Cook County Commission on Women's Issues

Testimony by Rosanna Márquez on the Economic Status of Women in Cook County
October 16, 2008

Good morning and thank you for the opportunity to address the Commission regarding the economic status of women in Cook County. My remarks this morning are designed to draw for you a clear picture of low-income working female heads-of-households, based on research we have done and commissioned with the following questions in mind:

• What is the demographic profile of this group?
• What do their lives look like?
• What will it take to effectively help them achieve sustained economic self-sufficiency?

This last question I will endeavor to answer from the perspective of the women themselves.

First, let me share some brief background on the Eleanor Foundation. The Eleanor Foundation is a 110-year-old organization whose focus has always been on promoting education and economic independence for working women of modest means in the Chicago area. Since 2002, we have pursued this work through research-oriented grantmaking. Ours is the only organization in Chicago with a singular focus on working female heads-of-households: in our case, those who are working but who earn less than $30,000 a year.

The Eleanor Foundation has awarded nearly $2.75 million over the past three years under our three-year, Self-Sufficiency Initiative. The research findings that I will share with you today are based on two projects:

1. A comprehensive census-based study accompanied by a series of focus group interviews with women in our target population that we released in 2005; and,
2. A marketing-based study we are currently undertaking and will be presenting early next year.

Let me start with some overarching numbers, the point of which is that in talking about working low-income female heads-of-households, we are talking about a large group and a growing group.

• There are over 420,000 households headed by females in Chicago. This number roughly doubles when you look at the entire Chicago metropolitan area.
• One-third of this group, representing 300,000 women and children, falls within the Eleanor Foundation's target population - women working full-time but earning less than the minimum $30,000 needed in Chicago to pay for the bare essentials without savings. Again, this number roughly doubles for the metropolitan area.

This is not a niche group - they represent a disproportionate percentage of the working poor - almost 75% of those below the poverty line live in female-headed households. And this is far from a homogenous group:

• About 42% are white, 49% are African-American, with most of the rest Latina.
• About a third have attended some college, another third lack a high school diploma or GED.
• They are dispersed throughout Chicago and its metropolitan area.
• The plurality, about 28%, are in office or other administrative support jobs. The next largest group is employed in sales and customer service-related jobs.

For the most part, all of these women are in dead-end jobs with very limited promotion potential.

That said, these women share several common characteristics. They see themselves as resourceful, as independent and as responsible. They truly are not looking for a handout. Nevertheless, they face one or more of four core barriers to sustained economic self-sufficiency:

1. Access to the mentoring, educational and career paths that will get them to a livable wage. Public supports notwithstanding, addressing this barrier is crucial: a woman will never feel economically secure unless she sees herself on the path to a livable wage.
2. Access to decent, affordable housing whether rental or homeownership;
3. Access to appropriate, affordable childcare responsive to their often hectic scheduling challenges; and,
4. Help with credit cleanup and money management.

Our grants program is focused on addressing these four barriers.

Perhaps the most important shared characteristic is the fact that lower-income working female heads-of-households experience a stunning lack of access to resources they can use to advance themselves financially. Nearly 90% of working women earning less than $30,000 a year do not access help of any kind, public or private. They are not in public housing, and do not receive any public rent help. They are not in the homeless or any other service system. Many are unbanked.

So, what are the policy and programmatic implications of these findings? What will it take to effectively reach these women and help them achieve sustained economic self-sufficiency? A key takeaway I offer here is that the traditional social service model will not work for low-income female heads-of-households. I elaborate on this by offering three set of recommendations.

First, engaging lower-income working female heads-of-households requires an integrated approach to addressing the barriers they face. Our own research has borne this out. These women lead lives that would exhaust us, juggling the dual responsibilities of being the primary breadwinner and the primary caregiver. "Making ends meet" often means overtime or holding two jobs, doubling up, living in substandard housing in marginal neighborhoods two bus rides from their jobs, juggling bills, or worse - payday loans.

