COUNCIL OF THE CITY OF PHILADELPHIA COMMITTEE ON FINANCE Room 400, City Hall Philadelphia, Pennsylvania Monday, March 9, 2026 10:45 a.m. PRESENT: COUNCILWOMAN KATHERINE GILMORE RICHARDSON, CHAIR COUNCILWOMAN CINDY BASS, VICE-CHAIR COUNCILMAN MIKE DRISCOLL COUNCILMAN CURTIS JONES, JR.
Good morning. Good morning. Thank you all for being patient. I apologize for the delay this morning. I now note that the hour has come to begin today's hearing. Clerk, will you please call the roll to take attendance. Members who are in attendance will please indicate that you are present by stating aye when your name is called.
I am present. Thank you so much. A quorum of the committee is present and the hearing is now called to order. I also want to recognize that Councilman Jeffrey Young was here and appreciate him for his service. This is the public hearing of the Committee on Finance regarding Resolution No. 251034. Clerk, will you please read the title of the resolution.
Resolution No. 251034, authorizing the Committee on Finance to hold hearings on the state of the economy for Black women in Philadelphia.
Thank you and thank 8 you so much again for being here 9 today. Know that I believe that 10 this topic is urgent and important. 11 There are too many Philadelphians 12 who are struggling right now within 13 this economy and so many families 14 who are hurting, many families that 15 all of our offices hear from on a 16 regular basis. 17 But we are seeing an 18 unfortunate trend right now in our 19 economy, something that began 20 February to July of 2025 that I 21 believe we need to talk about, and 22 that is the challenging economic 23 conditions that we see are 24 disproportionately impacting Black women, making the pressure on them even greater than what's happening in this economy. According to recent data from the United States Bureau of Labor Statistics, nationwide Black women lost 319,000 jobs in the public and the private sectors between February and July of 2025, the only, let me repeat, the only female demographic group to see significant job losses during the same period. A WHYY analysis of our 2023 United States Census data also showed that the gender pay gap persists in Philadelphia across every race and ethnic group, with Black women earning $0.64 and Hispanic women earning $0.57 for every dollar earned by a White man. Additionally, 69% of Black women are the primary earners for their families, per the Center for American Progress. And so, we know that with all of this information, with all of this data, with the numbers, and one of the great philosophers that I enjoy listening to, Jay-Z said, Men lie, women lie, but numbers don't. The numbers don't lie. And so, right now we are seeking to hold Part 1 of a very important hearing, to hear from our academic experts, to hear from our community experts about what we know to be true around economic challenges for Black women and we are looking to explore strategies and policy responses to help support economic stability across the City of Philadelphia and, of course, our region. I am grateful to the experts, the leaders and all the individuals who have joined us today to talk about their lived experience. We appreciate you for participating in the hearing and we look forward to hearing from each of you and building upon the information we hear so that we can come out of this hearing with tangible next steps and policy recommendations to make things better. So with that, Clerk, will you please call the first panel.
Pardon me. Before we call the first panel, the Chair would like to recognize Councilmember Ahmad for remarks.
Thank you, Chair, and grateful to you, Majority Leader, for having this hearing, because it is imperative we look for solutions for a group that has been so deeply impacted, particularly by our federal landscape, as was just mentioned. I just want to take a point of privilege to talk about the role Black women have played in my life, for me to be here as an elected member of City Council, a non-Black woman of color. I could not be here but for Black women understanding, supporting me and standing in solidarity because our issues are the same. We might come in different packages, but Black women have been holding up the City of Philadelphia. That's just the facts, right. They're the ones who show up at the polls. They're the ones who are -- when you look at the judge of elections, when you look at all the folks who are the infrastructure of Philadelphia, the most reliable demographic group is Black women, because they understand without participating they're going to feel the brunt of inequality. So I am here to recognize that you historically show up in all kinds of spaces for everybody, not just for yourselves, but for everybody. So it behooves us to do this hearing seriously and look for solutions and I'm very grateful to everyone who's going to be testifying here today because you are the experts. You have the lived experience and we need to listen carefully and hopefully come up with some solutions that this committee will act on. And I just wanted to make another point. As the Chair of Public Health and Human Services, I just did a hearing on the reproductive health care for women in Philadelphia and how that's intersected with economic well-being. Those two cannot be separated. And so, we will work on all fronts to make sure that you are seen, heard and attended to. So thank you, Madam Chair.
Thank you and thank you so much, Councilmember Ahmad. The Chair now recognizes Councilmember Driscoll.
Thank you, Madam Chair. And I appreciate your leadership in calling this hearing examining the state of the economy for Black women in the City of Philadelphia. I've long been a proponent of equal pay for equal work and I look forward to delving into what are these issues and how we can reverse this trend. So thank you for your leadership.
Thank you. Thank you so much, Councilmember Driscoll. With that, will the Clerk please call the first panel.
We will begin with Dr. Michelle Holder, and she will be followed by Dr. Rhonda Sharpe and then Dr. Valerie Wilson.
Thank you so much, Dr. Holder and also Dr. Sharpe and also Dr. Wilson. We appreciate your presence here today. They are joining us virtually from all across the United States of America. And so, we thank you for your patience with us here in Council chambers. We appreciate your expertise, your leadership, your research and all that you have done and what you'll bring to this hearing today. So please state your name for the record and proceed with your testimony.
Yes. Good morning. I'm Dr. Michelle Holder. I'm Professor of Economics at John Jay College, City University of New York. Can everyone hear me?
Perfect. Well, good morning to the esteemed members of the City Council, Majority Leader Katherine Gilmore Richardson, Council staff, including Ms. Eliza Alford as well as my co-panelists, including the virtual co-panelists, Rhonda Sharpe and Valerie Williams, also economists like myself. It's an honor for me to be with you all today to discuss a critical topic, the state of the economy for Black women. Allow me to take this opportunity now, therefore, to sum up in a few words what I will be shortly saying about this issue. S. is that it falls enormously short of providing to us what we provide to it. Because I'm a labor economist, I will be speaking mainly from that area of expertise. There will be overlaps between myself and my co-panelists, but please understand that, though we may be repeating the same things, it would speak to the nature of how important the items that we may be repeating are. I am a labor economist by training, so I will begin with a few comments on Black women and unemployment. Of all female demographic groups, Black women have the highest unemployment rate historically. It is potentially only rivaled by that of Native American women, for whom the Department of Labor's Bureau of Labor Statistics does not provide monthly labor force data. 2%, and higher than the Latina rate of 5%. This unemployment rate for Black women is nearly 50% higher than where it stood in 2023, three years after the end of the COVID-inspired recession. This is unfortunate. Because if we look at Black women's attachment to the labor force, specifically the percent of adult Black women who are working or looking for work, historically Black women have had the highest labor force participation rate of every major female demographic group, over 60%, as compared to, for example, White women, which their labor force participation rate is below 60%. Now, this has been the case for Black women for well over a century. So as a group we are contributing to the economy, but we don't receive its rewards in equal measure. In addition, as the Majority Leader mentioned at the start of this hearing, over 300,000 Black women left the American labor force in 2025. Much of this decline can be directly traced to the current federal administration's policies. With the decline in federal jobs, some states also followed and scaled back state employment. But historically, government employment has been an avenue for Black women and families to achieve economic mobility. Thus, the downsizing of government employment had a deleterious and disproportionate effect on Black women, coupled with the attacks on educational institutions where Black women are also employed in large numbers, along with the torpedoing of DEI initiatives and efforts which affect employment in these positions, as well as you might imagine, Black women occupied some of these jobs. The final thing I'd like to note is that, along with the American labor market not rewarding Black women in equivalent measure to what we provide to it, Black women along with Latinas, have the largest gender wage gaps of female demographic groups. 63 for every dollar a non-Hispanic White man earns. In an original research I conducted in 2020, I found that in every major occupation in this country for Black women working full-time who are similarly skilled, have the same educational attainment level, the same number of years of work experience, etc, compared to their non-Hispanic White male counterparts, in almost every instance without exception, Black women earn less, and on average in 2017 earned about $20,000 less in pre-tax dollars than their White male counterparts. Over a lifetime, this means that Black women working full-time for 30 years will be cumulatively underpaid to the tune of about $1 million. I also quantified what this undervaluing of Black women's labor amounted to.
