The real "war on women:" the economy

The so-called “war on women” has been at the forefront of the 2012 Presidential race, with both President Obama and presidential hopeful Mitt Romney clamoring to show that the other does not understand the needs of women.

From the Sandra Fluke incident to Hilary Rosen’s comments about Ann Romney’s working record, a fiery national debate has arisen. In a desperate attempt to win the votes of women for the upcoming election, both Democrats and Republicans are quick to announce that they have a strong record on issues related to women for proper health care, higher education, equal pay and other hot topics.

But it stands to remain how women’s pressing needs will in fact be addressed. Women, as Obama declared in an Apr. 6 speech, are not a political special interest group, but rather a driving force in our economy. And this is not just an opinion, but a fact.

A study released in spring 2011 by theAmerican Express Open found that firms that are mostly held by women make up 29 percent of all businesses in the United States, a 50 percent growth from 1997 to 2011. The report also ranked Pa. seventh among all states for the number of women-owned businesses.

Sally Handlon of the Lehigh Valley is one of those women. Handlon opened up Handlon Business Resources 7 years ago as an implementation firm that partners with small business owners and executives to help with logistical and strategic planning.

Handlon’s business has helped numerous small business lift off, with many of those businesses being owned by women.

“The women that I know that are in business are successful and solid,” Handlon said. “Today that’s what we need to be in business.”

Handlon said that it is difficult for women to push forward in the workplace because women are constantly engaged in a balancing act between their home life and work life.

“[W]e’re not only just running the business, but we are [also] running the home. We’re running everything else so there’s only so much time in the day,” Handlon said.

Handlon expressed that women have to multitask much more than men do. Women are able to focus and get the task at hand completed quickly, Handlon said, because they always have so many other competing priorities going on and cannot risk falling behind.

The economic recession has affected small businesses owners regardless of gender, Handlon said.

“We’re all just trying to figure out what to do with this,” Handlon said. “You want to hire staff but you’re not sure you can sustain them. You just can’t count on things you used to be able to count on before,” Handlon reported with a sigh.

The economic recession has permeated many aspects of women’s lives. Diane Zanetti, the Executive Director of Turning Point of the Lehigh Valley, the valley’s women’s domestic violence shelter, noted that the state of the economy has greatly affected women in abusive relationships.

Turning Point did not see how much the economy affected the work that they do until 2010. Zanetti believes that this is because women realized that there was no “light at the end of the tunnel” for the economy, and that these difficult financial times were not going to quickly disappear.

Unhealthy relationships embody many forms of abuse – physical, verbal, faith-based and financial. In times of economic stress, Zanetti said there is an increase in all forms of the aforementioned abuses. There has been a significant increase in women filing for protection from abuse orders, Zanetti said, indicating that physical abuse has escalated during these tough financial times.

When the economy tanked in 2008, women in controlling relationships found themselves increasingly unable to be financially independent from their abusive partners, thus subjecting them to a more dangerous environment.

“The lack of jobs meant now there are no options – now there’s no place to go,” Zanetti said.

“If they (women in abusive relationships) were getting counseling and trying to find a way to leave that relationship, the financial-economic options became more and more limited, meaning ‘I am more and more trapped,’” Zanetti said.

When experiencing financial woes, Zanetti said it is common for abusive partners to force women to take on another job or two in order to increase their household income.

Zanetti saw greater numbers of women calling for shelter and counseling services. Furthermore, because Turning Point only provides housing for 30 days, Zanetti said this economy makes it more difficult and fairly unlikely for women to find housing, proper childcare and a job in such a short period of time. This can cause women to feel as though they have no choice but to return to their abusive partner and return to an unsafe environment.

In this economy, Turning Point has worked to shift their programming toward teaching women about how to become financially and economically self-sufficient. But this is hard to achieve when employers are not hiring and women cannot find their own source of income.

The economy has also affected Turning Point’s ability to provide much-needed services for women in the Valley. In 2011, Turning Point had to close a shelter, leaving them with only one remaining place to house women seeking refuge from an abusive environment.

While politicians and political parties are tearing one another down to gain the votes of women, it is important that they remember that women are not just a vote: they are an important piece of our economy, and they are affected greatly by changes in the economy.  Women need to be understood and represented, not targeted and confused by empty promises and political jargon.

