http://newiprogressive.com/images/stories/S5/women-3gen-s5.jpgTrump likes to talk like he supports women, but does he walk the talk? Here are nine ways he hurts them everyday.

MADISON - Donald Trump claims to support women, who now make up the majority of the workforce in the United States, but time and time again, he has actively worked to make life harder for them. From opposing minimum wage increases, to proposing cuts to programs that make child care more affordable, Trump is making things worse for Wisconsin women. 

Wisconsin women are taking notice, with recent polling showing that Trump is falling behind with this critical voting block. According to a November poll conducted by Garin-Hart-Yang and Global Strategy Group, when asked if Trump's handling of a variety of issues is more of a reason to reelect him or more of a reason to elect someone else, Wisconsin women respondents chose someone else on crucial issues like the economy (50% someone else, 33% Trump), wages (50% someone else, 30% Trump), health care (55% someone else, 27% Trump) and prescription drug costs (49% someone else, 24% Trump).

Below are some of the many ways Trump has hurt women:

• Trump has sabotaged protections and benefits for women workers, who now make up more than half of the workforce in the US. The Trump administration rolled back a pay transparency rule aimed at closing the gender wage gap, which hits Wisconsin women especially hard. Wisconsin women with full-time, year-round jobs make 80 cents for every dollar paid to men – less than the national average of 82 cents.
• Trump’s White House opposed a minimum wage increase, which would have disproportionately benefited women. As of 2018, roughly three in four minimum wage workers in Wisconsin were women.
• Trump has stood in the way of efforts to increase pay for women, by dramatically scaling back an Obama-era measure to broaden eligibility for overtime, leaving 4.2 million women out to dry.
• Trump has done nothing to stem the increasing cost of child care, which has become one of the biggest costs for middle-class families in Wisconsin. Child care costs increased nearly 7.5% in 2017 to an average of around $9,000-$9,600 annually. The average cost of infant child care in Wisconsin is even higher -- $12,597 annually, which is more than the cost of undergraduate tuition at UW-Madison.
• Even as costs go up for parents, Trump is trying to slash funding for programs that make child care more affordable and accessible for working parents. Trump’s FY2019 budget proposed slashing 30% from the child care development fund, which subsidizes access to early care and after-school programs for working parents.
• While Trump works to eliminate the Affordable Care Act in its entirety, millions of women nationally, and over 1 million women in Wisconsin could be denied insurance without the ACA’s protections for pre-existing conditions.
• Trump has tried to cut Social Security, which would disproportionately harm women, who have a longer lifespan and are therefore more likely to outlive their savings. Average Social Security benefits are nearly $4,000 per year lower for women than they are for men, leaving them even more vulnerable in the event of cuts.
• Trump has tried repeatedly to slash Medicaid, the majority of whose beneficiaries are women. As of February 2018, women comprised two-thirds of all adults on Medicaid.
• Women’s uninsured rate is quickly climbing under Trump, likely caused by efforts by the Trump administration and Congress to undermine the ACA.

Please don’t hesitate to reach out if you want more information on how Trump is bad for women, or if you’d like to speak to a Wisconsin woman who can share her own story.