“In the first year of the second Trump administration, there has been a barrage of harmful executive orders, the appointment of dangerous and unqualified political nominees, and the unprecedented firing of federal employees, along with restructuring or near elimination of many federal agencies.”
As states prepare for the 2026 legislative sessions, the National Partnership for Women & Families and New America’s Better Life Lab released new research today, evaluating private insurance–based paid family and medical leave laws.
The Campaign for a Family Friendly Economy (CFFE) in collaboration with the National Partnership for Women & Families (NPWF) has just released a report analyzing the impact of Social Security benefits for Georgia veterans and their families.
“Since August, Black women’s unemployment rates are up from 6.3 to 6.7 percent, according to the National Partnership for Women & Families.”
“The crisis facing Black women is even deeper. The National Partnership for Women & Families reports that 265,000 Black women have been pushed out of the labor market since January, and the unemployment rate for Black women has climbed to 7.5 percent, which is the highest in years.”
“Jessica Mason, a senior policy analyst with the National Partnership for Women & Families, said the program is a net win for families, especially during uncertain budget times. ‘These days, folks are really watching our dollars, so it’s important to feel like everything we’re making investments in is really worth it — and the evidence is really clear that paid leave is one of those things.'”
“For instance, this spring the National Partnership for Women & Families published a series of blog posts highlighting the lifesaving impact of Medicaid on not only the authors but also their loved ones.”
“’We have an opportunity right now,’ said forum moderator Taryn Mackenzie Williams, Senior Fellow for Disability at the National Partnership for Women & Families. ‘We are compelled to reimagine what it means to meet the promise of the ADA … we need to reckon with the reality of those systems.’”
NPWF President Jocelyn C. Frye testified before the House of Representatives’ Democratic Steering and Policy Committee, the Democratic Women’s Caucus and other House leaders at a hearing on “The Cost of Care – Strengthening the Care Economy and Protecting the ACA
“When you look at the history of how Black people made it into the middle class, some of those stepping stones are the very things that this administration is trying desperately to erode: access to education, access to federal work, workforce opportunities,” Jocelyn Frye, president of the National Partnership for Women & Families, tells Women Rule. “Those things were foundational for a lot of Black workers, in part because the private sector was more resistant. We had this deep, entrenched history that shut Black workers out.”
“‘The wage gap persists because of systemic, discriminatory barriers, including the overrepresentation of women in low-wage work, and the lack of workplace policies to support workers’ caregiving needs,’ Jocelyn Frye, president of the National Partnership for Women & Families (NPFW), wrote in a statement responding to the census data. ‘It is long past time for our nation to finally ensure that every woman is paid what she is due.'”
Today, leaders from the National Partnership for Women & Families joined Rep. Rosa DeLauro and Sen. Kirsten Gillibrand as they introduced the Family and Medical Insurance Leave Act, also known as the FAMILY Act, on Capitol Hill.
“Most pay equity advocates are glad men’s earnings have increased, said Katherine Gallagher Robbins, senior research fellow for the National Partnership for Women & Families.
“‘Women are falling farther behind because they are not gaining at the same level that men are,’ Robbins said. ‘It’s good that men are gaining; we want to see those wages go up. We know families need it. But we also can’t be in the situation where we’re seeing women being left further and further behind.'”
“On the one hand, it’s a good sign that men’s wages increased last year, says Katherine Gallagher Robbins, a senior fellow at the National Partnership for Women and Families. And when considering part-time workers, women’s median earnings grew about 5% between 2023 and 2024.
“But overall, ‘the concerning part is that women’s wages are not keeping pace,’ Robbins tells CNBC Make It. ‘What we would like to see is everyone’s wages to be increasing and for that gap to be closing at the same time.'”
The pay gap between full-time working women and their male counterparts has widened for the second year in a row; NPWF analysis finds a leading factor is men’s earnings growing at a faster rate than women’s.
“Wages for workers without a high-school degree were up 5.5% last year — and that may be driving the gap, Katherine Gallagher Robbins, a senior fellow at the National Partnership for Women & Families, tells Axios.”
“The broader context, says Jocelyn Frye, president of the National Partnership for Women & Families and co-leader of the 75 Million Campaign, is that today’s job losses are less about performance and more about politics.
“’When you lose a job not because of your work but because of a political agenda, it can feel demoralizing,’ Frye told me. ‘And for Black women, particularly Black mothers – more than 80% of whom are the primary breadwinners – it threatens the stability of entire families.’
“She points to the rollback of diversity, equity, and inclusion (DEI) initiatives as both a cause and a consequence.
“’This administration has deployed a different narrative, but the purpose is the same as always: to erode the pathways that allowed Black women even a chance at the middle class,’ Frye told me.”
Her call to action: don’t internalize the systemic failures.
“This is not about individual deficiencies. It’s an ideological agenda. And we must push back—not only to protect jobs, but to protect the progress that got us here in the first place.”
The Campaign for a Family Friendly Economy and the National Partnership for Women & Families released reports detailing how Social Security impacts and improves the lives of veterans and their families in Pennsylvania and Virginia.
A first-of-its-kind analysis conducted by the National Partnership for Women & Families found positive trends in three state paid leave programs, showing that over time, access and use of these programs grew as they reached more workers and became more focused on equity and inclusion.
President Trump’s firing of Bureau and Labor Statistics (BLS) head Erika McEntarfer solely because the BLS monthly jobs report showed weaker job growth is another deeply troubling move in this administration’s ongoing effort to squelch and manipulate information – and the latest signs of a dismantling of our democracy.