Author: SeniorWomenWeb

UC Berkeley Demographers: COVID-19 is Likely to Shorten the Average US Lifespan in 2020 By About a Year; “Those are real people, not abstract statistics”
By Yasmin Anwar, Media Relations| AUGUST 25, 2020

With over 170,000 COVID-19 deaths to date, and 1,000 more each day, America’s life expectancy may appear to be plummeting. But in estimating the magnitude of the pandemic, UC Berkeley demographers have found that COVID-19 is likely to shorten the average US lifespan in 2020 by only about a year.

Credit, right, Pixabay

Seeking to put current COVID-19 mortality rates into historic, demographic and economic perspective, UC Berkeley demographers Ronald Lee and Joshua Goldstein calculated the consequences of U.S. lives lost to COVID-19 in 2020 using two scenarios. One was based on a projection of 1 million deaths for the year, the other on the more likely projection of 250,000 deaths.

Their findings, published online last week in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences journal, conclude that 1 million deaths in 2020 would cut three years off the average US life expectancy, while 250,000 deaths would reduce lifespans by about a year.

That said, without the societal efforts that have occurred to lessen the impact of COVID-19, there could have been 2 million deaths projected by the end of 2020, a reduction of the average US lifespan by five years, the researchers pointed out.

Their estimated drop in life expectancy is modest, in part, because 250,000 deaths is not a large increase on top of the 3 million non-COVID-19 deaths expected for 2020, and because older people, who typically have fewer remaining years of life than others do, represent the most COVID-19 fatalities, the study notes.

Still, while COVID-19 mortality rates remain lower than those of the 1918 Spanish flu pandemic, the coronavirus epidemic could be just as devastating as the longer-lasting HIV and opioid epidemics if mitigation efforts fail, the researchers said.

“The death toll of COVID-19 is a terrible thing, both for those who lose their lives and for their family, friends, colleagues and all whom their lives touched. Those are real people, not abstract statistics,” said Lee, a UC Berkeley professor emeritus of demography and associate director of the campus’s Center for the Economics and Demography of Aging.

“But the population perspective helps put this tragedy in a broader context. As we work to contain this epidemic, it is important to know that we have been through such mortality crises before,” he added.

Goldstein’s and Lee’s measures are based on factors that include a current US population of 330 million, age-specific death rates and the economic valuation of saved lives.

Among their other findings:
- One million COVID-19 deaths in the US in 2020 would be the equivalent of US mortality levels in 1995, adding three years to each American’s biological age, albeit temporarily.
- The age gap (old versus young) for people dying from COVID-19 is marginally wider than during pre-pandemic times, while the male-female gap is slightly narrower. The researchers found similar death-by-age patterns across several countries.
- The economic cost of lives lost to COVID-19 in the US is in the trillions of dollars. According to standard government measures, the demographers estimated that the loss of 1 million lives in 2020 would amount to between $10.2 and $17.5 trillion, while the amount for 250,000 deaths would range from $1.5 to $2.5 trillion.
August 25, 2020
Race and Woman Suffrage, an Excerpt from One Room At a Time: How Women Entered Party Politics

One Room at a Time: How Women Entered Party Politics

Alice Paul, National Woman’s Party chair, unfurled the ratification banner at the NWP headquarters in Washington, D.C., following the Nineteenth Amendment’s ratification.

Publisher: Rowman & Littlefield Publishers

by Jo Freeman (2000)

The reluctance of men to allow women to participate in democratic decision-making stemmed from many sources, not all of which were consistent. One of the biggest deterrents was the importance of race in American politics, especially in the South. According to Southern historian Anne Firor Scott, “Because many of the early suffragists were abolitionists, the idea of woman’s rights was anathema in the South.” Ten years after Susan B. Anthony died in 1906, she and more contemporary colleagues were still being denounced for their “Southern-hating, negro-loving propensities.” Southerners remained implacable foes of women suffrage in any form by any means. Were suffrage granted, one prominent Georgia Senator told Congress in 1887 as the suffrage bill came before the Senate for the first time, “the more ignorant and less refined portions of the female population… would rush to the polls… while the refined and educated… would remain at home.” The antis fed the flames, insisting that women suffrage would undermine white supremacy and lead to racial equality. Thirty years later Southern Congressmen were still sounding the same theme in Congressional floor debates: Votes for women meant votes for Negro women.

