Demelza Baer, Senior Counsel and Director of the Economic Mobility Initiative, spoke with the Star Ledger and NJ Spotlight on the new Census data on poverty and inequality.

From the Star Ledger:

Demelza Baer, senior counsel for the New Jersey Institute for Social Justice, points to several possible factors as to why New Jersey has fallen behind in closing the gender gap.

New Jersey has seen a “hollowing out” of middle class wage earners as reflected in the state’s high income inequality, Baer said…

Also, there are still structural barriers for women in the workforce to advance to better paying jobs — the lack of inexpensive child care and discrimination in employment and job promotion, experts say.  

“We need to have policy responses to this,” Baer said. “What we need to see is more of a specific effort to make sure that women, especially women of color, are on track to join middle skills jobs [that require more than a high school but less than a bachelor’s degree] that pay a living wage and allow for upward mobility.”