On the heels of another dismal job report and a flaming national debate over the meaning of marriage, the Center for American Progress presents a snapshot of the unmarried in today’s economy. It turns out that single women of color, despite their vital economic contributions as consumers, parents and workers, bear the brunt of the economy’s decline and the failed policies that have deepened the recession.

According to the report, unmarried women fare much worse than married couples on nearly every measure of economic well-being, including home ownership (30 percent of unmarried women, 80 percent of married couples), household income and poverty rates.

And during lean times, “Single women have fewer savings to fall back on if they become unemployed or have their earnings cut.” The gender wealth gap turns into a yawning chasm when you factor in race, as recently detailed in an earlier report by the Insight Center showing a vast disparity in the median net wealth of women of color compared with white women.

Unmarried status, CAP says, not only means women lack the cushion of an additional household income, but penalizes them on a community level by compounding the racial wealth gap:

Unmarried women of color have even less economic security than their white counterparts. This is a particular concern because women of color are more likely to be unmarried and facing the economic insecurity associated with their marital status. For instance, 68 percent of adult black women are unmarried, as are 47 percent of Hispanic women, compared with 43 percent of white women….

What’s more, women who maintain families–the vast majority of whom are single mothers–have the highest unemployment rate of all women. Fifteen percent of black single mothers were unemployed in 2009, as were 11.6 percent of Hispanic single mothers, compared with 6.6 percent of black and 9.7 percent of Hispanic married women, the ethnic group with the highest unemployment rate for married women. This high unemployment rate for married Hispanic married women results in a smaller gap between the unemployment rates of Hispanic married and unmarried women than for blacks and whites.

Drawing from the experience of the Recovery Act, the report outlines some potential policy solutions that could turn women of color’s financial liabilities into assets. For example, targeted jobs programs that don’t just focus on male-dominated industries like construction, or reforms to welfare-to-work programs that actually move women into real careers instead of dead-end low-wage jobs.It also wouldn’t hurt to revise the tax codes that privilege married heterosexuals and unemployment insurance policies that discriminate against low-income women. And while they’re at it, Congress ought to finally begin dismantling the perverse barriers in the Fair Labor Standards Act that exclude domestic workers, a sector dominated by immigrant women of color.

Mired at the bottom of the racial wealth divide, single women of color need not just a safety net but a ladder: labor policies that respect their autonomy as workers, and social programs that enable them to strike out on their own while ensuring their families have something to lean on.

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If this sounds unnatural, it’s the reality for many young girls of color who experience early signs of puberty at alarming rates. The latest research adds to a growing body of evidence suggesting that an array of social and environmental factors may be causing girls’ bodies to develop prematurely. Breast Cancer and the Environment Research Centers–looked at 1,239 girls screened in Manhattan, Cincinnati and San Francisco. It reveals stark racial disparities.

The girls who developed breasts early, as young as age seven, were disproportionately Black and Latina. Black 8-year-olds were more than twice as likely as white girls to develop breasts. As the NYT reports:

At 7 years, 10.4 percent of white, 23.4 percent of black and 14.9 percent of Hispanic girls had enough breast development to be considered at the onset of puberty.

At age 8, the figures were 18.3 percent in whites, 42.9 percent in blacks and 30.9 percent in Hispanics. The percentages for blacks and whites were even higher than those found by a 1997 study that was one of the first to suggest that puberty was occurring earlier in girls.

As Susan Shane explained in a 2008 Colorlines essay, early puberty tends to produce complicated dilemmas. Girls often find themselves physically maturing at a faster pace than they learn how to deal with sexual contact, and may face certain cancer risks later in life.

The findings dovetail with earlier research by the Columbia Mailman School of Public Health, which has tracked elevated exposures to environmental toxins in mothers in low-income New York neighborhoods. The data reflect a disturbing prevalence of chemicals known to be endocrine disruptors, including common plastic ingredients known as pthalates.

The Obama administration has begun taking environmental health risks more seriously, beginning with a groundbreaking report from the Presidential Cancer Panel which highlighted the threats of environmental carcinogens.

Meanwhile, the White House is campaigning to reduce childhood obesity, another health problem tied to early-onset puberty, which may expand poor kids’ access to healthy foods and recreation.

As the budget battle shakes out, it’s too early to tell how comprehensively the administration will address the link between health and environment. The research is clear, however: the risk to youth isn’t just about “lifestyle,” but justice, especially for the young girls of color who carry an unequal burden as they step suddenly into adulthood.

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A multinational oil giant may be headed for its day of reckoning in a New York City courtroom next month.

The lawsuit, Wiwa v. Shell, centers on charges of rampant human rights abuses by Royal Dutch Shell against the Ogoni people of Nigeria, including the murder of the iconic activist Ken Saro-Wiwa. Litigated by EarthRights International and the Center for Constitutional Rights, the case is based on the Alien Tort Claims Act, a statute that allows international human rights violators to be tried in the United States.

According to the lawsuit, Shell conspired with the military dictatorship of Nigeria to carry out a campaign of violence and coercion to destroy the Ogoni resistance to Shell’s oil drilling activities, which are credited with devastating the environment and undermining the Ogoni’s traditional lifestyle.

The oil industry’s exploitation of the Niger Delta ties into the legacy of colonialism as well as post-colonial political fracturing across the African continent.

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Maybe Asian people would have an easier time participating in democracy if their names weren’t so darn tricky. That was the suggestion of one Texas legislator at a hearing on a proposed voter identification law.

Though supporters argue that the legislation—which would follow similar measures in Georgia and Florida—would enhance “confidence” in the voting system, and opponents say it would chase after a nonexistent problem by disenfranchising certain poor and marginalized groups, including immigrants (who, incidentally, might be more inclined to vote Democrat).

State Rep. Betty Brown, Republican of Terrell, was miffed when a representative of the Organization of Chinese Americans warned that some voters of Asian descent would have trouble complying with the regulations because their official name translated from their native language would differ from the name used on common identification forms, such as a driver’s license. Brown commented,

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Counting people is harder than it looks. The 2010 census is morphing from sociological project into a political one: conservatives are crowing about the dangers of tallying “illegals,” and activists are seeking policy changes to guard against undercounting.

Immigrant advocates are leveraging the threat of an undercount to press for immigration reforms, warning that aggressive crackdowns drive undocumented immigrants further underground. An estimated 3 percent of the Latino population was undercounted in the 2000 census.

The National Association of Latino Elected and Appointed Officials Educational Fund, League of United Latin American Citizens, SEIU and other groups have partnered to launched a Spanish-language outreach campaign, ¡HAGASE CONTAR! NALEO argues:

The census is taken largely through the U.S. postal system, and factors such as unlisted addresses, households with large families and high mobility rates contribute to persons being missed. The recession and large number of foreclosures in the Latino community will make enumerating this population even more difficult in 2010.

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