Decades of restricting Negro suffrage did not still their fears: a grant of school suffrage to women in three Kentucky cities in 1894 was withdrawn in 1902 because “more colored than white women voted in … the Spring election.” Southern fears held back Northern support as well. In 1914, Senator William E. Borah, a Progressive Republican from Idaho, told a suffrage lobbyist that “I do not believe the suffragists realize what they are doing to the women of the South if they force upon them universal suffrage before they are ready for it. The race question is one of the most serious before the country today and the women must help solve it before they can take on greater responsibilities.” To obtain the supermajorities necessary to amend the U.S. Constitution, the Suffrage Movement distanced itself from Southern efforts to disfranchise Negroes. Yet even when Southern women finally organized a major suffrage campaign, which excluded Negro women in order to prove their loyalty to Southern mores, their impact was minimal. To the end, the largest block of Congressional “no” votes for the Nineteenth Amendment were Southern, and only five border states — Texas, Missouri, Arkansas, Kentucky and Tennessee — ratified it at the time.

In 1983, African-American historian Rosalyn Terborg-Penn pointed out:

…white southern apprehensions of a viable black female electorate were not illusionary. “Colored women voter’s leagues” were growing throughout the South, where the task of the leagues was to give black women seeking to qualify to vote instructions for countering white opposition. Leagues could be found in Alabama, Georgia, Tennessee, and Texas. These groups were feared also by white supremacists because the women sought to qualify black men as voters as well.

Whites widely believed that black women wanted the ballot more than white women in the south. Black women were expected to register and to vote in larger numbers than white women. If this happened, the ballot would soon be returned to black men. Black suffrage, it was believed, would also result in the return of the two-party system in the South because blacks would consistently vote Republican.

…….

The National Association of Colored Women (NACW) combined self culture and community improvement from its inception, both educating its members and creating a network of social service projects. Under the motto “Lifting as we climb,” it had fifty thousand members in a thousand clubs in twenty-eight states by 1914. As was true for white women, the clubs trained black women in leadership and organization. While some colored women worked for suffrage in the Nineteenth Century, a few joined NAWSA, and some were paid speakers who appealed to black men in state referenda campaigns, most came late to suffrage. Ida B. Wells-Barnett “tried for many years to interest the Colored Women’s Clubs in suffrage, but they were in some instances unwilling to take up the work, and in some cases they showed little or no interest.” Massachusetts had an antisuffrage organization of colored women. Apathy was partly due to community resistance. Analyses of 19th Century black newspapers show that woman suffrage was seldom discussed, and usually opposed when it was. Black women canvassing for a black candidate in the 1914 Chicago city council races encountered fierce hostility from black men. Reynolds’ regression analysis of the 1915 New Jersey suffrage referendum showed that native born whites of native born parents were the most likely to vote to enfranchise women, and black men were the least likely, with foreign-born whites and their children in between. To combat this, The Crisis ran “A Woman Suffrage Symposium” in September 1912. Once suffrage was won, black men and women took greater interest in what women could do with the ballot. In 1913, Wells-Barnett and Belle Squires were finally able to organize Chicago’s Alpha Suffrage Club so Negro women “could help put a colored man in the city council.”　

©2000 Jo Freeman 　

August 24, 2020
“Housewife” to “Hussy”; A Revisit To Grammarphobia: From Domestic to Disreputable

By Patricia T. O’Conner and Stewart Kellerman

Q: As you may know, the word “housewife” refers (in addition to a June Cleaver wannabe) to a sewing kit, also called a “hussif” or a “hussy.” But how did “hussy” come to mean a woman of some flamboyance (my definition)?

A: Yes, “housewife” is (or rather was) another word for a sewing kit. (Our acquaintance with such domestic trivia is what comes of reading old British novels.)

The sewing-kit sense of “housewife,” a meaning that originated in the mid-18th century, is defined in the Oxford English Dictionary as “a small case or pouch for needles, thread, and other small sewing items.”

Wikipedia: A cover of “Good Housekeeping” magazine, 1908, made en:John Cecil Clay.

This often took the form of “a length of soft fabric, divided into pockets, that may be rolled up when not in use,” the OED adds.

Good Housekeeping magazine illustration, Phelps Publishing; Wikimedia

There’s no explanation as to why a sewing kit was called a “housewife,” but the answer seems obvious — it contained items used by a housewife.

Perhaps for a similar reason, another word for the mistress of a household, “chatelaine,” was used in the 19th century to mean a bunch of decorative chains worn at a woman’s waist, for holding things like keys, ornaments, a watch, and small sewing articles.

The OED’s earliest citation for “housewife” to mean a sewing kit is from Lives of the Most Remarkable Criminals (1735), a compendium of true-crime stories.

In this passage, a thief has surreptitiously cut the pocket from a woman’s skirts: “Upon turning the Pocket out, he found only a Thread Paper, a Housewife, and a Crown piece.”

The word for the sewing kit, as well as for the woman who used it, was also written as “huswife,” “hussive,” “hussif,” and even “hussy,” spellings that reflected alterations in the pronunciation.

