There’s good news on the economic front, according to the Women Presidents’ Organization’s annual survey.  The survey reveals that 67% of companies have increased or maintained employee salaries during this recession.   Results from the surveyed membership (membership is women driven) indicate 55% of women presidents and CEOs of multi-million dollar companies have maintained or grown their employee base.  Despite the economic downturn, 82% of these CEOs and presidents are optimistic about their company’s performance for 2010.

This year has produced some compelling numbers in financial performance:

• 31% of companies have grown and 21% are stable and have neutral performance. 
• 54% have made their business environmental friendly.
• 35% are interested in making their business environmental friendly.

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Mother's Day is a time to celebrate family whether it is being a daughter, wife, mother, sister, aunt or grandmother.  We need to celebrate the tremendous impact women are having in our communities, on our economy and within our families.

This Mother's Day our policy makers can give all mothers, especially working moms, a lasting gift – policies that make balancing work and family easier.

More and more women are successfully balancing work and family – many because they have to, some because they want to.  In 1955 only 27 percent of mothers in the workforce had kids under the age of 18, today that number is over 70 percent. 

For the first time in our country's history women outnumber men in the US workforce.  And, despite tough economic times, women business owners, remain optimistic about the future and are more inclined to expand their business.

Unfortunately while the demographics of our workforce are changing, our current laws and public policies are not.  Many of our labor policies are too outdated and too stringent for our 21^st Century workforce. 

One of the best gifts we can give mothers is more time.  More time with family, more time to run errands, more time to attend a soccer game or care for a sick parent.   But right now our federal laws make it more difficult for employers to offer working parents the flexibility they need in today's workforce.

Federal laws prevent private sector employers from providing working parents the type of workplace flexibility that could allow families more time to care for an elderly relative or meet the needs of their kids.  Legislation is needed to allow employers to offer their employees the option of taking "comp" time in lieu of overtime pay.  This is a benefit that federal employees have enjoyed for over three decades.  It is time to let all employees have this option.

In addition to flexible schedules, mom's need more flexible benefits.   Working parents, especially women, are forced to make difficult choices when it comes to their careers.  Many parents have to chose between a full-time position with full benefits but a 9-5 (or longer) straight jacket schedule versus taking a more flexible, part-time position but forgoing many of the benefits.   Policy makers should make it easier for employees to trade taxable wages for workplace benefits like health care or retirement.  Policy makers should realize that our tax code makes this difficult.   

Most of the new, small businesses started in the US are run by women.  We need policies that encourage our small businesses to invest in their employees, communities and grow their business.   Policymakers should think twice about expanding the Family and Medical Leave Act (as is being proposed) and reduce the urge to increase taxes on small businesses.  The President's budget would increase taxes on those making $250,000 or more a year.  Many small businesses who report income from sole-proprietorships, partnerships, and S-corporations on individual tax returns would be subjected to this tax increase. 

Finally, we need more portable benefits.  Policy makers should allow people to carry their health insurance from job to job (even while they are unemployed or temporarily out of the workforce) and allow small businesses to cross state lines to purchase a health care plan that works best for their employees.

The best gift our lawmakers can give mothers this Mother's Day is to recognize we need to update our labor laws to reflect the many changes we have seen in the workplace.  Those policy changes should be flexible, personal, voluntary, portable and above all fair.  I hope by Mother's Day 2010 we will make some progress on these important issues and allow Mom the flexibility she needs .

A recent survey conducted by the National Association of Women Business Owners (NAWBO) shows more than half of its members say they have no plans to reduce employment, and nearly 25 percent say they actually plan to add jobs this year!

I have spoken to a number of NAWBO members and they tell me that they don't listen to the negative news, aggressively market their products and services, and focus on family and friends.  This is smart advice!  

Read more about women entrepreneurs and policy issues that impact their bottom line. 

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Twenty years ago, women couldn't obtain a loan without their husband co-signing the loan papers.  And that was in America, not some third-world country.  Working in Afghanistan and Rwanda for the past two years, I appreciate even more what women did in this country a short 20 years ago to blaze the path to business success and empowerment of women right here in America.  Last Saturday, October 25, was the 20^th Anniversary of the signing of the Women's Business Ownership Act of 1988.  Access to credit for women business owners, census data important to the world, training support, and official advocacy for our community became reality.  Watching this legislation become law and being involved around the fringes was VERY exciting for me as a new member of the National Association of Women Business Owners (NAWBO).

I joined NAWBO in 1986 because of Virginia Littlejohn. She was my public policy mentor.   She traveled to Oklahoma City in 1986 and recruited me and others to be delegates to the 1986 White House Conference on Small Business.  In August 1986, I made my first trip to Washington, D.C. as a delegate to the Conference and my life changed forever.  I met and worked with other small business owners from across the country who had the same problems in business, the same passion to succeed, and the same desire to change policies we were grappling with on a daily basis. Today,

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While I was in Orange County, I was a guest on the Frank Peters Show.  I really enjoyed the opportunity to speak with Frank.  The topic of my interview was on the worldwide efforts to empower women entrepreneurs. Click on the tab below to LISTEN to my interview. 

