed more than 40,000 Mainers who want full-time work but can’t find it. Families with wage earners stuck in part-time and low-wage jobs have less disposable income, so poverty becomes concentrated in certain communities. Over the past decade, towns where more than 20 percent of people live in poverty have spread like a shadow across the northern two-thirds of Maine. Between 25 and 50 percent of people in the 2nd Congressional District live in areas of concentrated poverty.
The state could bring some relief to these areas by accepting federal Affordable Care Act funds. In addition to providing health coverage to tens of thousands of Mainers, it also would support more than 4,000 jobs in health care and related fields, including in rural areas where women struggle to find work. But LePage vetoed five legislative votes to accept federal funding and create jobs in rural Maine.
Short-sighted cuts, backwards wage policies and a refusal to accept federal nutrition and health care assistance are stifling women’s economic prospects and depriving Maine’s economy of millions of dollars in higher potential earnings. That’s bad for all of us. Maine is not truly “the way life should be” as long as our economy leaves Maine women behind.
Jody Harris is associate director at the Maine Center for Economic Policy, and Christy Daggett is a policy analyst at the Maine Center for Economic Policy.