Story by Dayna Geldwert. Video by Mara Kievit.

Unemployment in the Lehigh Valley

Lehigh Valley Entrepreneurship

In the Lehigh Valley, small businesses are the norm.  According to the Lehigh Valley Economic Development Corporation, the average business size in the Lehigh Valley is 18 employees.  This means that the Lehigh Valley has become known as a great place for entrepreneurs to come and put their dreams into action by starting their own businesses, despite the rough economic times.

One of these businesses is Loose Threads Boutique, which opened in May 2009 by co-owners Laura Jasorka and Helene Perucci.  Loose Threads specializes in women’s clothing, shoes and accessories, and the owners hand-pick each item from local designers and fair trade companies.

Jasorka said the main reason why they decided to start their business in the Lehigh Valley was because of Perucci.  Perucci attended Lehigh University and thought there was a need for a boutique in the area.

“We’re both really creative people – I’m in the jewelry design business and she was a manager at many different stores and stuff and was a part of fashion for a long time, so we just thought we’d go for it,” Jasorka said.

She also said they tailor their image and attitude towards the consumers they most often sell to.  “There are a lot of universities,” she said.  “We definitely have a very young and fun look for us here, so that was really what we were going for.”

Jasorka said that there are a ton of areas of the Lehigh Valley that offer great prospects for entrepreneurs.  “I feel like Easton, Allentown, Emmaus, all these different little areas of the Lehigh valley – there’s so many different things going on and people and opportunities for small businesses to thrive as part of the area,” she said.  “The Lehigh valley is a really good hub, I think, for small business owners.”

Jasorka said that not only has Loose Threads been successful, but it’s been growing and adapting to the changing Lehigh Valley market.  “We’ve expanded our business plan into not just catering to that college girl,” she said.  “It’s more now towards anywhere from 18 to 45, which is a huge range, but we kind of try to tackle everybody. We like to shop for women in general.”

Overall, Jasorka is optimistic about the future success of Loose Threads Boutique.  “I don’t think we’re going anywhere, so that’s a good thing in this economy and this time of year,” she said.  “You know, it’s been though for a lot of people and we’ve just been doing better and better.  We think we’ll be around for awhile, and I guess that means we’re successful.”

Another small local business in the Lehigh Valley is Tallarico’s Chocolates, owned by Brian Tallarico. Located at 26 E. Third Street in Bethlehem, this company began by a passion that Brian had to venture into the business of selling chocolates locally.

“Brian has pulled together many of his life experiences for this endeavor. Everything from growing up in family kitchens and living in Tuscany, getting a fine arts degree, and raising three children,” boasts the Tallarico’s Chocolate website.

Tallarico explained in our interview that his business is a seasonal one, and so it is tough in that sense to keep this type of company constantly profitable, since business booms only during several periods a year. Some of these times are Valentine’s Day, Easter and Christmas.

Yet even though his is a seasonal company, he is still optimistic about future entrepreneurs looking to open their own business in the Lehigh Valley. He prides his business on being a very family oriented environment, and feels that Bethlehem caters to exactly that kind of company.

Ultimately, Tallarico thinks that, “Regardless of the economic situation in the Lehigh Valley, people are looking for an affordable luxury. They turn to chocolate for comfort, and to make themselves feel better.” In his opinion, this chocolate business that he began in November 2004 won’t be going anywhere with such a desirable product to offer. 

Women in the LV Economy: Finding Stability

The Golden Living Center, tucked in the Lehigh Valley’s Phillipsburg, N.J., provides senior citizens with warm beds, friendly companionship, medical care and recreational activities. But for 57-year-old Beth Zellers, the facility provides something entirely different: a stable job.

For Zellers, the nation’s economic situation has proved difficult in the recent past. After earning her Bachelor’s degree in Sociology from Glassboro State College (now Rowan University) Beth has devoted her career to aiding the elderly, working at one living facility for 20 years and another for eight, also working as a short-order cook in between those jobs. In August of 2008, Zellers quit her job to move to Cape May, N.J. with her husband Tom.