, roughly $50 billion per year, each year is lost to the Black community in earnings for Black women because they are not paid equitably. And this is not due to any reasons that might be put forth, such as Black women lack the necessary skills, lack the necessary educational attainment, lack the necessary work experience. In my research, I was comparing apples to apples, full- time working non-Hispanic White men to full-time working Black women with the same level of educational attainment, skills and work experience. And again, Black women were underpaid in almost every instance in the occupations, in all of the major occupational groups that I examined. Thank you for allowing me to participate in this important hearing. And I just wanted to note, as the Majority Leader noted, the philosopher Jay-Z also said, Can I live. But under these conditions, we can't live, not prosperously. Thank you again.
Wow, wow. Thank you so much, Dr. Holder, for your expertise. We certainly appreciate your testimony today, but not just your testimony but your very robust research, which we've had an opportunity to review. And while you're here and before we go to the next panelist, I just wanted to ask you a couple questions regarding the wage gap for Black women. And so, you've written a number of papers, but particularly around the wage gap and about the double gap in particular and you've shared important findings around the double gap. But could you speak to the policy recommendations that you cited in your paper to address the double gap and what you think would be most impactful for local governments to consider as we look to additional policy solutions?
Thank you, Majority Leader. Yes, there were some policy avenues that I outlined in one of the papers I did on the earnings gap for Black women. One of them that I outlined has to do with pay transparency. At the federal level, we do not have a federal law requiring private- sector employers to post job salary ranges when open positions are available. Such legislation, though, has occurred at state levels and in certain localities. I don't know if Philadelphia has such a law requiring employers to post salary ranges for job openings, but this would go -- I'm sorry. I'll stop.
Oh no, no. We were just agreeing. We're nodding.
Okay. Yes. Again, I don't know if Philadelphia has this kind of legislation, but I think this would be an important piece of law that could go, I wouldn't say all the way, but certainly to a reasonable degree in providing more paid transparency. The other legislative avenue that would be helpful is to disallow employers from requesting previous salary histories from job applicants. This has been shown to have disproportionately negative impacts on women and people of color in the American labor market. So again, if Philadelphia does not have such a law that makes it illegal for employers to request previous salary histories when folks are applying for position openings, your jurisdiction should consider that. Other avenues and measures that I outlined also included Black women. I suggest that when Black women apply for open positions after they've done all of their research in terms of what they think they should ask for with regard to equitable compensation, I always say ask for slightly more 5% to 7% higher, because it is the fact that at some point in their career, either past, present or future, they will be underpaid and undervalued. I'll stop there because I recognize that we have many other panelists.
That's wonderful. And I'm taking copious notes on those policy recommendations, two of which I think would be wonderful for our city. And know that we're going to follow up with all of the recommendations shared in one central document from this hearing. Lastly, I know that you did additional research around the impact of COVID and COVID recovery in health care and I know we're just six years out. But your research, which was very robust, found that Black women were hit particularly hard by the economic impacts of the pandemic, and it's primarily due to our overrepresentation in the health care and hospitality industry, specifically in those lower-wage positions. And I understand that very much so, because during the pandemic we work with our local health care union 1199C as well as one of our nonprofit providers in Philadelphia Works, to establish a program to reskill and upskill our home health aides to positions of certified nursing assistants or patient care techs, to get them into higher-wage positions in the health care industry during the pandemic when we needed additional healthcare workers. So you talked about that a lot in your research, and really the unemployment crisis that's hitting Black women with advanced degrees, right. You have advanced degrees and can't find employment. So I just wanted to ask you a question relative to your research. If you found that the sort of rebound in employment for those who were hit hardest by the pandemic, where are those folks now? And the health care sector in Philadelphia is one of our big industries. We call it eds and meds. Okay. So it's also one of the largest employers for Black women nationwide, not just in this area. So what lessons do you think we can take away from the pandemic job losses before we start seeing job losses in the health care sector again?
Yes. So I will say that one of the pieces of research you cited, Majority Leader, I think actually Valerie Wilson did that research. She's one of the other virtual panelists, where she looked at the impact of job losses in Black women and found that it was really happening among Black women with higher levels of educational attainment, i.e., a Bachelor's degree. So Dr. Wilson could probably speak to that. But in terms of looking at what happened to Black women during COVID and where Black women are at now, one of the things that happened after the pandemic was that the industrial mix of jobs in the country really changed and certain sectors contracted almost permanently, for example, leisure and hospitality, but other sectors expanded; for example, transportation and warehousing. If we think about how people are now shopping, getting things, Amazon is a big example. The reason I mentioned that is that I have more recent research which looks at the growth in the transportation and warehousing sector, which has actually been considerable, and is one where Black workers are well-represented. The flip side though of that is it's where Black men are best represented and not Black women. So what I would say is that one of the things I speak to in looking at where Black workers are in the American workforce right now and where the growth potential is, one of the areas is in transportation and warehousing. Unfortunately though, those jobs tend not to be the best paying. However, they do offer a new avenue of employment for the Black community because we are well- represented in that sector. So I think in terms of legislative initiatives, etc, certainly living wage laws, and secondly, thinking about funding efforts for non-traditional employment for women. So I would stop there.
Thank you. Thank you very, very much for your testimony. And you're right on the money. We just hosted in Council last Thursday our women in non-traditional careers in labor last Thursday. So we appreciate that follow-up. We have a question from Councilman Ahmad.
Yes. Thank you so much. Thank you so much for your testimony. It is right on point, particularly your suggestions for legislative priorities. I just wanted to clarify. I believe City of Philadelphia, we do have a bill 16 that was approved in 2016 that you cannot ask the previous salary of somebody interviewing for a job. My staff is just checking to see if it's actual law already. So Philadelphia might be ahead of the curve on that one. I remember testifying for that bill 24 actually. I used to be the President of the Philadelphia Chapter and then the Pennsylvania Chapter of the National Organization for Women. And in that capacity, we had come to testify for that bill. So we will check and make sure we share with the Majority Leader whether or not it's already on the books. I wanted to follow up on a slightly convoluted question since you're a labor economist. The role -- the impact of what it means to be the most underpaid demographic in our city, what that impact has on our health outcomes, which reduces our economic capacity. So the weathering, I don't know if you are familiar with the concept of weathering, the amount of stress you face due to racism and other issues in our society has a physiological impact on our bodies and of Black women's bodies. So I wanted to see if we can tie together that being underpaid, being stressed, this has a real physiological impact that actually reduces our longevity and then impacts our earning capacity as well. It's a little convoluted, but I don't know if you're able to comment on that, because that is one of the reasons why we're doing this. This has a deep impact on what society has done, what the federal government has done, is causing Black women to have a shorter lifespan. And that's really the question.
Thank you for that, Councilwoman. Again, I am a labor economist. There is plenty of research which affirms absolutely what you're saying with regard to the link between health outcomes and economic outcomes. The one thing that I can affirm in terms of your question is that periods of joblessness and losing one's job has absolutely been linked to poor health outcomes for Black workers. So in the communities that Black folks grow up in, and I'm counting mine among them in New York City, I don't think it's an underestimate to say that when there was a loss of a job in someone's family, it was absolutely devastating. And so, the fact that Black women are leaving the labor force and ostensibly, voluntarily so, but that masks the true reasons why they're leaving. This has to have an impact, not only on their physical health, but also their mental health and that of their families. So I wish I could speak to your question more specifically, but I don't have expertise in terms of health economics. But I will affirm what you're saying is absolutely cited in economic literature, so well-known.
Thank you. Because what I'm trying to get to is there's a cost for having Black women not be employed. Meaning, at the end of the day we will pay for that in some way. So if you're going to be proactive to stop that, you make sure Black women are employed. So I think when we're making the point to people who don't care about people, we're going to say it's going to hurt your bottom line when we have unhealthy workers because it's going to be a drain on our society and our economic outcomes. So thank you so much. We'll probably follow up and get some leads from you as a health economist who can intersect in this labor space. Thank you. Thank you, Madam Chair.
Thank you. Thank you so much, Councilmember Ahmad. And you see our Chair of Public Health is on it and looking for additional ways for us to continue this work. And I had to look back for that bill, Councilmember Ahmad. And I said I missed that Bill No. because it started with 16. That was one of the years I was out on maternity leave. So that's 160840. That was the legislation. It's enforced by our Philadelphia Human Relations Commission under the Fair Practices ordinance. And so, we'll be sure to share that information, but also look at the second portion of the recommendation that you made as well. We'll include that as an addendum to the totality of the report that we pull together for this hearing. So thank you very much, my colleague. Will the Clerk please call the next witness. And we thank you so much, Dr. Holder. Thank you so much for being here.
Thank you so much, Dr. Sharpe. Please state your name for the record and proceed with your testimony.
