Tag: Department of Labor

African-American and Latina women, who now make up an important part of the U.S. workforce, face higher rates of poverty and unemployment than white and Asian working women.

The U.S. Department of Labor wrote Thursday: “On the same day last week that she announced that the economy created another 121,000 jobs in March, and that the unemployment rate ticked down, Secretary [Hilda] Solis joined President Obama at a White House event focused on ‘Women and the Economy.’”

Jacinta Gonzalez, an organizer with the Congress of Day Laborers in New Orleans, tells a story about the abuse of workers rebuilding the city after the devastation of Hurricane Katrina. She once met a man who went to his employer’s house to demand payment for his labor on a construction site after the employer stiffed him of his dues. The man’s boss came at him, swinging a hammer. The worker immediately called the police.