Gillibrand Airs Women’s Economic Issues

Treating women fairly on the job not only benefits them but improves the workplace and strengthens the economy, Sen. Kirsten Gillibrand said Friday.

They traditionally seek consensus, creating a more harmonious work environment, she told about 60 women at an economic-empowerment roundtable. “We make a workplace a better place,” she observed, “just by our nature.”

Addressing a longstanding workplace inequity—less pay for the same job— Gillibrand said studies show women have achieved a number of economic advances. Nevertheless, she said, they continue to make only 78 cents for every dollar men take home. African-American and Hispanic women face an even wider gap.

Simply by ending the practice, she said, the nation’s Gross Domestic Product would rise by 9 percent.

Gillibrand’s audience—all women, most of them invited representatives of community organizations—sat in groups of four and five at tables arranged in an arc at the White Plains YWCA on North Street. They asked questions for most of the hour-long, afternoon gathering, one in a series of Women’s Economic Empowerment Roundtables Gillibrand has hosted statewide. Many of Friday’s questions dealt with funding.

The senator, while promising answers, also cautioned that the prevailing mood on Capitol Hill these days is fiscal austerity. “If you know anything about what is happening in Washington,” she said, “it’s cut, cut, cut.”

Twice elected to Congress in upstate’s heavily Republican 20th District, Democrat Gillibrand was appointed in 2009 to fill Hillary Clinton’s term as the state’s junior senator. She won a special election last year to retain the seat and must stand for re-election next year. Her roundtables, she said, are meant to solicit feedback for legislation that could help to empower women, creating economic opportunities and providing resources for advancement.