Oxford provides an example of “hussy” used this way in Samuel Richardson’s novel Pamela (1740): “So I … dropt purposely my Hussy.”

And here’s a citation for “hussif,” from a 19th-century collection of regionalisms:

“Hussif, that is house-wife; a roll of flannel with a pin-cushion attached, used for the purpose of holding pins, needles, and thread.” (From Edward Peacock’s A Glossary of Words Used in the Wapentakes of Manley and Corringham, Lincolnshire, 1877.)

You asked how “hussy” got its bad reputation. It’s a long story, so we’ll begin at the beginning.

August 19, 2020
Where We Stand: Partial Draft of Democratic Party Platform Already Voted Upon By Delegates; Covid-19 Pandemic Is a Prime Focus

Editor’s Note: What is difficult to understand following the Democratic Party Convention (and their draft version) is the fact that the Republican Party issued the following statement: WHEREAS, The RNC has unanimously voted to forego the Convention Committee on Platform, in appreciation of the fact that it did not want a small contingent of delegates formulating a new platform without the breadth of perspectives within the ever-growing Republican movement.

What follows is a partial draft of the Democratic Party’s Platform.  The Wall Street Journal noted that delegates have remotely voted on the document earlier in August, but a final vote is ahead. The entire document extends to approximately 80 pages.

When we do not have competent, experienced, compassionate leaders in government, the American people suffer. That is the case with the novel coronavirus. President Trump and his Administration missed multiple opportunities to protect the American people from this deadly pathogen. Instead of recognizing the danger and confronting it head-on, President Trump lied to the American people about the disease’s severity, its transmissibility, and the threat it posed to lives and livelihoods.

Make no mistake: President Trump’s abject failure to respond forcefully and capably to the COVID-19 pandemic — his failure to lead— makes him responsible for the deaths of tens of thousands of Americans. COVID-19 has laid bare deep fault lines in our economy, our society, and our health care system. Disparities in health care access, in environmental quality, in the employment market, and in housing have contributed to disproportionate rates of infection and death among Black Americans, Native Americans, and Latinos.

President Trump’s failure to pay attention to early intelligence reports about the pandemic wasted critical weeks in which we could have prepared for the outbreak. Once the pandemic began spreading in the United States, the President’s failure to lay out clear, consistent guidelines for cities, states, businesses, and school districts to control the spread of COVID-19 created widespread confusion and chaos. His reckless disregard for the advice of public health experts has made it harder for mayors and governors to protect the American people. Rather than surge the production of personal protective equipment and other critical supplies where they were needed most, the Administration held life-saving resources hostage for political obeisance. Instead of bringing Americans together, President Trump tried to divide us, using racist and xenophobic rhetoric that has contributed to an increase in hate crimes against Asian Americans and Pacific Islanders. And in the midst of the pandemic, the Trump Administration is arguing in court to invalidate the Affordable Care Act and rip health coverage away from tens of millions of people.

President Trump and his Administration have also failed to drive an economic response that is commensurate with the scale of the challenge before us, preferring to act as though the recession caused by his incompetent mishandling of the COVID-19 pandemic will correct itself. He has hung small businesses out to dry while cutting blank checks to the largest corporations; failed to enact adequate support for public school systems, colleges, universities, and state and local governments to maintain public services and jobs; endangered the health of essential workers by failing to enact workplace safety standards; and neglected to protect working families from economic ruin. Democrats will save lives by using every available tool to beat back this pandemic, which continues to sicken and kill hundreds of Americans per day, and lead a global effort to prevent, detect, and respond to future pandemic threats.

We must start by making COVID-19 testing widely available, convenient, and free to everyone. We must also expand funding so state and local public health departments can hire sufficient staff to conduct contact tracing for everyone who tests positive for the novel coronavirus. Only through widespread, regular testing and tracing can we hope to understand the scope of the pandemic and contain it.

In a public health crisis, we all have to rely on each other. That’s why Democrats support making 9 COVID-19 testing, treatment, and any eventual vaccines free to everyone, regardless of their wealth, insurance coverage, or immigration status. We are all only as safe from this disease as are the most vulnerable among us.

It has always been a crisis that tens of millions of Americans have no or inadequate health insurance — but in a pandemic, it’s catastrophic for public health. The current crisis would be even worse without the Affordable Care Act in place. But in the COVID-19 pandemic, Americans need even more help, which is why Democrats will take immediate action to preserve and expand health insurance coverage. We will provide direct, increased support to states to enroll eligible adults in Medicaid, have the federal government cover a higher percentage of the bill, and add incentives for states which have not yet expanded Medicaid to do so.