Thank you. My name is Rhonda Vonshay Sharpe. I am the President and founder of the Women's Institute for Science, Equity and Race, WISER. Our mission is to expand women's- focused research to include the needs of Asian, Black, Hispanic, Indigenous, American and multiracial women. Thank you, Councilwoman Katherine Gilmore Richardson, members of the Committee on Finance, Eliza Alford, for all of your wonderful work, reaching out to us and making sure we were here on time to speak on Resolution 251034. I want to start by addressing an incomplete narrative. And I want to remind y'all I'm the messenger. It is not true that between February 2025 and July 2025 that 308,000 Black women left the labor force, as reported in an August 2025 article by Katica Roy. My calculation shows the correct number when the article was published was 251,000. Since then, the Bureau of Labor Statistics has revised their data and the correct number is 226,000 fewer Black women in the labor force for that time period. Roughly 3% of the labor force for Black women, which is not an exodus. Here is why the narrative is incomplete. Between January 2025 and February 2026, the number of Black women actively working or looking for work, Black women's labor force increased by 254,000. February 2026 is the highest monthly count for the labor force of Black women, which may be attributed to a combination of demographic changes, inflation and policy changes. S. economy added 181,000 jobs, not enough jobs to absorb the increased labor supply of Black women. When the labor force growth exceeds job creation or job openings do not match skills, unemployment rises. This will happen without discriminatory labor market behavior. What the data show for Black women is not a story about their behavior. It is a story about job ability, availability and employer hiring behavior. 7%. 1%. 1%. These are not abstract numbers. 6% in November 2010, a number close to the current unemployment rate for Black women. In the calendar year 2025, Black men had a net gain and employment of approximately 200,000. Over that same period, Black women lost approximately 113,000 jobs while White women gained 21,000 jobs. That contrast is why disaggregating the data reveals what hides in the aggregate. When the same racial group experiences opposite employment outcomes by gender, the cause is not race alone. When the same gender group experiences opposite employment outcomes by race, the cause is not gender alone. In both cases, the differences may be explained by sector concentration and discriminatory hiring practices. Here is why we should be concerned: Since BLS began collecting data in 1972, economists have documented across every recession that Black women's unemployment rises first. The economic deterioration spreads to other groups. During the Great Recession, Black women were the hardest hit. And while other populations started to recover, Black women continued to lose jobs even after the recession was officially declared over. The COVID-19 recession repeated the pattern. Philadelphia is not insulated from this pattern. According to the Federal Reserve Economic Data, FRED, from the Federal Reserve Bank of St. Louis, Philadelphia had approximately 33,000 federal workers before the "Fork in the Road" email went out on January 28, 2025. 9 percentage points. Any federal job losses will directly feed into unemployment increases. Workers who held stable public sector jobs but did not retire will be actively looking if they do not find jobs, and will be counted as the unemployed. So the question before the Council is not if there was an exodus of Black women from the labor force. The data show this narrative is incomplete. There are 254,000 more Black women in the labor force. 7% in February 2026, higher than White women and Hispanic women.
In fact, over the past, Black women have the highest labor force participation rate for every year on record, and they've exceeded Hispanic women's participation in 22 of the last 23 years. I believe Hispanic women exceeded Black women in 2025. The question is, what happens next in Philadelphia and nationally if policymakers believe incomplete narratives or misread the data. The problem is job availability and discriminatory hiring practices. Treating it as a Black woman's labor supply problem leads to the wrong solutions. Thank you.
Thank you. Thank you so much, Dr. Sharpe. We certainly appreciate you being here today. And we appreciate you arguing the data is not complete, and to sort of aggregate out all of the data to understand a more fuller picture. You talked about cities like Philadelphia, and you know that in 2023 Philadelphia's Black unemployment rate was lower than the national average. However, by 2025 last year our unemployment rate was higher than the national average. So can you just talk about what you think were the drivers in that shift, particularly recognizing our demographics here in Philadelphia?
I cannot. I'm going to defer to Valerie or Michelle. I generally don't look that narrow. My expertise is really to encourage policymakers to disaggregate the data so that when you're talking about your unemployment rate, it isn't in the aggregate. And so, if I can follow up on that with some of the things that Michelle mentioned and the example that you gave earlier about looking at educational attainment, I think those are important factors that when we disaggregate and we can see unemployment by educational attainment, when we can see that by race and gender, it allows you to do a better job in terms of crafting policies. So for example, in a place like Philadelphia thinking about the impact of the federal work reduction, it's more important to have disaggregated data, I think not only by race and gender, but to have an understanding of the positions that are lost so that you understand the skills, which allow you to do a better job in terms of workforce support so that you can match people given thinking their skills, and transferring them from federal jobs to private sector jobs or even city jobs. And it's difficult to do if you don't disaggregate that to get a better understanding of the skill sets, what are the jobs. And I would even argue that it's probably also important to think about job flexibility. So when Michelle was talking about transportation and warehousing, jobs like Amazon, if you're working in the warehouse where you're driving, those jobs are incredibly flexible. So if there's a way to transfer federal workers to some of those jobs that have some flexibility, probably not a bad deal. So circle a way to say, no, I cannot answer that question.
Well, thank you very, very much. And I will say that we have representatives here from the Administration who will hear from during Panel 2. But I do believe that the Administration is doing a really good job through their office of HR and Commerce and other departments, CAO, collectively working together to recruit workers from the federal workforce to work in a variety of positions here in the City of Philadelphia. I think they just had a session a couple weeks ago, if I'm correct, and they'll talk about that more when they testify. But I did want to give them kudos for that work because we see that and we know that it's important. So we thank you so much for being here today for your testimony. The Chair recognizes Councilmember Ahmad for a question.
Thank you, Madam Chair. Thank you, Dr. Sharpe, for all the information you shared with us. I wanted to ask you a question and I'm not sure if this is the relevant question to ask you, but I wanted your thoughts on this. We have seen in the issue of maternal mortality, meaning people dying at childbirth, that racism is an independent variable, not connected to health of the mother, not connected to socioeconomic condition, none of it independently. So right here in Philadelphia, I was able to allocate some money for actually a pilot to look at what type of implicit bias training, not the one you sit at your computer, the hardware one where you just click your computer key to see how fast you're responding, but an actual inperson scenario-based training we're in the process of doing that, I just wonder if that sort of independent variable has been established for how employers work and hiring practices and how they treat people, all of those things, and what your thoughts might be about instituting some kind of a check on how it -- I believe in my head it's an independent variable as well, which we know anecdotally across the world that our original sin is still operating in structures that impede progress for Black people and Black women particularly, so it's sort of a rhetorical question. I don't know how I can make all of Philadelphia do this, but maybe we could. So I would love to hear your comments on that.
So I think that's a fabulous question. About two weeks ago, I was at UPenn's Pen Carey Law School while they were celebrating Sadie Alexander's -- it was a conference to celebrate Sadie Alexander. And one of the questions was in some ways related to this, but about artificial intelligence. And so, as we are thinking about the role of race, gender or any of the other descriptors, the conversation was around how do you mitigate those factors when there's an algorithm that is actually pulling the applications based on information, and economic research shows that if it's truly going to be the algorithms may flag your name because your name sounds Black, which can be a proxy for race, they are flagging applications looking at zip codes, again proxy for race. So I think for many of us, the challenge is not necessarily implicit bias. The way that we have historically thought about it is from individuals going through and looking at the applications, but now the way that the biases are built into algorithms which then take all these buttons and speed, speed, right, they can eliminate your applications super quick. I think the trick is -- or not the trick. The policy solution is how do we make sure that the algorithms as well as the humans who are going through, that the bias is not there, because the algorithms can do them much quicker. In fact, there's conversation that shows that because people are so good at using AI to produce their resumés, that they're now coming back to humans because people can beat the algorithms. And my response on the panel was I'm less concerned -- I am concerned about the algorithms. I'm less concerned about AI beating the algorithms. I am concerned about what is the equity access for people who are lower income or what we generally have talked about as a digital buy who don't have access to AI, to then beat that. So I think to your point we not only have the human implicit bias, it is now being built in into the algorithms. And so, we know perhaps if you can correct it on the human side, then we correct it on the algorithm. But that is known as a problem. And I think it'll be the age-old problem of how do you get people to reduce their biases, especially I think when they feel threatened in an employment environment.