Frank has produced 184 one hour shows & others can be viewed at this link:  http://www.thefrankpetersshow.com/

September 29, 2008 Terry Neese Empowering Women The economic empowerment of women is the subject of my interview with Terry Neese, co-founder of the so-named institute based in Oklahoma City. A Distinguished Fellow at the National Center for Policy Analysis, Terry was visiting southern California recently to speak at the Orange County Institute for Women Entrepreneurs. Listen as Terry describes her worldwide efforts to empower women entrepreneurs. Show #184 (48:49)

I came accross this article in the NY Times relflecting on the women's events at the convention.  Please read and share with me your comments. 

By ELEANOR RANDOLPH, DENVER

Eighty-eight years after American women fought their way into the voting booth, some latter-day activists here are having trouble adjusting.

They saw Senator Hillary Rodham Clinton as their reward, a final acknowledgement that it was worth all the bras burned and lawsuits filed and marches on an all-male Washington. But Mrs. Clinton failed to win what may be her only shot at the Democratic nomination, and these women are trying to get used to the fact that a new generation is taking center stage here: one represented by Michelle Obama.

On Monday night and throughout Tuesday's series of women's events, Mrs. Obama displayed the kind of grace and female strength that political consultants love and many Americans yearn for in a first lady.

Her convention speech touched all the necessary bases: we come from modest stock; we worked hard; we earned fancy degrees, yes, but then we went back to help the community and raise a family – a really adorable family. Read the rest of this entry »

WOMEN:  WAKE UP!  88 YEARS AGO TODAY, YOU WERE GIVEN THE RIGHT TO VOTE!

You are SO powerful.  You make up 54% of the electorate.  Your vote is THE most important in the country!  Yet, many of you don't even vote.   Why?

Hilary Swank powerfully plays the role of Alice Paul in the movie, Iron Jawed Angel.  If you haven't seen this move, rent it.  On November 17, 1917 the warden at Occoquan Workhouse in Virginia ordered guards to teach a lesson to the suffragists imprisoned there — because they dared to picket in front of Woodrow Wilson's White House for the right to vote!  They even tried to persuade a psychiatrist to declare Alice Paul insane so that she could be permanently institutionalized.  But in the end, Hilary Swank is only playing a part, whereas these inspirational women actually lived it.  The sad fact is, it's not just a movie; these courageous women actually did have to go through these things in order to procur the right to vote for women.  Read the rest of this entry »

In response to the August 14 editorial, "Obama's War on Women," there are many flaws in Sen. Obama's plans, which include changes that worsen the situation in New York where, as you point out, the nominal tax rate on some two-income families could move beyond 54%.

Women make up more than half the national electorate. Women will be watching to see where the two leading presidential candidates stand on issues that effect their earning power, and their families' economic status. Marriage penalties hurt working women and hurt the economy. Existing tax laws, and Obama's "new" plan, favor single-income households and punish dual-income couples. The second earner has little incentive to work because she keeps so little of her earnings. Read the rest of this entry »

I came across this article in the New York Sun on Thursday about "Obama's War on Women."  I couldn't agree more with this editorial.  Please tell me your thoughts by posting a comment.

The Obama campaign has at long last lifted the veil of mystery that has surrounded the Democratic presidential candidate's tax increase plans. Mr. Obama's two economic advisers, Jason Furman and Austan Goolsbee, have an op-ed piece in today's Wall Street Journal, and it isn't pretty. To begin with, they propose bringing back the 39.6% top income tax bracket, an increase from the 35% current top rate. On top of that, he'd impose a new payroll tax on those top earners of 2% to 4%, bringing their marginal tax rate to as high as 43.6%. Add to that the top New York City income tax rate of 3.648% and the top New York State income tax rate of 6.85%, and the nominal marginal income tax rate mounts to a staggering 54%. Because Mr. Obama proposes to put the capital gains and dividend tax rate at 20% even for the "rich" – a mere 33% increase over the current 15% rate – expect to see plenty of high earners scurrying to find creative ways of structuring their income as capital gains or dividends rather than as earned income.

Meanwhile, the most astonishing sentence in the op-ed is this one: "His plan would not raise any taxes on couples making less than $250,000 a year, nor on any single person with income under $200,000." It amounts to a declaration of war on two-income families, a marriage penalty of punitive proportions. If those two single persons with income just under $200,000 get married, Mr. Obama is going to hammer them with a huge tax increase. If the second earner, who in many cases is the woman, is going to have to give 54% of what she earns to the government, she might as well stay home with the children. Mr. Obama may be able to get away with symbolic slights to women, such as not picking Senator Clinton as vice president. But punishing them with confiscatory taxes for participating in the workforce at a high income level moves the slight into the realm of substance.

I was reading a blog by Judith Warner on the New York Times the other day ("The Other Home Equity Crisis") that talked about women in the economy.  It highlights a report put out by Congress that details the reason for women leaving the workforce in recent years.  And it's not because they are getting more flexible workplaces to allow them to spend more time with their kids!  No, it's because women are hit disproportionately hard during recessions.  Prior to this report, it was believed that women were leaving in order to spend more time with their kids, not because they were being forced out.

What is so sad about this is that it's not necessary.  Read the rest of this entry »