For people who risk losing their insurance coverage if they lose their jobs in this pandemic and in President Trump’s recession, Democrats believe the federal government should pick up 23 percent of the tab for COBRA insurance, which keeps people on their employer-sponsored plans.

Read the entire platform as presently configured: https://www.demconvention.com/wp-content/uploads/2020/07/2020-07-21-DRAFT-Democratic-Party-Platform.pdf

RESOLUTION REGARDING THE REPUBLICAN PARTY PLATFORM

As Adopted by the Republican National Committee Paid for by the Republican National Committee Not Authorized By Any Candidate Or Candidate’s Committee www.gop.com

August 18, 2020
Jo Freeman Writes: The Political Parentage of Kamala Harris

By Jo Freeman

Much has been written about Kamala Harris’ biological parents. Of her political parentage, not so much. She has said that she is a child of the civil rights movement because her parents participated in demonstrations while they were grad students at Berkeley in the early 1960s. They may have been in the 1964 Free Speech Movement, but no interviewer asked about that. Her political parents were quite different. Kamala Harris’ nomination to be Vice President of the United States is a legacy of the Burton Machine and the Women’s Liberation Movement.

Kamala Harris with her mother

Since few have heard of the Burton Machine, I will start there. It began with Phil Burton, who was elected to the California Assembly in 1956 on his second try, with help from his wife, Sala and brothers John and Bob. They brought into their group John’s friends Willie Brown and George Moscone, whom he met in the Young Democrats (YDs) while they were students at San Francisco State College. All except Bob would be elected to important political positions within a couple decades.

The Burton Machine was based on ideology, not patronage. Its adherents pushed for legislation which helped unions, the poor and minorities. Initially the laws they pursued represented an extension of New Deal welfare legislation. Over time, new issues like ending discrimination against women and gay rights were added to the mix.

The BM’s success lay in persuading middle-class liberals, especially those in the liberal clubs of the California Democratic Council (CDC) and the YDs, to spend hours doing mailings and knocking on doors to elect the Burton brothers and the candidates that they supported. As a member of the University Young Democrats, I was a cog in the Burton Machine during my college years in Berkeley. One race I worked on was the election of Cong. Jack Shelley to be Mayor of San Francisco in order to open up his Congressional seat to Phil Burton. When Phil was elected to Congress in 1964, his Assembly seat was taken by brother John.

To elect like-minded people and put them into his debt, Phil Burton became an expert on redistricting (before computers). In the 1960s he influenced the drawing of Assembly District lines to create a seat for Willie Brown, who was elected in 1964. He would become Speaker of the Assembly in 1980 and Mayor of S.F. in 1996. After the 1980 Census, Phil once again drew lines to maximize the number of Democrats as well as to help those who voted his way. However, he didn’t attend to his own health. Phil Burton died on April 10, 1983.

The Burton Machine didn’t die. It was taken over by John Burton and Willie Brown. As they acquired political power, patronage became one of their tools. It’s well known that in 1994 Willie Brown appointed his steady date, Kamala Harris, to two state Boards that paid very well. In 1998, Brown no doubt recommended her to S.F. District Attorney Terence Hallinan, who was looking to hire both women and minorities. Kayo, as he was known, came from a large, well-known, leftist family whose patriarch, Vince Hallinan, had run for President on the Progressive Party ticket in 1952. Kayo was arrested in some of the same the Bay Area Civil Rights demonstrations that I was arrested in during 1964. These resulted in his being denied admission to the California Bar after he graduated from Hastings Law School. The California Supreme Court reversed that decision. If it hadn’t, he would never have become a D.A.

Phil’s wife Sala replaced him in Congress, in a classic widow’s succession. They had met at a YD convention. As Sala lay dying in 1987, she asked Nancy Pelosi to take the seat. Pelosi had grown up in a major political family in Baltimore but had moved with her husband to his home town of San Francisco in 1969. While raising five children she became active in the Democratic Party, becoming particularly notable for her skill at fund raising. As such, she provided a lot of “gas” for the Burton Machine. The Burton and Pelosi couples became good friends.

When Pelosi moved to S.F. there was a vibrant feminist movement. During the 1970s and 1980s the movement expanded into all facets of American life and was much in the news. Within the Democratic Party women pushed for equal representation in all party bodies, and were largely successful. As party leaders looked for women to appoint or support for elective office, Pelosi was available and visible. She was a woman whom men felt comfortable with and she was first and foremost a loyal Democrat. There were 14 candidates in the 1987 special election. Although Pelosi was seen by many as “establishment,” feminists still rallied behind her. She won, with the gay/socialist candidate coming in a close second.