Yes, thank you. I know this is a conundrum we've been fighting for a long time. However, the more we elevate it and more we point it out and the more we show actual instances where this has happened, as you said, it is not some -- I use this example, and I just want to just put it out there for everybody to hear. When we were in the height of COVID and we were using the pulse oximeter to check your oxygen saturation, that was not calibrated to people with dark skin, so it was giving erroneous readings of how healthy you were. Meaning, it was saying you had more oxygen than you actually did and suddenly you were in a crisis and you were in a hospital and you died. And this goes back to how that product was developed, right. That's where the implicit bias happened when we didn't have a diverse group that this instrument was tested on, which the Institutional Review Board of every hospital is supposed to have that built in, right. So this is what we're up against in sort of an example of what it looks like when it's integrated into our systems. And this is true when we look at work as well. So I guess we are going to keep thinking about this, about what we can do legislatively around the implicit bias, both in AI and the humans that are making them and what is the level of accountability. Yes, you do it. But when we catch you, what do we do with you. And so, maybe that can be a deterrent in people doing it. So I thank you. It is a philosophical question, but I think we need to grapple with that.
May I make an additional comment on bias that is related to the notion of how many Black women were leaving the labor force. I was particularly concerned and how people were willing to accept the number, even though that was not what the data said. And more importantly, there was a link in the article that people didn't click to check the data. And here is why it concerns me: I think there are potentially two stories here. One is we believed that what we saw was a reaction to the Department of Government Efficiency. What people didn't pay attention to is that the Bureau of Labor Statistics said those people were not in the numbers, but we were willing to accept, I think, our bias that the government did not treat Black women well. And so, Black women would leave. The other part of that story that worried me is whether or not this narrative that 300 Black women left the workforce aligned with this notion of Black women being lazy. And I'm not sure that people think about the narratives that come out about Black women, whether it's labor force participation or being the most educated group, what the consequences of that is. And so, as we talk about implicit bias I think it is important for us to think about all of the biases that even we bring when we're looking at data that talk about Black women, Hispanic women or women in general, because we will often perpetuate narratives that are false and harmful.
Thank you. Thank you so much, Dr. Ahmad. And thank you again to Dr. Rhonda Vonshay Sharpe. We certainly appreciate you being here with us today. Will the Clerk please call the next witness.
Thank you so much for being here. Please state your name for the record and proceed with your testimony.
Good morning. C. Good morning to Majority Leader Gilmore Richardson, distinguished members of the Committee on Finance for the City Council of Philadelphia and to Eliza Alford. Thank you all for holding this important hearing today and for the opportunity to testify before you. I am going to discuss the large employment losses Black women experienced in 2025, emphasizing the spike among college graduates and public sector workers. I will also briefly discuss what's at stake for Black workers, more broadly in Pennsylvania and Philadelphia, under the policy shaping current labor market conditions. So the 2025 labor market can best be characterized as faltering. 4% in December, which was its highest point in four years. Job growth slowed dramatically. Only 181,000 total jobs were created in 2025 compared to 2 million jobs in 2024, and federal employment fell by a staggering 290,000 jobs from January to December of 2025. Black women bore the brunt of that economic slowdown, suffering far greater employment losses than other groups of women or Black men. 7%. That was the sharpest one-year decline in the last years. 10 Now, by comparison the 11 decline among Black men and White 12 women was no more than half a 13 percentage point each, while 14 employment rose slightly for 15 Hispanic and Asian American Pacific 16 Islander women over that time 17 period. The decline in Black 18 women's employment over the last 19 year included exits from the labor 20 market and rising unemployment 21 among remaining job-seekers. 7%. A closer look reveals that college-educated Black women experienced the greatest drop in employment and labor force participation rates. 5 percentage points over the last year, which was a much larger decline than any other education category, including those who had less than a college degree. Similarly, the labor force participation rate declined most for Black women Bachelor- degree holders. 3 percentage points in 2025. Large employment losses and labor force departures among college graduates were a direct consequence of the Trump administration implementing massive federal layoffs and buyouts over the last year, a sector where nearly half of Black workers have a Bachelor's degree or higher. Notably, the overall net loss in employed Black women was driven entirely by public sector losses, with most of those job losses occurring in federal government. While Black women saw a net increase in private sector employment in 2025 primarily in the growing education and health services industry, there were net losses in 6 of the 12 major private sector industries. Among those net losses, a third occurred in the other services industry. A quarter of those losses were in manufacturing, 21% were in financial activities and 15% were in the professional and business services industry. C. metro area. S. metro areas 5 with the largest Black populations, 6 this included Philadelphia where 7 Black Americans are the largest 8 racial group in the principal city 9 of Philadelphia accounting for 10 about 40% of the population. In that report, we found that more than 52,000 federal workers were employed in the Philadelphia metro area. 6% of Pennsylvania's federal workers were Black. That number was last updated in September 2024 and the administration has since discontinued publishing those numbers. 1%, which is the highest among all demographic groups reported by the Bureau of Labor Statistics. Federal job losses between January 2025 and February 2026 now total an alarming 327,000 jobs. Prior to any of this, and I believe you referenced this statistic earlier, the Philadelphia metro area was 1 of 5 metro areas cited in our report as having a lower Black unemployment rate than the national average, as estimated in the 2023 American Community Survey. That year the Philadelphia metro area Black median household income was also higher than the national median for Black Americans.
Black women are an essential part of that economic story, and it is critical that city and state governments do all they can to support their residents and by extension, protect their local economies from the harmful economic policies and anti-equity agenda of the current administration and Congress. Thank you.
Thank you. Thank you so much for your testimony and the important statistics that you shared. I was particularly interested in the research wherein you talked about the overall net loss in jobs for Black women was particularly driven by the losses in the public sector, and that there has been an increase in the private sector, which again is driven by health care and education. And you know in Philadelphia, we're a city of eds and meds. And so, are you or do you have continued concern relative to the wider job market for Black women or do you think the crisis will stay mostly contained to the 2025 losses?
I think there are signals that the economy is slowing beyond what happened in 2025. The recent jobs report that came out actually reported a decline in education and health services in February. So while on average for the year of 2025 that was one industry where there was employment growth for Black women, at least in the last month that industry has also experienced losses. And so, that is troubling given that that was the one area where there were measurable employment gains in the last year.
Now, you talked about the Tale of Cities article, and 6 we are very appreciative of the 7 data that you shared specific to 8 Philadelphia, and how in general 9 how Black Americans are faring 10 across those 10 cities. And you heard me talk about with our last panelists, the Black unemployment rate in Philadelphia now being higher than the national average. But your article talked about the actions that state and local policymakers can take to try to protect Black workers from the impacts of the federal policy. If you could just elaborate on which recommendations you think are most impactful for a city like Philadelphia?
So in that report, a lot of those recommendations were focused more on things that the state can and has to do. And I think as it relates to city or local policy, the major challenge that cities face is making sure that any sort of progressive policies that they want to implement are not preempted by the state. I know the City of Philadelphia has long been trying to advance an increased minimum wage and has run against challenges with pushback from the state. So that's one of those examples where a city would try to do something that would be more beneficial for workers and run into challenges with the state. The other policy that I think is important, particularly as the economy slows, would be strengthening and expanding unemployment insurance. It's one of the most well-targeted interventions during a recession, because it's very targeted to people who lose jobs and have a loss of income. We saw during the pandemic that expansion of unemployment insurance was critical to having a robust recovery. So that's one of the things that we talk about in that report. We also have another report that gets more specifically to this issue of equity and equal employment. As we know at the federal level, equal employment policy is also under attack in most cities, and some local areas also have fair employment practice agencies that are another line of defense in protecting workers against discriminatory outcomes. We outline a number of things that those localities can do to strengthen those provisions. One, just making sure that they are covering all workers in the state or the city. And a lot of states, those anti-discrimination law covers the -- in some places, I will say, covers the public sector only. It's important that those protections cover both public and private sector workers, and that all classes designated in federal law are also covered in the state or local anti-discrimination practices. But those are some of the things that in either the 10 cities or a subsequent series of reports we call holding the line, where we detail ways that states and cities can push back or sort of counter a number of the harmful policies that are taking place at the federal level.
Excellent and thank you for notating the work that we've been seeking to do here in Philadelphia, particularly around the living wage but also encouraging our partners at the state level to work towards increasing the minimum wage here in the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania, something that I know my State Rep. Roni Green cares so much about and all of our friends and partners at the State House. So we thank you so much for all of those recommendations, for the research and just for being here today sharing your expertise. We are thankful and appreciate your work.
Seeing no additional questions for this panel, we will now proceed with Panel 2. Will the Clerk please call Panel 2.
Heloise Jettison, Chief of Staff, Department of Commerce. (Witnesses approached witness table.)