“My mom had to quit her secure job…to go and take care of my dad because the only job my dad could get was three hours away and he is not able to take care of himself,” said Beth’s 22-year-old son Shawn Zellers.

In the Lehigh Valley and on a national scale, the Zellers’s situation is not an uncommon one. According to the Pennsylvania CareerLink’s Job & Labor Market Outlook, the Lehigh Valley unemployment rate sits at 8.1 percent, and Warren County, N.J. (where Phillipsburg lies) has a slightly higher, 8.8 percent rate.

According to the Bureau of Labor Statistics, the nation’s total unemployment rate dropped from 9.5 percent in February of 2011 to 8.3 percent in February 2012. In 2011, the unemployment rate for men 20 years of age and older rose to an astonishing 10 percent, dropping to 7.7 percent by February of 2012.

While men have been on a more volatile economic rollercoaster, women have certainly struggled in the economy as well. In February of 2011, the national unemployment rate for women over 20 was 7.9 percent, and the rate saw a small drop to 7.7 percent by February of 2012. Today, there is a 55 percent employment to population ratio for women in this age bracket.

The move to Cape May proved difficult for Beth. She explained that in Cape May County, the elderly population is extremely high, and so there are more advertised jobs in her field in the area.

However, she noted, “There are more people in the workforce [there] who are more transient, whereas here [in Phillipsburg], people get the jobs and they hold onto them for a lifetime.”

According to CareerLink’s Outlook, the health care and social assistance sector makes up the largest portion of the region’s job market with 16.8 percent of jobs. The next largest sector sits at 11.5 percent.

       

View The Lehigh Valley in a larger map

After an unsuccessful job hunt in South Jersey, Zellers moved to Oxford, N.J. with Tom, and Beth supported her family by taking sporadic, part-time home care jobs.

According to Shawn, the situation was shaky and involved a lot of moving around for the couple.

“Home care people pass away or people can no longer afford it, and there’s no security that you can get a new person [to help]. There’s no guarantee of hours,” he said.

Beth added, “It’s kind of scary when you move around like that because you don’t know what’s going to be available. I was fortunate to at least find the home care so I could do something working with the elderly.”

Voicing regret at not pursuing her Master’s degree, Beth is slightly constrained in her options and is not able to look for work within a hospital.

“At times I have thought that I’m stuck [in this field], but I like it….There’s times when I think I should try something else but I am comfortable doing what I’m doing,” she said.

In October of 2011, Zellers found work as the Director of Social Services at the Golden Living Center, and her family has been living in the Lehigh Valley since that time. The job, she says, offers a stable paycheck, but she still sees it necessary to supplement her salary there.

“I think mainly I’m making the same salary that I made five years ago when I left the one facility that I worked at,” she said. “Basically, though, I’ve been told that they don’t know when they’re going to be able to do any raises, and I am salaried at my full-time job but I put in a lot of hours and there’s no compensation for that.”
       

Beth will soon begin working part-time to add to her salary, visiting an elderly woman for six hours on the weekends to keep her company and give her medical aid.

“When you work for a large corporation, you always have the fear that they have the ability to replace you, because they have the ability to search anywhere for someone,” she said.

However, Beth is confident that Golden Living is looking for people who will stay with the company and continue to grow and learn.

Shawn said, “I think she will stay there for a while, if she doesn’t the bills will not get paid. My dad doesn’t have a job at the moment."

Beth hopes that’s the case, too.

“I hope it works out, I don’t like changing jobs. And the other thing is, with the job market out there right now, if I can hold on to what I have, I want to….I like stability,” she said.

Video by Melissa Collins, ‘13. Story by Jess Fromm, ‘12.

CACLV executive director discusses unemployment in LV

Alan Jennings, executive director of the Community Action Committee of the Lehigh Valley (CACLV), said the Lehigh Valley’s unemployment rate is higher than the state and national average unemployment rates.

Jennings has worked at CACLV since 1980, and he said he has seen four recessions within that time period. Jennings said this is the longest recession he has seen while working at CACLV, and though it is not the worst in terms of unemployment, the long sustained period with high unemployment has caused many people to fall out.

“Whatever savings they had is gone, whatever coping mechanism they might have had is wiped out and they are getting to the point where they are losing their homes in huge numbers,” Jennings said. 