Their scarcest commodity - other than money - is time. They can't be going to different places to access different services - they need to be readily accessible in one place and not subject to separate, bureaucratic-like requirements and processes. For these women, the "one-stop" concept is not a convenience, but a necessity. The program model we have been building through our grants recognizes this and is creating service and resource "hubs" for working women that will enable them to address any or all four core barriers through a single point of access. Examples of these "hub" programs can be found on our website and in our recent publications.

The second set of recommendations relates specifically to workforce development initiatives. Two quick points here:

1. Traditional workforce development programs, largely federally funded through the Workforce Investment Act, simply do not work for the "working poor," including working women. The basic job-readiness and soft-skills training and emphasis on short term placement and retention in entry level jobs have no meaning for individuals who know how to get jobs and are currently working.
2. Such programs are unworkable for single working mothers unless accommodation can be made for their work schedules and childcare needs.

The third and final set of recommendations relates to the "invisibility" of working low-income female heads-of-households and what it will take to engage and help them.

Again, our research has shown that nearly 90% of the women in our target group do not access public or private services. The reasons for this vary - lack of time, skepticism, the belief that they are not "that kind of woman" or that they are ineligible for assistance. And so a critical challenge is to find and engage these women and connect them to the appropriate services and resources. The traditional enrollment through referrals from other agencies does nothing to capture this 80%-plus segment that is unserved.

The second research project I referred to at the beginning of my remarks is a consumer-based marketing study. We have engaged two consumer and public issue polling firms to conduct a series of focus group interviews plus a telephone survey that can be used to develop materials and messaging aimed at informing and "selling" working women on the efficacy of seeking out services that can help them in a manner consistent with their self identity as independent women who can succeed. The project also seeks to find the best access points for reaching them.

We will be holding a public briefing on the findings of this work early next year but I want to give you a sense of a couple of the things we've learned from the focus groups.

If I had to draw you a profile of the women we're talking about it would look like this: They are proud survivors, determined to make life better for themselves and for their children. They are resourceful. They believe that all things considered, they are doing okay vis-à-vis their peers.

Unfortunately, and for the most part, they have not heard of any of us or our work. Our facilitators ran the names of nearly fifty organizations and institutions by them, and the only one with any meaningful name recognition was the City Colleges. We have a marketing challenge on our hands.

That they only recognize the City Colleges is probably not be an accident. Education is the opportunity they most crave - it is the key to transforming their lives. But education does not necessarily mean a degree - these women are pretty savvy about knowing what kind of education or training they need to move onto a career path that will generate a livable wage. They are also very savvy about knowing what is a waste of their time and will lead only into a dead-end job or no job at all.

They are equally savvy about "programs" in general. One woman I heard described "program" as something that "takes a lot of your time without any clear payoff." They are willing to commit if they can see the payoff. Another woman talked of this as expecting to have to "give value in some way to get value."

Reaching them effectively will require messaging that is respectful of their self-image as self-reliant, hard-working women. They are not "victims." On the contrary, they often serve as the anchors of their communities and workplaces, and play a pivotal role in the lives of their children. Nor are they are "cases" to be managed by case managers. They want coaches, consultants, or mentors of their choosing just like other women who aspire to a career and want assistance navigating their issues.

They have to see proof that programs help people just like them. Which means working, working class women. They loathe labels like "low income;" "working poor;" or people who need "tough love" or are "at risk." Yet this is the language we use today - I am aware that my own prepared remarks use "low-income" or "working poor." Terms like these are complete non-starters for these women.

And make no mistake - there is a racial and ethnic element to their perception that requires some tailoring of the message depending on the target audience. Our focus groups were shown written materials, including brochures. They were very quick to pick up on if the women did or did not look like them, especially if it broke along racial or ethnic lines.

There is also a strong perception that services and programs are not fairly provided and that the differences here break along racial and ethnic lines. We heard it in every group - the white-only, the African-American-only, the Latina-only and the mixed groups. They need to know that the systems they contemplate accessing are fair, not rejecting, and not bureaucratic.

Thank you.

For further information, contact:
Vicky Nurre
Director, Development & Communications
312.337.7913
vnurre@eleanorfoundation.org