Thank you so much for your patience and thank you so much for being here. If you could just state your name for the record and proceed with your testimony. We have our workforce development expert here. Thank you.
Good morning, Chairperson Gilmore Richardson and members of the Committee on Finance. My name is Heloise Jettison and I am the Deputy Director and Chief of Staff for the Commerce Department and I'm joined here today by Yvonne Boyd, who is the Deputy Director for the Office of Neighborhood Economic Development in the Commerce Department. I'm proud to share testimony regarding Resolution No. 6 251034, which authorizes this committee to hold hearings regarding the state of the economy for Black women in Philadelphia. As this committee knows, Mayor Cherelle L. Parker, the first female Mayor in the history of this city, has committed to making Philadelphia the safest, cleanest, greenest city with economic opportunity for all. I want to be clear here that all truly means all and that includes Black women. As the resolution states, there's a concern for Black women given that many have lost their jobs in the last year and/or are struggling in this current economy. , Black women have the highest rate of female-headed households among all racial groups and often face significant pay disparities. Many times Black women are the primary wage earners and caregivers. For these and other reasons, we agree that it should be recognized that Black women need support, especially in these difficult and unpredictable times. I commend Majority Leader Gilmore Richardson for holding this hearing today, and particularly for the incredible group of witnesses she has gathered to provide testimony and share data on this important issue. The Commerce Department offers several programs that support business growth and entrepreneurship. A few to highlight include our Booster Business Program, the Small Business Catalyst Fund and the Philadelphia Business Lending Network. These programs are specifically implemented to ensure the growth and economic development of local businesses, more business growth results in more opportunities for employment and entrepreneurship in Philadelphia. million in 210-plus community and nonprofit partners. million in capital improvements across commercial districts. 1 million in grants and forgivable loans to 640-plus businesses. We understand that Black women are the heads of households and their lack of employment impacts not only their health and well-being, but also the economic stability of their families. To address the limited revenue gap that Black women-owned businesses experience, the Commerce Department supports two programs that directly help address this issue. The Philadelphia Business Lending Network as I mentioned, this helps businesses express interest in loan financing through one form that goes to a group of more than 35 lenders, to encourage lenders to consider more small businesses. The Commerce Department can provide a grant of up to 50% of the approved loan amount for a maximum of $35,000. The grant is attached directly to the loan agreement. In 2025, 46 businesses received a total of $831,907 in grants to match their private loans, and 70% were first- time borrowers. Second is the Quality Jobs Program. This program invests in local businesses that hire Philadelphia residents for new full-time jobs that pay Philadelphia's 21st Century minimum wage and offer paid time-off and health benefits. The grant amount is based on the total number of new jobs created. In 2025, this program supported the creation of 441 new quality jobs. It is not just the Commerce Department that is focused on economic opportunity for all. Across the Parker Administration, my colleagues and other departments and offices have launched new programs and continue to invest in successful programs that support Black women at all phases of their lives. For example, the Extended Day, Extended Year program allows working moms to remain in the workforce while ensuring their children are safe and supported after school. E.
Plan help ensure that renters and homeowners can stay in their homes, whether they are just at the beginning of their career or a retiree living on a fixed income. The Department of Commerce, along with the rest of the Parker Administration, will continue to work with stakeholders, partners and City Council to ensure that our economic development and business growth opportunities and programs benefit the residents of Philadelphia. We are here to be part of the coordinated effort to support closing the revenue gap and provide business technical assistance and access to business capital to achieve stability and economic opportunity for all. Thank you for the opportunity to testify today.
Thank you. Thank you very much for your testimony and thank you so much for being here. And I'm sure you heard earlier that I mentioned the work that the Administration is doing with your team, but also I believe it's with CAO and OHR and some of the other departments around the recruitment, specifically of the federal workers, which we know in Philadelphia has had a large impact on Black women. I have to mention workforce development because, Heloise, you have just been one of our premier city workers, working on workforce development for a very long time. And so, how does the city work with our workforce development organizations to ensure we are using targeted strategies to sort of help with this Black unemployment crisis that we are seeing even more so now in 2025?
Well, as you know the Commerce Department, we're still linked inextricably with our Workforce Development team through the CCME office and we still provide support and funding for our workforce development partners. We continue with many of those programs, Fair Chance and other incentives for employers. Employer of Choice is another recent event program support that we did, which encourages our local employers to hire locally and to pay sustaining wages and equality jobs. We just recognized, I think, 13 employers this year again for doing so. And we just continue to work and align with them to focus on this issue and ensure that our programs are targeted and that we're collecting those statistics and demographics.
Thank you. And then you mentioned some of the programs around technical assistance for businesses and working with a number of companies across Philadelphia of all size who may need additional assistance. And I know we have the program this year to help with their taxes. I wanted to know if you could share any information relative to the demographics of businesses that we are helping. Are we able to do that now or not until everything closes out?
Yvonne Boyd, Deputy Commerce Director, leads the Office of Neighborhood Economic Development, and the program you're referring to is in my wheelhouse. Yes, we're in the middle of it right now and we'll share the demographics after. But I must say that it's been well received. In addition to the businesses that will be helped, we are also helping the tax preparers themselves, right. This is a revenue stream that they are getting into that will help them grow. So it's two-fold. The tax preparers are also benefiting and also the businesses that are receiving the free tax help.
Great, great. And you mentioned in your testimony that Commerce has invested 13.1 million in grants and forgivable loans to 640-plus businesses. Can we receive the demographic information for those businesses just for the purposes of this committee hearing?
Okay. That'll be great. And then finally, are there any additional ways that you believe Council could be a partner to the efforts that are happening across departments? We want to ensure that we're doing all that we can to help so many Black women who are facing uncertain times here in our city.
I would say continuing to help us get the word out around what we do and what we provide. We have our action team, our business services managers and all of us in Commerce that are constantly trying to ensure that residents and all business owners know about the services that we have. We have palm cards, we have QR codes. So any way we can continue to move the information out into the neighborhoods and to everyone here, and especially our business partners, because we want them to grow and thrive and the more they grow, they can hire more people. But we have plenty of collateral and it'd be great for us to get that out.
And I'd like to add that your support in all the programs that we have is imperative, right. Year by year as things get more difficult, it is imperative that City Council understands the work that we're doing and supports it.
Right. Agreed. And to that end, are you all sort of looking at our eds and meds sector proactively to see if there are any trends that we need to be paying attention to?
Yes. In the Office of Business Development that is led by Dawn Summerville, Dr. Rebecca Grant leads that sector of business, life sciences and eds and meds. So any further information, if you'd like, we can get more information around that, but that's what she's focusing on.
Okay. And just if there are any trends that we should be looking out for, particularly as we go into the budget process.
Okay. All right. Thank you. Seeing no additional questions for Panel 2, we thank you so much for being here today and thank you for your patience.
Okay. Will the Chair now call Panel 3 -- will the Clerk please call Panel 3.
Joann Bell of Black Women's Leadership Council; Tanya Morris of Mom Your Business; Kelly Sheard of Women's Way and Alicia Gillespie of Women's Way. (Witnesses approached witness table.)
I must thank all of these witnesses for their patience, for being here today, for waiting for us. We appreciate you being here, but we wanted to hear directly from you, our community experts, who have so much to provide to this conversation. And I'll take a point of personal privilege to especially thank Joann Bell, who's been talking about this issue on Black Women's Leadership Council on WURD for a long time. And so, we're just getting around to uplifting this work during Women's History Month, but you've been talking about this, which is why we definitely wanted you to be here today and all of our witnesses who are here to share with us. We appreciate each and every one of you. So you're going to state your name for the record and then proceed with your testimony.