Jennings said there has not been much of an upswing in the Lehigh Valley since the recession has begun, with the exception of the opening of Sands Casino. Jennings said that though the casino hires employees within the Lehigh Valley, many of the jobs do not offer wages that provide the ability to sustain a family.

“The Lehigh Valley continues to be challenged,” he said.

Before the recession, Jennings said the Lehigh Valley was fastest growing location in Pennsylvania and the fourth fastest growing location in the northeastern United States. Jennings said this growth was greatly contributed to the location of the Lehigh Valley, and its great proximity to major cities such as Philadelphia and New York.

Jennings said the recession is playing a large part in the lack of employment that exists within the Lehigh Valley currently. The most detrimental aspect of this recession is the foreclosure crisis that is currently affecting so many within the area, along with other parts of the US.

“People don’t have jobs, they don’t have income, they can’t keep up with the maintenance on their house, they can’t keep up with the payments on their house, it depresses the economy further,” Jennings said.

Jennings said as long as the foreclosure crisis remains so significant, economic growth will be stifled. Without equity within homes, people cannot start their own businesses, they cannot buy new homes and access to economic opportunity is severely limited.

“The old promise that if you work your tail off, you get a degree and you keep your nose to the grindstones because this is America after all, the land of opportunity doesn’t apply anymore,” Jennings said.

Jennings said CACLV runs 20 weeks of seminars four times a year for residents of Bethlehem and Allentown. He said in the past few years, they have seen a better quality of candidates interested in beginning new small businesses, but the economy has often prevented the qualified entrepreneurs from succeeding.

CACLV offers lending to people banks find to be ineligible, including start up companies. Jennings said they have helped create a good number of jobs as a result of this program. Jennings said people who have become victims of unemployment due to the economy’s state are not always eligible for help from agencies such as CACLV.  He said the government sets the eligibility criteria, and though some people cannot afford to pay their bills, CACLV cannot offer them the aid they need because the criteria is so low.

Currently, the unemployment rate in the Lehigh Valley is 8.1 percent, as reported by The Express-Times Tuesday.  which is a decrease since December when it was 8.4 percent.


 


Video by Dayna Geldwert, '12. Story by Mara Kievit, '13.

SoBeCoWorks- Entrepreneurship in the Lehigh Valley

There are over 27 million individual small businesses in the United States. Within the first five years, roughly 50% of these businesses fail. Between lack of planning, bad choice in location and a limited amount of capital to spend; businesses fail for many reasons.

Santiago Rivera is now tackling all of these issues when planning to open his own co-working business.

Co-working is an up-and-coming idea that embraces individuals’ ideas and provides the space and creativity to morph these separate ideas together.  A relatively newer concept, co-working is a growing movement of independent collaboration spaces for freelance professionals.

Santiago Rivera has fully embraced the idea of co-working and is working on opening Bethlehem’s first co-working space on 4^th Street, SoBeCoWorks.

“Meeting up with others that are into the same ideas that you are is just rejuvenating, you just feel better about what you’re doing,” said Rivera.

Rivera has decided to open SoBeCoWorks in the 800 block of 4^th Street to help benefit and restore the sense of community in the 4Blocks area of the south side of Bethlehem.

“I want to make the neighborhood where I live and do business in better, it’s that basic.”

Along with benefiting creative entrepreneurs at SoBeCoWorks, Rivera intends to benefit surrounding small businesses within the 4Blocks International Neighborhood area.

“Co-working tends to be very community. As I bring those entrepreneurs into 4Blocks… you have more feet on the street, more buyers and those buyers will frequent these local shops; it reinforces the walk-able community,” Rivera said.

According to Rivera, SoBeCoWorks is economic development at the community level.

Rivera said he and his wife decided to embrace entrepreneurship in 2002 and have been financially independent ever since.

“The new technology economy allows people to break the chain of the industrial revolution… I don’t have to punch a clock. I can live my life how I want to.”

Because of his interest in small businesses, his community in Bethlehem and his love of entrepreneurship, Rivera decided to take a Community Action 16 week course on starting your own business in Bethlehem.

“(The course) takes people off the street and gives them the tools to become entrepreneurs.”

Because of his inspiration from the course, Rivera decided to pursue SoBeCoWorks and help fellow entrepreneurs.

