The Executive Director of the Ohio Women’s Public Policy Network, Elizabeth Brown, says the COVID-19 pandemic has hit women, especially those with children, the hardest.
“It was women who really bore the brunt of the impact,” Brown said.
Brown, who also sits on Columbus City Council, noted jobs traditionally performed by women, often low-income women of color, disappeared early in the pandemic.
Now some of those jobs are coming back but Brown said many women find they no longer have the affordable childcare they need. And now, they can no longer draw the extra $300 a week in federal dollars to help them survive without employment.
Columbus resident Leah Haenszel, a respiratory therapist, said she has been in and out of work during the past year and struggles to maintain affordable child care. She was denied unemployment benefits due to fraudulent claims that used her address. She said people like her need to be able to sit on the state panel that makes decisions about unemployment. It includes lawmakers, employers, and union reps but no unemployed Ohioans.
“Our system needs to have voices of the people who are having to live in the system represented. That’s imperative,” Haenazel said.
Democratic House Rep Lisa Sobecki (D-Toledo) said she and other Democrats have proposed bills, like the equal pay gender equity bill, that they think would help working moms. But the legislation has not gained traction in the Ohio Legislature.