Throughout the late 20th Century, women were making great strides into politics. In 1984, Pelosi chaired the host committee when the Democratic National Convention met in San Francisco, where Geraldine Ferraro (D. NY) was the first woman to be nominated for Vice President by a major party. Dianne Feinstein was Mayor of San Francisco for ten years before being elected to the U.S. Senate in 1992. She was joined by Barbara Boxer, who was also a product of the Burton Machine. Boxer was succeeded in 2017 by Kamala Harris.

By the time Kamala Harris ran for Attorney General of California in 2010 California voters were comfortable with women in positions of power. They were proud of Nancy Pelosi as she became the first woman to move up the House hierarchy, returning her to Congress with over three-quarters of the vote every two years. She broke the last glass ceiling when she was elected Speaker in 2007. Acknowledging her origins, Pelosi keeps a small statue of Phil Burton on a table in her office. While Kamala Harris gets a lower percentage of the vote than Pelosi, she never lost an election, not even her first one.

If Joe Biden is inaugurated as President in January, the people first and second in line for succession will both be progeny of the Burton machine and both be women.

Copyright ©2020 by Jo Freeman for SeniorWomen.com

Jo is watching the convention online in Brooklyn, NY. She wishes she was in Milwaukee, but we all know why she isn’t. She would like to thank Jerry Fishkin, Lara Levison and Jack Radey for research assistance in preparing this article.

August 17, 2020
Decision Matter of: Department of Homeland Security — Legality of Service of Acting Secretary of Homeland Security and Service of Senior Official Performing the Duties of Deputy Secretary of Homeland Security

Decision Matter of: Department of Homeland Security — Legality of Service of Acting Secretary of Homeland Security and Service of Senior Official Performing the Duties of Deputy Secretary of Homeland Security.

File: B-331650 Date: August 14, 2020

DIGEST
The Federal Vacancies Reform Act of 1998 (Vacancies Reform Act) provides for temporarily filling vacant executive agency positions that require presidential appointment with Senate confirmation. 5 U.S.C. § 3345. GAO’s role under the Vacancies Reform Act is to collect information agencies are required to report to GAO, and GAO uses this information to report to Congress any violations of the time limitations on acting service imposed by the Vacancies Reform Act. 5 U.S.C. § 3349. As part of this role, we issue decisions on agency compliance with the Vacancies Reform Act when requested by Congress. The Vacancies Reform Act is generally the exclusive means for filling a vacancy in a presidentially appointed, Senate confirmed position unless another statute provides an exception. 5 U.S.C. § 3347. The Homeland Security Act of 2002 provides an order of succession outside of the Vacancies Reform Act when a vacancy arises in the position of Secretary of the Department of Homeland Security (DHS). 6 U.S.C. § 113(g).

Upon Secretary Kirstjen Nielsen’s resignation on April 10, 2019, the official who assumed the title of Acting Secretary had not been designated in the order of succession to serve upon the Secretary’s resignation. Because the incorrect official assumed the title of Acting Secretary at that time, subsequent amendments to the order of succession made by that official were invalid and officials who assumed their positions under such amendments, including Chad Wolf and Kenneth Cuccinelli, were named by reference to an invalid order of succession. We have not reviewed the legality of other actions taken by these officials; we are referring the matter to the Inspector General of DHS for review. Page 2 B-331650

DECISION
This responds to a request from the Chairman of the Committee on Homeland Security and the Acting Chairwoman of the Committee of Oversight and Reform regarding the legality of the appointment of Chad Wolf as Acting Secretary of the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) and Ken Cuccinelli as Senior Official Performing the Duties of Deputy Secretary. Letter from Chairman, Committee on Homeland Security, U.S. House of Representatives and Acting Chairwoman, Committee on Oversight and Reform, U.S. House of Representatives to Comptroller General (Nov. 15, 2019). Specifically, we consider whether the appointments were authorized pursuant to the Secretary’s designation of an order of succession under the Homeland Security Act of 2002 (HSA). Homeland Security Act of 2002, Pub. L. No. 107-296, 116 Stat. 2135 (Nov. 25, 2002), as amended by National Defense Authorization Act for Fiscal Year 2017, Pub. L. No. 114-328, § 1903, 130 Stat. 2000, 2672 (Dec. 23, 2016), codified at 6 U.S.C. § 113(g)(2).

