Poll: Economic inequality tops Colorado women voters' concerns ahead of midterms
DENVER — Johnitta Medina started her vegan soul food business, Momma Jah’s, during the pandemic, expanding to catering a couple of years later.
She aims to buy food locally, preferably from farms owned by women or people of color. But rising prices are taking their toll.
“A case of cauliflower that was once $32 was $54 today,” she said Tuesday. “The huge fluctuations that all of us are seeing in every single market that exists creates that anxiety and that fear and that sense of instability, because there's no predictability at all.”
Medina isn’t alone.
Colorado women are concerned about financial inequality and high costs for necessities, a new survey indicates. Respondents also said they feel they have fewer rights and career opportunities than men.
“Colorado women are not struggling because they aren't working hard enough,” said Renee Ferrufino, president and CEO of The Women’s Foundation of Colorado, which commissioned the survey.
“They are facing real structural barriers to financial security, to personal safety, and to health care, and those barriers are getting harder to clear.”
Of those surveyed, 63% said they’d be more likely to support a political candidate who makes “advancing equality and opportunity for all Colorado women a top priority.”
The Women’s Foundation of Colorado and Aspect Strategies conducted the survey of 725 women between April 27 and May 4. The poll has a 3.6% margin of error, meaning results could be 3.6% higher or lower.
Rocky Mountain PBS will partner with The Women’s Foundation of Colorado and the Colorado Women's Chamber of Commerce to moderate “Women Decide: A Governor’s Forum” Sunday, June 7, at 7 p.m. The free, virtual forum will stream live on Zoom and the RMPBS YouTube channel and feature questions based on the survey results.
“Women are the ones that hold everything together,” said Beth Hendrix, executive director of the League of Women Voters of Colorado. Both nationally and in Colorado women tend to vote at higher rates than men both nationally and in Colorado.
“Women are the traditional caregivers. And I think that that extends even to a neighborhood, city, county, state, federal” level, she said.
Economic concerns focus on housing, health care
Some 84% of the women surveyed said the high cost of living is outpacing their income. Nearly half said they’d had to cut back on retirement savings (47%) or used credit for basic expenses (46%) when offered a list of 10 ways they’re coping with the higher costs. And 41% said they’d skipped or delayed medical care.
Nearly 60% said they’d be worried about paying for basic needs such as housing, utilities or groceries if faced with an unexpected $500 expense. More than one-third had skipped or delayed a bill payment in the past year.
Judith Alvarez is among those facing difficult choices. The Glenwood Springs woman works two jobs to support herself and her teenage son. She makes too much to qualify for Medicaid, so she and her son don’t have health insurance. And she’s put off medical treatment.
“In 2015, they detected a fibroma, which is a benign tumor in the uterus, and every year it's been growing and I haven't had it operated,” Alvarez said. “It could be out of fear, but also because it's going to cost about $60,000.”
Colorado women earn 81 cents for every dollar earned by men, and the median income for white women ($62,000) was considerably higher than for Black women ($47,000) or Latinas ($43,000). That’s according to a study by the State Policy Action Lab in partnership with The Women’s Foundation of Colorado released earlier this year.
“When prices go up, it's the most vulnerable who are affected the most, and women tend to be among the most vulnerable, especially when you're talking about the single moms,” Hendrix said.
Alvarez agreed, noting the high cost of living in the Roaring Fork Valley.
“Of the women that I know, they all support their homes, it doesn’t matter if they have a husband or not, they pay half of everything,” she said. “It’s because life is so expensive in these parts. Everyone has to work.”
An unequal system
More than half the women surveyed — 63% — said they have fewer rights and opportunities than men. Of those, 48% said the gap between men and women has grown in the past decade.
Caregiving for others and lack of career advancement opportunities prevented more than a quarter of the women surveyed from getting ahead financially in the last year.
“It's like you have to work twice as hard to be in the same exact place,” Medina said.
When asked about how they were doing compared with men in different areas, women said they were doing worse when it came to:
- Personal safety and security, (74%, though 80% said they feel safe in their community)
- Doing unpaid work, like caring for family, getting in the way of career advancement (69%)
- Financial stability (61%)
- Access to jobs that pay a living wage and opportunities for career advancement (58%)
But when it comes to social connection and emotional support, 48% said they were doing better than men.
Betsy App, vice president of Aspect Strategic who supervised the survey, said people in Colorado and nationally are struggling with the cost of living, but Colorado women appear to be worse off.
“I think the ways in which Colorado women are struggling are unique to their gender identity,” she said. “Women are going into debt, they're facing these really challenging decisions. How widespread that is across all kinds of demographic, geographic groups is surprising.”
Seeking solutions
Asked which three things would help them get ahead financially, women surveyed answered affordable housing, access to high quality health care, and easy access to healthy food.
“When women thrive, our families stabilize, communities strengthen, and our entire economy grows,” Furrifino said.
Affordable housing is one of Alvarez’s top concerns. Her rent in the Cavern Springs mobile home park in Glenwood springs increased 30% in the last five years. She fears it could climb higher if investors buy the park, which is for sale. She’s among the residents trying to raise money to buy the mobile home park with help from the nonprofit Mountain Voices Program, with a deadline of mid-June.
Medina said the state could help by funding programs that help entrepreneurs, such as the Center for Community Wealth, which has provided her with training and support.
Yessica X. Holguin, executive director of the center, said they’re poised to lose two federal grants, including one awarded through the city of Denver, later this year. But government could help in other ways, too.
“I definitely think that the state and our municipalities have a lot of opportunity to support the organizations that provide culturally relevant, accessible, technical assistance,” she said.
And entrepreneurs, especially those run by women and people of color need access to more sources of low-interest credit, including micro loans, she said.
Medina said the state could help by offering more grants and contracts to businesses owned by women and people of color.
“Don't be afraid of sticking to the moral code of supporting underserved communities,” she said.
Ferrufino noted that the women surveyed were enthusiastic about potential government support.
“More than half of them said they would be interested in starting their own businesses or growing their businesses if they had access to affordable capital sources and support,” she said.
Affordable childcare is another area where government could play a role, Holguin said, both in providing jobs for women and helping working women manage a career.
“We need to think about childcare, affordable childcare, quality childcare as entrepreneurship infrastructure,” she said.
App said her polling firm estimates that women will make up 52% of the electorate this year, and they’ll play an even more significant role in the Democratic gubernatorial primary, where they make up about 60% of the voting base, compared with 47% of the GOP base.
“I like to think that women vote more because we know that rights once won can just as easily be taken away,” said Hendrix.
“So perhaps we feel the need to make our voices heard more.”
Rocky Mountain PBS multimedia journalist Adrian O'Farrill contributed to this report.
Based on facts, either observed and verified firsthand by the reporter, or reported and verified from knowledgeable sources. To read more about why you can trust the journalism of Rocky Mountain PBS, please visit our editorial standards and practices page.
