Access to Health Care

Health care systems need to help families stay healthy and productive with special attention to children elderly, and working poor. Policies should reduce barriers for those who are uninsured and include preventative health care.

• Obtain adequate funding for the Office of Women's Health for disseminating health information, for wellness promotion.
• Enact mental healthy parity legislation.
• Fully fund NC Health Choice, the state's CHIP program.
• Enact legislation similar to the Prescription Drug Fair Pricing The legislation directs the state government to use its bulk purchasing power to negotiate steep discounts and pass the savings on to those who have no prescription drug insurance coverage, including retirees who rely on Medicare.
• Expand Medicaid to uninsured working parents up to 200% of poverty level.
• Assure that all women are offered screenings at appropriate intervals for cardiovascular disease, diabetes, breast and lung cancer.
• Increase accessibility to family planning services and information to under-served women.
• Provide increased funding for Sexually Transmitted Disease and HIV/AIDS programs; institute a special HIV/AIDS prevention program targeted at minority women; increase funding for care and treatment.
• Increase the State Abortion Fund and remove restrictions on it.

Child Care

There is a serious shortage of good, affordable child care options in communities across North Carolina. Child care should be more affordable, better quality and cater to the work demands of parents.

• Fully fund the child care subsidy program at market rate.
• Continue funding Smart Start to improve the quality of and access to healthy, appropriate child care.
• Fund entrepreneurial efforts for care givers who want to start child care businesses.
• Increasing wages paid to child care workers.
• Decrease waiting list for child care subsidies in counties.

Economic Self Sufficiency

Women in North Carolina find it difficult to be totally economically self sufficient because of barriers in transportation, housing and earning livable wages. An estimated 46.6% of female-headed households live in poverty. In spite of the longest growth period in the state's economy the percentage of people living in poverty has not changed. 1 in 5 NC households live in substandard, overcrowded or unaffordable housing. Only major urban areas have bus service, so many rural and working poor families have difficulty in finding transportation to work, for health care, shopping and other basic necessities. Nominal wages and part-time work deny workers a living wage.

• Pay all state government employees and employees of the state contractors a living wage.
• Raise the state minimum wage to $8.50 per hour.
• Strengthen wage requirements for companies to receive a tax incentive.
• State government must monitor and measure state progress toward ensuring all workers a living wage.
• Improve food stamp outreach and simplify the eligibility requirements.
• Increase Work First benefits and eligibility to the Living Income Standard.
• Allocate at least $50 million annually to the NC Housing Trust Find.
• Expand North Carolina's Low-Income Tax Credit to 75% of the federal credit.

Pay Equity

Women and people of color continue to experience injustice in the workplace in the form of unequal pay. Today, women earn 77¢ for every $1.00 earned by men. African-Americans earn 78¢ of what white workers earn, and Latinos are paid only 67¢ of what their white counterparts are paid. Although the wage gap has narrowed somewhat in recent years, it continues to undermine the economic security of workers and their families.

• Support the Fair Pay Act and the Paycheck Fairness Acts.
• Support passage of national and state legislation that provides effective legal recourse to women and people of color who are not being paid equal wages for doing equal work; and offer education and technical assistance to employers to assist in implementing fair pay policies.
• Urge policymakers to research equal pay and the gender wage gap in North Carolina including earnings by occupational choice, educational levels, technical training, time in the labor force, current position and responsibilities, on-the job training opportunities, family responsibilities and marital status, and employment opportunities in the area.
• Monitor the way the federal laws enacted to prevent wage discrimination are implemented in North Carolina (eg.1963 Equal Pay Act, Civil Rights Act of 1964, and Fair Labor Standards Act of 1938).

Violence Against Women

Domestic violence affects millions of American women. Over half of all American women will be physically assaulted in an intimate relationship during their lifetime. more than 1,300 women were killed by a current or former boyfriend or husband in 1998. There are only 77 battered women's programs and 67 rape crisis programs in NC. A national survey of over 6000 American families found that 50% of the men who frequently assaulted their wives also abuse their children.

• Fund the collection of data and sharing of information among agencies involved with the response to domestic violence.
• Require Child Support Enforcement to respond to a Domestic Violence request within five (5) days.
• Provide funding for the NC Coalition Against Sexual Assault similar to that given to the NC Coalition Against Domestic Violence.

From www.ncequity.org - January, 2002