Good morning. My name is Joann Bell and I am the Chair of Black Women's Leadership Council, also a radio program and WURD Radio on Fridays at the same time as Black Women's Leadership Council. Let me move up a little closer. Thank you, Chairwoman, for all that you do. I was pleasantly pleased to get the invitation to speak today. And this is the work that is close to my heart, but I know it's close to yours too. So I'm here to speak on Resolution No. 261034. The importance -- this subject is of great importance to me and Black Women's Leadership Council. We're an advocacy organization founded in 1988 in a community room at the Guardian Civic League where 28 Black women from all walks of life came together to advance the interest of African American women. We were concerned about the growing education, housing and economic disparities in the city at that time. And while we had demonstrated our ability to get people elected and voted, we were denied the opportunity to have a seat at the table, so we created our own. And the fruits of our labor can be seen over the past 38 years by the elections of women in City Council. And I want to say that Councilwoman Marian Tasco, Gussie Clark and later Blondell Reynolds were all a part of our initial group, and we fought hard to open the doors for women to sit at the State House, the State Senate, the judicial benches, appointments to boards and commissions, and the first Black female Mayor of the City of Philadelphia, advocacy by Black women. In 2016, BWLC issued a call to action heeding to the words of Dr. Martin Luther King, The Fierce Urgency of Now. The America, who had only eight years earlier, was congratulating itself on being a post-racial society, was on the verge of installing an administration who had vowed to take away all affirmative programs and protections for minorities. Over the past years, 8 we have watched the backlash 9 movement systematically dismantle 10 the safety net for African 11 Americans, and particularly African 12 American women, with surgical 13 precision. The Supreme Court 14 removed preclearance requirements 15 in the 1965 Voting Rights Act and 16 is poised to further dismantle 17 Section 2 of the Voting Rights Act, 18 and we are now waiting a decision from the Supreme Court because the arguments have already been heard. They have gerrymandered voter districts to make it difficult for minorities to win elections. They have dismantled public education. They are taking away student loan forgiveness and reducing grant and loan assistance, thus making college unaffordable for low- and middle-income students. They are slashing federal workforce, targeting agencies with high concentrations of Black women, removing nurses from the professional category to deny educational grants and loans. Sued a fund founded by Black women for Black women for discrimination. The Fearless Fund was created to help Black women gain access to capital and to start and grow businesses. They sued the City of Philadelphia, amongst other cities, to dismantle the diversity and equity programs. This is only a sampling of the attacks on defunding Black America, but I'm not telling you anything that you don't already know. The question is, what are we going to do about it. Black Women's Leadership Council stands ready to assist this Council in developing meaningful, attainable policies and solutions. We can start by strengthening our local minority businesses. Strong Black businesses create employment opportunities and business mentorship at the local level. And as our businesses and our communities grow, we grow. So we can provide that opportunity for first-generation entrepreneurs to gain experience and knowledge, to strike out on their own. Everyone who knows me and hears me weekly talk about the need for independence. And I'm of the belief that if you give a man a fish, he eats for a day. But if you teach a man to fish, he eats for the rest of his life. We got to start fishing.
And we've got to do it in a way that sustains our communities and allows us to stand on our own two feet so that we don't always take steps forward 6 and 50 backwards. 7 So I want to thank you 8 again, Councilwoman, for allowing 9 me to be here. Everyone who knows 10 me knows that I speak straight and I speak my mind. Thank you.
Thank you and thank you so much again for your patience and for your leadership on this issue. You have been an individual who I've heard talk about economic opportunity, particularly as it relates to contracting and business ownership, for a very long time. How do you believe we can do a better job of ensuring that we are prioritizing Black women in the contracting space?
It begins by talking. I think that I heard you say something interesting when you referred to your colleague at the State House. I think that has to be synergy between the two. The state government has as much of a responsibility towards this as city government, and we've got to start having the -- we can't be afraid to have the talk. And I think sometimes we are. And we have to cloak it in other ways. I think that there's been enough injury to be able to specifically say, this group of people have been injured and we need to find a solution to that and not be afraid to do that. The pie is big enough for everyone.
And from a city perspective, what more do you think we should be doing or working toward as we move into our budget process to not only highlight this issue, but make a real, tangible difference?
I'm more interested in seeing what the final outcome of the small and local is going to look like.
And whether or not we have the more inclusive language that does some targeting, but stays within the legal bounds. But I think that that is a start. Because when we build these businesses, we strengthen these businesses, they're going to remain in the community. And I think you've heard me say before, over the years there's been a lot of dollars that come into the city, but it goes out because it's not targeted to the neighborhoods in the ways that it should. And I've been a proponent of talking about it all of the time. If we holistically build communities, invest in those communities, take those dollars and make sure that they stay in the communities, if you want to do business in Philadelphia, you should be headquartered in Philadelphia. If you want to do business in Philadelphia, you ought to be in the neighborhoods and keep the money in the neighborhoods because that impacts housing, that impacts business corridors. It impacts the quality of education.
Well, we thank you for your continued leadership --
-- and for continuing to push us on this issue. I've been hearing you talk about this. And I told my team I really want to ensure that we at least start this process during Women's History Month. We are going to have a Part 2 to talk to the impacted women across the City of Philadelphia so they could share their stories with us. And we want to hear from everyone so that we understand a variety of communities and neighborhoods from their perspective and point of view. So we appreciate your work --
We appreciate it. We'll be calling back again in May. So thank you again for your testimony and for being here and we'll be sharing these recommendations from the hearing as well. So please state your name for the record and proceed with your testimony.
Tanya T. Morris, Mom Your Business. Thank you, Chairman -- Chairwoman, excuse me, Richardson, for this opportunity. As an entrepreneur and an ecosystem builder and a lifelong Philadelphia resident, I've spent the last few years working alongside Black women building businesses. Not because it's trendy or fun, but because it is necessary. Right now, thousands of Black women are experiencing an economic shift that is both urgent and personal, as we've heard most of this morning. As Councilmember Richardson noted earlier, Black women are facing significant economic disruption, right now particularly the disappearance of federal jobs lost, diversity, equity, inclusion roles are being dismantled and nearly 70% of Black women are the primary earners in their household. So when Black women lose jobs, entire families and neighborhoods feel it first. So the question before us today is not simply about unemployment. The real question is, what is Philadelphia's economic strategy for Black women now. There is an opportunity. In Philadelphia, Black-owned employer firms grew 73% over the last decade, but they still represent only 9% of all employer firms, even though Black residents make up 41% of the city's population. This is based on a recent Pew study. And for Black entrepreneurs, the real gap is not business formation. It is the jump from being a solopreneur to being an employer business. Entrepreneurship for Black women is not just about starting a business. It is about economic stability, ownership and redirecting talent into wealth building. When a woman starts a business, she doesn't just create income for herself. She hires people, she supports local vendors, she keeps money circulating in Philadelphia neighborhoods. Entrepreneurship is economic development, and that is most evident when real job creation occurs. And for a city, that means new jobs, stronger neighborhood economies and broader local tax base. In my work, we see this every day. We are helping Black women move from side hustle culture to first-time employers, designing hiring roadmaps and building the supports that help founders move from a solopreneur to a small team. We set a goal this year to help 100 Black and Brown women become first-time employers by 2028, creating 300 net new jobs in Philadelphia. But if we are serious about this pathway, we must treat Black women-led entrepreneurship as economic infrastructure, not as a side project. That means, as we heard from our Commerce Department earlier, access to capital tied to hiring and job creation, employer readiness labs and incubators that help founders move from contractors to W2 employees, much like the Lab that is being created by the Business Center up in Germantown, and pathways for displaced federal and DEI roles to redirect their skills into entrepreneurship, where entrepreneurship fits or the future of work. Here's what I'm asking Council today: First, formally recognize Black women-owned employer firms as a priority in Philadelphia's economic and workforce Strategy. Second, partner with organizations like Mom Your Business and establish a Black Woman Employer Council so that women actually creating jobs can help shape policies around procedures, procurement, child care, transportation, taxes, other barriers that hinder job creation for entrepreneurs as well as affects hiring. Third, support targeted pilot funding that moves women from job displacement to entrepreneurship and track the revenue, jobs created and wage quality so we can prove what works. Philadelphia already has the talent. What we need now is intentional investment that turns survival businesses into growth businesses and turns job loss into job creation. Today's hearing is an important step in acknowledging that challenge. And my hope is that we would lead to a clear commitment that Philadelphia will not just study the problem, but will invest in the solutions.
And the way that we do that in this moment is what we're looking for is for Philadelphia to not be the reason that hinders us from hurting our economy, but would support Black women in rebuilding it. Thank you.
Thank you. Thank you very much for your testimony and for your work. I remember seeing you as a staffer when I worked for former Councilmember Blondell Reynolds Brown, continuing to do that work. And so, we appreciate you. I was taking notes because I love that terminology that you utilized, side hustle culture.
And also, we know that this is a major issue in Philly to move our entrepreneurs from being sole-practitioners to ensuring that they could hire additional staff, thus helping additional folks to be hired in the community. So I appreciate your work and helping us to move from conversation to action and we will be sure to include the recommendations in the report.
Okay. Thank you. Thank you so much for being here. Please state your name for the record and proceed with your testimony.
Okay. Please proceed with your testimony.