As explained below, we conclude that in the case of vacancies in the positions of Secretary, Deputy Secretary, and Undersecretary for Management, HSA provides a means for an official to assume the title of Acting Secretary pursuant to a designation of further order of succession by the Secretary. However, upon the resignation of Secretary Kirstjen Nielsen, the express terms of the then existing designation required the Director of the Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency (CISA) to assume that title instead of the Commissioner of Customs and Border Protection (CBP), Kevin McAleenan. As such, the subsequent appointments of Under Secretary for Strategy, Policy, and Plans, Chad Wolf and Principal Deputy Director of U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services (USCIS) Ken Cuccinelli were also improper because they relied on an amended designation made by Mr. McAleenan.1

Under the Federal Vacancies Reform Act of 1998 (Vacancies Reform Act), GAO collects information agencies are required to report to GAO, and GAO uses this information to report to Congress any violations of the time limitations on acting service imposed by the Vacancies Reform Act. 5 U.S.C. § 3349. As part of this 1 We have only been asked to address the designation of Messers. Wolf and Cuccinelli, so we do not otherwise address the consequences of any official’s improper service. We are referring that question to the DHS Inspector General for his review.

Editor’s Note: We would refer you to the file https://www.gao.gov/assets/710/708830.pdf for further explanations of the GAO’s decision. As many of you may have noted, and can confirm through a search, SeniorWomen.com has been a respectful ‘fan’ of this agency for many years. See story below.

August 15, 2020
GAO* Report on Retirement Security: Older Women Report Facing a Financially Uncertain Future
GAO-20-435: Published: Jul 14, 2020. Publicly Released: Aug 13, 2020

What GAO Found

In all 14 focus groups GAO held with older women, women described some level of anxiety about financial security in retirement. Many expressed concerns about the future of Social Security and Medicare benefits, and the costs of health care and housing. Women in the groups also cited a range of experiences that hindered their retirement security, such as divorce or leaving the workforce before they planned to (see fig.). Women in all 14 focus groups said their lack of personal finance education negatively affected their ability to plan for retirement. Many shared ideas about personal finance education including the view that it should be incorporated into school curriculum starting in kindergarten and continuing through college, and should be available through all phases of life.

Women Age 70 and Over by Marital Status

Note: Percentages do not add up to 100 percent due to rounding.

Individual women’s financial security is also linked to their household where resources may be shared among household members. According to the 2016 Survey of Consumer Finances, among households with older women, about 23 percent of those with white respondents and 40 percent of those with African American respondents fell short of a measure of retirement confidence, indicating their income was not sufficient to maintain their standard of living. The likelihood of a household reporting high retirement confidence rose in certain cases. For example among households of similar wealth, those with greater liquidity in their portfolio and those with defined benefit plan income were more likely to report high retirement confidence.

Why GAO Did This Study

Older adults represent a growing portion of the U.S. population and older women have a longer life expectancy, on average, than older men. Prior GAO work has found that challenges women face during their working years can affect their lifetime earnings and retirement income. For example, we found women were overrepresented in low wage professions, paid less money than their male counterparts during their careers, and were more likely to leave the workforce to care for family members. Taken together, these trends may have significant effects on women’s financial security in retirement.

GAO was asked to report on the financial security of older women. This report examines (1) women retirees’ perspectives on their financial security, and (2) what is known about the financial security of older women in retirement.

GAO held 14 non-generalizable focus groups with older women in both urban and rural areas in each of the four census regions. GAO also analyzed data from three nationally representative surveys — the 2019 Current Population Survey, the Health and Retirement Study (2002-2014 longitudinal data), and the 2016 Survey of Consumer Finances.

Transcript for: Women’s Perspectives on Retirement
```
Description: GAO spoke to nearly 200 older women across the country to
learn more about their thoughts on retirement security. Women in all 14
focus groups said retirement security meant the ability to maintain
independence, and cited concerns about health costs and negative impacts
of a lack of personal finance education.

Related GAO Works: GAO-20-435: Retirement Security: Older Women Report
Facing a Financially Uncertain Future

Released: August 2020

[Narrator:] How am I going to afford retirement? That's a big question
for millions of Americans. But it's especially pressing for women who
are more likely to live longer, interrupt their careers to care for
others, and have lower average earnings than men. We spoke to nearly 200
older women across the country to learn more about their thoughts on
retirement security. Here's some of what we heard. Whether women felt
financially secure, often depended on their ability to be financially
independent, and on whether they had accumulated enough financial assets
to cover their future expenses.
```
August 13, 2020
A New Study: Sex Differences in Pharmacokinetics Predict Adverse Drug Reactions in Women

New study links sex biases in drug dosage trials to the overmedication of women (Photo by iStockphoto)

Women are more likely than men to suffer adverse side effects of medications because drug dosages have historically been based on clinical trials conducted on men, suggests new research from UC Berkeley and the University of Chicago.

Researchers analyzed data from several thousand medical journal articles and found clear evidence of a drug dose gender gap for 86 different medications approved by the Federal Drug Administration (FDA), including antidepressants, cardiovascular and anti-seizure drugs and analgesics, among others.