According to Rivera, he is the first business owner in his family and his happy to be breaking the mold of the 9am-5pm jobs.

“A lot of the thinking that industrialization and education created have you thinking of punching the clock in the morning and the afternoon, go home, that’s all you need to think about… I had to seek out other entrepreneurs to be able to say ‘Hey lets match up thoughts, lets math up ideas to see what makes sense and what doesn’t make sense.’”

Rivera completed his associate’s degree but because he started a family, did not continue with school. After September 11^th, Rivera was laid off and unemployed before becoming financially independent.

According to Rivera, owning his own business is rewarding but is his entire life. Rivera says it’s a lifestyle choice and a second love.

SoBeCoWorks was scheduled to celebrate its ribbon-cutting ceremony on April 16^th. Because of difficulties with zoning permits, Rivera had to delay the opening but is hoping to open the business sometime in later April.

SoBeCoWorks’ is designed to assist and further other people’s creative ideas. Rivera is excited to enlighten others with the troubles he’s had as a business owner and to collaborate ideas.

“We all work together to bring each other up. How can we help you?”

Organizations Combating Poverty in the Lehigh Valley

Poverty is a serious problem running through the Lehigh Valley.  While the Valley offers a great array of restaurants, shops and services, many of its residents are unable to take advantage of them as a result of their economic disadvantages.

Nearly one in five children in the Lehigh Valley are living in poverty.  In Allentown, two in five children are living in poverty.  That’s 43.8% - an extremely high rate.

According to The United Way, a non-profit organization consisting of volunteers and contributors that serve their communities, 27% of all third graders tested in the Lehigh Valley are both economically disadvantaged and have reading capabilities below their grade level.  The same was found for 31% of all seventh graders and 31% of all eleventh graders in the Lehigh Valley.  Similarly, of all Hispanic seventh graders who were tested, 50% of them were not reading at their grade level.

In 2005, nearly 600 students in the Allentown School District were homeless for some portion of the year.

Clearly, a great amount of Lehigh Valley residents have been affected by poverty in some way.  However, there are several organizations that are making great strides towards improving the lives of these people.

One of these organizations is the United Way.  Mark Margherita, the outreach coordinator for the community schools of the Bethlehem school district, acknowledges that poverty is a serious issue in the area.

“The poverty situation in the Lehigh Valley is actually a lot more serious than a lot of times a lot of people think,” he said. “Broughal Middle School, which is right here next to Lehigh’s Campus, has about 90% of the students on free and reduced lunch.”

Margherita explains that reduced lunch at schools is a prime indicator that families are living at or below the poverty line.

He also says that many of the Lehigh Valley’s food pantries and homeless shelters are reaching capacity without being able to serve all the residents that are in need.

As a result, the United Way has created a system to try to combat these issues.

“We focus on three main objectives that we have for the Lehigh Valley,” Margherita said.  “The first of those is older adults being as independent as possible.  The second area we focus on is youth graduating from high school.  The third area that we focus on is Lehigh Valley residents having access to their basic needs.”

Another group working towards improving poverty levels in the Lehigh Valley is Reading Rocks. As a coordinator for the program this year, Lehigh University Senior, Allie Einsidler believes that this program provides students in the local Bethlehem area an opportunity to improve reading levels that are currently much below average.

“Some students in the reading program can be as old as 13, because their reading levels are so behind,” said Einsidler. “It also does so in a way that they can be mentored by Lehigh students, since they look up to them.”

One of the moments that Einsidler recalled during mentoring for Reading Rocks was being told, “’If the kids start opening up about personal things at home, of a bad nature, just sit there and nod.’ This was an eye opener to me, because I have never really been forced to look beyond my own personal situations.”

Unfortunately, this poor reading level is a huge determinant of where students will end up in five to ten years, and lack of quality education is a factor in the poverty level in the Lehigh Valley.

Yet, both Margherita and Einsidler seem to be optimistic about the progression of the Lehigh Valley’s economic status in the past few years. Residents have been recently able to lower the unemployment level, education has seemed to improve with the help of programs like Reading Rocks, and motivation to rise above the poverty level is prevalent among a majority of Bethlehem citizens.