I was part of The Change, the narrative cohort in Speakers Bureau at Women's Way. I'm a boy mom times three, a thriver, a change advocate, storyteller and future podcaster. My work history included customer service and I'm here to share a snippet of my life and the impact, not only physically but mentally that I've experienced, having multiple health issues, including breast cancer that most affected my ability to provide for my children. As the sole provider, the mental health to it took a toll for me to recover and race to make a way to not conform to the stereotypes of a Black woman, single, unmarried and incapable. The nights I cried myself to sleep worrying about the next moments because of deadlines and also holding space that I'm dealing with the systems that are rooted in hatred, division and fear, how the help is used as a weapon, not to build generational wealth, but to have control and create more trauma. For those who have no 22 control of circumstances, I had to be my own cheerleader and advocate during these difficult times; also thinking how many others feel the same way, but too afraid to speak up. It was draining how I was still expected to work while sick, sustain a home and recover from breast cancer surgery. Bank accounts empty, bills accumulate and no relief, my call to action would be financial security. It's a human right. Generational wealth shouldn't be a dream, but an opportunity for all to have stability and the peace to thrive. Thank you.
Thank you. And we are just so thankful for you and happy that you are here and a survivor of breast cancer. We appreciate you for sharing your personal story. Can you talk to us about how the Speakers Bureau really helped you?
The Speaker's Bureau helped me unlock my gift of sharing my lived experience boldly, unapologetically and giving room for others to amplify their voices as well. Like I said, I'm here as a change advocate. I know it's plenty of change advocates that's around us that do not have a platform to share their story and impact those who really are in charge of the government, of policies, of other things. I feel like as a change advocate we should have a space at the table to create these laws, these policies because who else knows better but people who have the lived experience.
You talked about in your testimony folks who are afraid to speak up. How do you believe as members of City Council we can do a better job to continue to promote those opportunities, particularly the mentorship opportunities for Black women?
I feel like create a table, we create a table. People will pull up to the table and be comfortable to speak, to talk. I know for me personally when the opportunities for Women's Way was available, I wasn't afraid to show up and share and to be involved and to continue going. They became part of my family. So this is not my first venue. I've spoken for WHYY. I spoke for many sectors regarding my life and it changed a whole lot of dimensions for other people.
-- for your great service. We certainly appreciate you. Thank you for being here and continue to keep you lifted up.
Boy moms get the job done. So thank you. Thank you very, very much for your testimony. Please state your name for the record and proceed with your testimony.
My name is Kelly Sheard. I'm the Chief Strategy Officer at Women's Way.
Great. When you hear statistics about the unemployment rate, pay gaps or wealth gaps, it's easy to feel dismayed, disgruntled or defeated. Instead I see the hearing as an opportunity to get curious. Rather than pivot to individual blame, suggesting Black women need to get more jobs and technology despite persistent pay gaps and structural constraints in the industry or telling women that they just need to start their own businesses, despite well-known venture capital funding gaps or even suggesting that getting married is the key to economic stability, though research shows that unpaid care work and household chores function to siphon women's time, energy and capacity, we could use these hearings to ask better questions about how the economy is producing and reproducing the same poor economic outcomes that burdened our mothers, grandmothers and foremothers before that. At Women's Way, we pioneered the gender wealth framework, which is a way of looking at wealth that includes material assets but also considers measures that account for subjective well-being and structural context. We center the gender wealth framework because our research agenda is grounded in listening to women and other marginalized genders who have told us that the relationship to the economy that they want allows them stability and opportunity, but also includes prosperity in their felt experience and liberation from oppressive structural conditions. At Women's Way, we're helping nonprofits and institutions use a gender-equity lens in their workplace policies and cultures through the Gender Economic Equity program as a way to combat structural inequality. Using the gender wealth framework, I see the hearing as an opportunity to get clearer on how systems, that is, laws and policies and institutions, are functioning to exploit, neglect and undervalue Black women, and then to take that knowledge and leverage the power of local government to protect and elevate those at the bottom of the economic ladder. Lifting up the knowledge and expertise of the first Black woman to serve as Chief Economist at the U.S. Department of Labor, Janelle Jones, her Black Women Best Economic framework tells us that centering Black women in fiscal reform allows us to dismantle policies that protect and grow White advantage and obstruct Black women's economic empowerment. Relatedly, these hearings can serve as an opportunity to get laser-focused on policies that stabilize Black women and increase opportunities that benefit all marginalized people. Perhaps as a result of this hearing, the City of Philadelphia will decide to focus on worker protections or the care economy or improved access to income assistance or gender equity in the workplace. All of these are promising and impactful. My hope for the hearing is that we collectively set a standard of deeper questions and a precedent for centering those at the margins of the economic systems so that we can disrupt harm, offer real support and co-create a new and promising reality for everyone in the City of Philadelphia. Thank you.
Thank you and thank you so much for your testimony and thank you for the work of Women's Way around the gender wealth framework. I wanted to talk about an issue that's been at the forefront of so much of the work that I've tried to do here in Philadelphia City Council around gender, wealth attainment and ensuring that there's a generational wealth transfer for families in the work that I've done around tangled titles. And we know that owning something, owning a home, owning a business is the fastest way to achieve generational wealth. And so, through the work with our tangled title program and all of the legislation that we've done in that arena, we are working to really highlight the importance of generational wealth transfer and helping families with doing just that. We even had an African American female in her 60s. She was left a home in North Philadelphia, one of the beautiful brownstones. You know, it's only a couple blocks of brownstones off of Ridge and Diamond Street, and she was able to keep her family home in the family through the work of our office and a number of partners. And I have to give a shout-out to Queen Judith Robinson who helped her as well with that case. And so, if you could just talk about other ways you believe we can expand opportunities for generational wealth transfer in the work that we do here in City Council.
Thank you and thank you for your work around tangled titles. I think that's a really interesting example of how you can have a material asset, but your felt experience or lived experience with that thing can be complicated and it prevents your sort of fuller experience of wealth. So it's good to have the thing, it's important to have the material asset. But if the institutions and structures are not allowing you to experience it, and as you're mentioning, pass that on to future generations, then wealth really isn't achieved. So I appreciate that. I think the thing really that we're hearing at Women's Way from the folks that we serve in our communities has a lot to do with primarily right now the social safety net. So there are lots of folks who are thinking about losing their access to food through the SNAP program. There's a new requirement that folks need to show that they are working or engaged in some sort of volunteer activity. And so, as a nonprofit we're thinking about how do we get other folks in the nonprofit community who have meaningful volunteer opportunities, but how can they offer them in a way that is structured and can support keeping people connected to that resource. And so, your support with just calling attention to that issue, providing infrastructure perhaps in a working group so that nonprofits can think about how to address that is really important. I think another opportunity lies in the care economy. So thinking about caregiving as the essential labor that keep households and families and the economy going. I always say if you think about the things that you had to do before you get to work that have to do with care, so for me like making breakfast for my child, getting his basketball uniform out, driving to school, making sure he had all the things he need. When that work is unwaged or if that care work -- so thinking about home health aides or thinking about folks in health care, when that work is low paid, it really prevents women from having the ability to have stability and opportunity or to have any sort of wealth to pass on. So I think thinking about social and financial recognition of care work is really, really important. So for the folks who are doing the care work who may not see it that way, they maybe just think of it as, well, I'm taking care of my auntie or I'm taking care of my child, I think there's lots of precedent for universal care income that the city should look into. And I think for the folks who are doing wage care work, looking at affordability and looking at increasing their wages is also really important.
No, thank you very much. And I had to chuckle a bit when you mentioned preparing your son for school, helping with basketball. I often tell people, you don't know how many things I've done before I arrived here at City Hall. I've done 35 things before I walk through the door. So I appreciate that recognition, but also going to look more into the universal care income. I think for me, with Philadelphia being a city of eds and meds and our emphasis on the health care industry here, I kind of struggle because I know a lot of folks have gone into the caregiving side of that industry, which is not as high-paying as some of the other jobs in health care, particularly in a city like Philadelphia. So how do you believe we can help in that regard as well?
Actually, one of the things I think is really important in thinking about eds and meds has to do with PILOTs and Payments in Lieu of Taxes. So I think when those institutions are paying their fair share into the tax system, which will allow for greater city services and allow for people to access things like their basic needs, I think that that's a strategy that can be really impactful for folks. So calling on institutions to pay their equitable share into city services and into the tax base is a strategy I think that we should return to and look into.