“When it comes to prescribing drugs, a one-size-fits-all approach, based on male-dominated clinical trials, is not working, and women are getting the short end of the stick,” said study lead author Irving Zucker, a professor emeritus of psychology and of integrative biology at UC Berkeley.

Graphic shows how sex/gender differences can predict adverse drug reactions. (Image courtesy of Irving Zucker)

The findings, published in the journal Biology of Sex Differences, confirm the persistence of a drug dose gender gap stemming from a historic disregard of the fundamental biological differences between male and female bodies, Zucker said.

Women in the studies analyzed by Zucker and University of Chicago psychologist Brian Prendergast were given the same drug dose as the men, yet had higher concentrations of the drug in their blood, and it took longer for the drug to be eliminated from their bodies.

And, in more than 90% of cases, women experienced worse side effects, such as nausea, headache, depression, cognitive deficits, seizures, hallucinations, agitation and cardiac anomalies. Overall, they were found to experience adverse drug reactions nearly twice as often as men.

For decades, women were excluded from clinical drug trials based, in part, on unfounded concerns that female hormone fluctuations render women difficult to study, Zucker said.

Moreover, until the early 1990s, women of childbearing age were kept out of drug trial studies due to medical and liability concerns about exposing pregnant women to drugs and risking damage to their fetuses — as was the case in the 1950s and ‘60s with thalidomide, which caused limb birth defects in thousands of children worldwide.

“Neglect of females is widespread, even in cell and animal studies where the subjects have been predominantly male,” Zucker said.

Zolpidem, the popular sleep medication marketed as Ambien, lingers longer in the blood of women than of men, causing next-morning drowsiness, substantial cognitive impairment and increased traffic accidents, Zucker said. For these reasons, the FDA in 2013 halved the recommended dosage prescribed to women.

In acknowledging the widespread male bias in both human and animal studies, the National Institutes of Health mandated in 2016 that grant applicants would be required to recruit male and female participants in their protocols.

While the inclusion of females in drug trials has increased in recent years, many of these newer studies still fail to analyze the data for sex differences, Zucker said.

Going forward, Zucker and Prendergast make the case for a broader awareness — in medical research, the medical profession and the pharmaceutical industry — of the biological sex and gender differences that put women at a disadvantage when taking prescription drugs. They recommend dosage reductions for women for a wide range of drugs.

READ THE STUDY: Sex differences in pharmacokinetics predict adverse drug reactions in women

August 13, 2020
Jo Freeman Writes: Kamala Harris on the Democratic Ticket

By Jo Freeman

Kamala Harris is a first in many ways as her party’s pick as a Vice-President and ‘woman of color’ being another obvious difference.

What’s different this time is the general assumption that she will be the Democratic Party nominee in 2024, with a real possibility of becoming the first woman President. Biden won’t run in 2024, whether due to death, defeat, or just age.

Consequently, she will be scrutinized even more thoroughly than Hillary was; especially her appearance. Some men seem to believe that how a woman looks is more important than how she thinks or what she does.

Kamala Harris during the Kavanaugh hearings for Supreme Court Justice; photo by Jo Freeman, Public Seminar

A long path that led up to this day. The first woman to be nominated for Vice President at a Democratic Convention was Mrs. Leroy Springs of South Carolina. She received 18 delegate votes. Nellie Tayloe Ross, the first woman governor (WY 1925-27) received 31 delegate votes for Vice President in 1928. Over the decades, other women were similarly honored, which often (not always) gave them a chance to make a speech to the entire convention.

In 1984 the Democrats finally put a woman on the ticket.

By then the women’s liberation movement had enveloped the country, changes in convention rules meant women were 50 percent of the delegates and powerful feminist organizations and the women’s caucus within the Democratic Party wanted a woman on the ticket. Mondale received the same intense lobbying to choose a woman that Biden encountered to choose a black woman. Both men listened.

Polls before the convention indicated that Geraldine Ferraro would help Mondale win the Presidency, but polls afterwards said she had little impact on the outcome. In reality, it’s very unusual for the VP candidate to make much of a difference in the election. At best, the VP candidate brings his or her home state into the electoral college (e.g. LBJ may have brought Texas in 1960). But California is a true-blue state, so that won’t happen this time.

It’s possible Harris will bring an increase in black votes. Obama got a minority bump in 2008 and 2012. The bump went down when Hillary was the nominee in 2016, even though Obama campaigned for her. Bumps only matter in battleground states.

The choice of Kamala Harris was an inspiration, but the reality is that bold moves by the Democratic ticket won’t win this election. Bad moves by the Republican ticket will lose it.

