Policy recommendations to help narrow the wealth gap:
– Target financial resources for education and training women of color in sectors and occupations with high opportunities for career advancement.
– Implement universal early childhood education programs to better prepare children for success in school, and recognize that women are participants in the labor force.
– Increase Small Business Administration assistance to microenterprises.
– Make the Make Work Pay tax credit, which covers the self-employed, permanent.
– Remove asset limits from public assistance program eligibility
– Make the Child and Dependent Care Tax Credit refundable
– Expand allowable expenditures for matched Independent Development Accounts in the Assets for Independence program.
– Institute minimum benefits for the Social Security program. This would lift many people-particularly women of color-out of poverty.
– Restructure Social Security for part-time workers.
– Extend unemployment benefits to part-time workers.