CPA News Releases, Advisories, and Editorials

Legislators from 14 Western States Map Legislative Action to Expand Women’s Economic Power; CPA Convenes May 29-31 Community Forum

Washington, DC ﾖ Thirty-five western state women legislators and community leaders will meet May 29-31 in Redwood City to map out plans and legislative initiatives to expand the economic power of women in their states. Family and work, health care and security, economic self sufficiency and entrepreneurship are the central topics of discussion.

The Center for Policy Alternatives (CPA) is convening the Western Community Policy and Leadership Forum to plan local action on a national agenda presented to the White House just two months ago by CPA President and CEO Linda Tarr Whelan. Tarr Whelan, who is also U.S. Ambassador to the UN Commission on the Status of Women will convene the Forum and work with participants as they decide on next steps.

Women have an increasingly important role in the nationﾒs economy but the potential is even greater. California, for example, ranked forty-first among the states in the percentage of women in the labor force in 1994 and had the second highest percentage of women unemployed in the nation. In 1992, California ranked 12^th in the nation for womenﾒs business ownership. California working women earn 73 cents for every dollar earned by men ﾖ about the same as the national average. On the political front, in 1996 California ranked third in the nation in the number of women elected to office. Seven of the top ten states for women in elected office are in the west.

Legislators ﾖ both Democrats and Republicans ﾖ and community activists attending the Forum are from Alaska, Arizona, California, Colorado, Hawaii, Idaho, Kansas, Montana, New Mexico, Nevada, Oregon, Texas, Utah and Washington.

The Center for Policy Alternatives is a non-profit, non-partisan public policy and leadership development center devoted to community-based solutions that strengthen families and communities.

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Media interested in interviewing Linda Tarr-Whelan or other Forum participants may make advance arrangements by calling CPA contacts listed above through May 28. From May 29-30 contact Anne Mosle, CPA Womenﾒs Policy and Programs Director, at the Hotel Sofitel San Francisco Bay in Redwood City, phone (650) 598-9000.