©2020 Jo Freeman for SeniorWomen.com

Jo has published 11 books, including three on women and politics. She has been to 15 Democratic Conventions and 11 Republican Conventions and written about most of them. She won’t be going to the 2020 conventions.

August 12, 2020
Exclusive: Over 900 Health Workers Have Died of COVID-19; Memorializing Every US Health Care Worker Who Dies During the Pandemic and the Toll Is Rising
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By Danielle Renwick, The Guardian and Shoshana Dubnow, August 11, 2020

More than 900 front-line health care workers have died of COVID-19, according to an interactive database unveiled Tuesday by The Guardian and KHN. Lost on the Frontline is a partnership between the two newsrooms that aims to count, verify and memorialize every US health care worker who dies during the pandemic.

It is the most comprehensive accounting of US health care workers’ deaths in the country.

As coronavirus cases surge — and dire shortages of lifesaving protective gear like N95 masks, gowns and gloves persist — the nation’s health care workers are again facing life-threatening conditions in Southern and Western states.

Through crowdsourcing and reports from colleagues, social media, online obituaries, workers unions and local media, Lost on the Frontline reporters have identified 922 health care workers who reportedly died of COVID-19 and its complications.

A team of more than 50 journalists from the Guardian, KHN and journalism schools have spent months investigating individual deaths to make certain that they died of COVID-19, and that they were indeed working on the front lines in contact with COVID patients or working in places where they were being treated. The reporters have also been investigating the circumstances of their deaths, including their access to personal protective equipment (PPE), and tracking down family members, co-workers, union representatives and employers to comment about their deaths.

Thus far, we have independently confirmed 167 deaths and published their names, data and stories about their lives and how they will be remembered. We are continuing to confirm additional victims and are publishing new names weekly.

The tally includes doctors, nurses and paramedics, as well as crucial support staff such as hospital custodians, administrators and nursing home workers, who put their own lives at risk during the pandemic to care for others.

The early data indicates that dozens have died who were unable to access adequate PPE and at least 35 succumbed after federal work-safety officials received safety complaints about their workplaces. Early tallies also suggest that the majority of the deaths were among people of color, and many were immigrants. But because this database is a work in progress — with new confirmed cases added weekly — the early findings represent a fraction of total reports and are not representative of all health care worker deaths.

Of the 167 workers added to the Lost on the Frontline database so far:
- A majority — 103 (62%) — were identified as people of color.
- At least 52 (31%) were reported to have had inadequate PPE.
- The median age was 57 and ages ranged from 20 to 80, with 21 people (13%) under 40.
- About one-third — at least 53 — were born outside the United States, and 25 were from the Philippines.
- The majority of the deaths, 103, were in April, after the initial surge on the East Coast.
- Roughly 38% — 64 — were nurses, but the total also included physicians, pharmacists, first responders and hospital technicians, among others.
- At least 68 lived in New York and New Jersey, two states hit hard at the outset of the pandemic, with Illinois and California next.
Some of these deaths were preventable. Poor preparation, government missteps and an overburdened health care system increased that risk. Inadequate access to testing, a nationwide shortage of protective gear and resistance to social distancing and mask-wearing have forced more patients into overburdened hospitals and driven up the death toll.

Gaps in government data have increased the need for independent tracking. The federal government has failed to accurately count health care worker fatalities. As of Sunday, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention reported 587 deaths among health workers — but the agency does not list specific names and has conceded this is an undercount.

Recent moves by the White House underscore the need for public data and accountability. In July, the Trump administration ordered health facilities to send data on hospitalizations and deaths from COVID-19 directly to the Department of Health and Human Services, bypassing the CDC. In the succeeding days, vital information on the pandemic disappeared from the public eye. (The data was later restored following a public outcry, but the agency indicated it may no longer update the figures because of a change in federal reporting requirements.)

Lost on the Frontline reporters have compiled hundreds of potential cases through crowdsourcing and reports from colleagues, social media, online obituaries, workers unions and local media. They are independently confirming each death before publishing names, data and obituaries.

Exclusive stories by the reporters have revealed that many health care workers are using surgical masks that are far less effective than N95 masks and have put them in jeopardy. Emails obtained via a public records request showed that federal and state officials were aware in late February of dire shortages of PPE.

Further investigations found that health workers who contracted the coronavirus and their families now struggle to access death and other benefits in the workers’ compensation system. Our reporting has also examined the deaths of 19 health care workers under age 30 who died from COVID-19.

We are continuing to gather the names of health care workers who’ve died and dig into why so many are falling ill. We welcome tips and feedback at frontline@theguardian.com and covidtips@kff.org.

KHN senior correspondent Christina Jewett and Melissa Bailey contributed to this report.

Subscribe to KHN’s free Morning Briefing.
August 11, 2020