Excellent. Well, thank you very, very much for your testimony. Thank each of you for being here on time early and we want to ensure that we fully encapsulate all of these recommendations for the report that we will release. And in addition to that, invite you back again for Part 2 of this hearing in the coming months. Okay. All right. Well, thank you. Thank you so much for being here, Panel 3. Is there anyone else here to testify whose name has not been called? Anyone else here? Oh, okay. Please state your name for the record and proceed with your testimony. I'm sorry. I didn't see you back there.
That's okay. Good morning. My name is Brittany Austin. I'm the Executive Director of the Philly Black Worker Project. We're a worker center that's dedicated to improving working conditions and building Black worker power throughout our city. There's been a lot of conversation about economic resilience when talking about the economy right now, and that measures the health of our economy by abstract methods like the GDP or stock price values. But if the people and workers within the economy are struggling, that is the real test of economic health. Black workers are in an economic crisis, especially Black women. So many people before me have already stated what those indicators look like, but those indicators do show early signs of a Black recession, and we know historically the economic patterns of Black workers often predict trends for all other workers. Black women at all ages are being impacted by the current state of the economy. Entry-level jobs are scarce, with unemployment for recent college grads climbing close to 6% nationally. This is the highest since the pandemic -- excuse me, the highest outside the pandemic since 2012. For young Black women workers, these challenges are compounded by longstanding racial disparities and often age discrimination. When traditional forms of employment are no longer available, as is the case in our current cooling labor market, workers turn to gig and temp work. I heard somebody mention that earlier. Gig work may offer short- term relief, but often traps workers in long-term low-wage employment, as we saw for women during and after the pandemic. This means they're working for lower wages and often fewer to no 14 benefits. Ignoring the warning signs of a Black recession risks deepening inequality and leaving our communities behind. We really want to see Philadelphia take bold action. In this hearing, I've really learned about some of the points that I made and some of the things that the city are doing, so I'll lift them up but there's points where there may be some redundancy. The city has really led the way in implementing guaranteed income pilots like the Joy Bank that had an outsized impact on Black mothers, but we haven't created permanent, guaranteed income programs that can raise the floor for Black women navigating unemployment while also navigating their caretaking responsibilities at the same time. I'd also really like to see more investment in our local Department of Labor, by strengthening and enforcing protections in underregulated industries like the temp and gig industries where Black women are employed, and appreciate all the work that you did, Councilmember, on supporting us in passing the POWER Act, I think it's really important that once those regulations are passed, there's really clear strategic enforcement mechanisms that allow those things to be enacted. Fighting for policies like this, even like Fair Work Week, really support and strengthen the workforce for Black workers. And this was something I learned in this hearing, but one of the other recommendations I wanted to list was just an expansion of public sector employment because we know that has been a real building of the Black middle class. I'm the product of a mother who worked for a public sector and that allowed us to have strong union benefits. Creating clear pathways into well- paid, unionized public sector jobs for Black women at all levels will always support an increase in the quality of life for Black women. And while we see a retrenchment at the federal level, it's really imperative that there are bold actions taken at the city level to absorb the impact of federal unemployment. This requires a commitment to public spending and as a result, job creation pathways for Black women. Happy to talk about more, but thank you for your time and considering these critical steps in strengthening Black women worker power in the city.
Thank you and thank you very much for your testimony. And thank you for mentioning the Joy Bank. I was taking notes on your testimony. But thank you for mentioning the Joy Bank. That was a wonderful pilot program that I know has a waiting list, I'm sure once the funding ran out very, very quickly, but it was very advantageous to a number of mothers and birthing people across the City of Philadelphia. So thank you very, very much. And thank you for your testimony and also for being here. You were technically on the panel, so we thank you for that panel testimony. Seeing no further panels, we will now move to public comment. Is there anyone here to provide public comment regarding the resolution?
Please state your name for the record and then you can proceed with your testimony. You can come right up to the table. (Witness approached witness table.)
Thank you. Hello. Good morning. My name is Nefeteria Rainer. So I'll try to make this short and sweet. My name is Nefeteria Rainer and I work as an assistant at a salon owned by a Black woman. Andrea Watkins is her name, and that's who I'll be representing today because she couldn't be here. She's been a licensed professional hairstylist for over years and she has owned her 13 current salon for the past five 14 years in Philadelphia. Our salon 15 is more than a place where people 16 can get their hair done. It's a 17 community -- 18
I'm sorry. I didn't 20 hear the name of the salon.
No, it's fine. It's a community space where women come to feel confident, connect and to enjoy one another, to talk and to contribute to our economy. Recently Ms. Watkins applied for a grant, the Catalyst Grant, and she was denied. But she was denied due to an issue with her city tax status. And when we checked online, she was actually in good standing and actually had a credit from the city, so she was kind of thrown off by the reasoning. She reached out to try to get a further explanation and do an investigation on it --
And so, we have representatives from Commerce here. So when you're finished your testimony, I would just request that you go see Ms. Yvonne so you all can connect and then we can follow up about that, because that grant program was through Commerce. But we could also help interface with Revenue as well to see what the challenge was. Okay?
So when you're done, just make sure you see Ms. Yvonne before you exit the chambers. Please proceed.
So this is just something that I wanted to present today and she wanted me to present on her behalf, just because the Catalyst Fund is not only one thing that stops her and other Black business owners and women from expanding and growing their businesses. This is not something that is just, you know, small or a one-situation thing. These businesses represents who we are as women and who we are as people. They're not only salons, they're hubs, they're community spaces, they're safe havens. This is where we have our cultural impact. And most of us start out in salons or our grandmothers and our mothers and a lot of activists, Black women who are activists started in salons. So salons are not just, oh, it's just a salon. We need to invest in the future of our salons, of our communities and our cultural spaces. And I feel like our city should consider and recognize salons and beauty businesses as important economic hubs for Black women entrepreneurs. I feel like we should go over maybe more consideration after compliance, realtime tax verification or even a short grace period to correct tax issues, if there are any, that can help ensure that small businesses are actually in good standing and not unintentionally excluded from opportunities that are meant to support them, because our Black women lead in entrepreneurship in doing this, but we also have a very, very, very small support in funding. So we're becoming entrepreneurs and becoming owners of our own things, but then we're falling short. So that's my spill.
Well, thank you. I'm so glad you came in today and I'm so happy that you provided public comment for the hearing. Completely agree with everything that you shared and we want to ensure from a city perspective that we are making it as easy as possible to access capital and technical assistance, and that's been the work that's been done and being done by the Department of Commerce currently. Even with helping businesses to file their taxes, you talked about beauty salons and barbershops, right. Being a hub a cultural experience, we know that we have a number of Black women who own hair salons across the city. And I was encouraged by the work that our Chair of the Philadelphia Delegation, State Rep. Morgan Cephas did for those industries in particular over the pandemic. That was work that happened at the state level relative to barbershops and beauty salons, but also work that we were doing here from a grant perspective with barbershops and beauty salons over the pandemic. So I am concerned about the information that you shared. I want you to follow up with Commerce and with Revenue. We will help you navigate in any way that we can to ensure that you have all the information necessary for you all to participate in the grant programs and the opportunity to receive technical assistance as well.
Okay. And then the Councilmember where the salon is located in our district, we did email all the information over to Councilmember Curtis Jones because he's our Councilmember.
Okay. Excellent. Well, that's probably somewhere in my community because he's also my District Councilmember and we work together very closely. And we'll ensure that we have a team member get all of your contact information so that we can follow up. Now, I didn't hear the name very well because the acoustics in here are sometimes -- but is that salon on 63rd Street?
No. The salon is in Roxborough, 5261 Ridge Avenue, Salon A'Marie.
Okay. Excellent. So we'll have the Administration staff who's here follow up with you and we'll get your contact information so we can make the connection with Councilmember Jones' office as well.
Thank you very much for coming. Your hair looks lovely. Is there anyone else here to provide public comment for Resolution No. 251034? Anyone else here to provide public comment? (No response.)
Seeing none, there being no further bills or resolutions on the agenda today, this concludes the business before the Committee on Finance. We thank you very much for your attendance and your participation, and I'm thankful for the presence of my colleagues who were able to make it today, Councilmember Driscoll, Councilmember Thomas and also Councilmember Dr. Nina Ahmad. And special thanks again to my colleague Councilmember Jay Young, who is not a member of the committee, but was willing to be here for us this morning. Thank you all so much. Have a great day. (Committee on Finance concluded at 12:43 p.m.) C E R T I F I C A T I O N I, hereby certify that the proceedings and evidence noted are contained fully and accurately in the stenographic notes taken by me in the foregoing matter, and that this is a correct transcript of the same. ______________________________ TANEHA CARROLL