Dr. Heather Boschey, a Stockton College Alumni, now works for the center of American Progress in Washington, D.C. She is a senior economist and her presentation was about the differences of men and women concerning the job world. She mentioned that over 50% of women make up workers in the U.S. and women are becoming breadwinners and co-breadwinners, but there is still a salary gap. A woman breadwinner by definition is a single working mom, or a married woman that is bringing in as much or more than her spouse. Women have been taking an advantage and gaining educational attainment over men, but are still getting paid more for the same job. Does that make sense? Two qualified individuals with their pay being different due to their gender. The career wage gap over a 40 year period causes women to make $400-$500 thousand dollars less than men over a lifetime. What would these women be able to do with that extra half a million dollars? Send their children to school? Live in better houses?

Then Dr. Boschey talked about the recession and recovery of the 2008 Recession. There was a $787 billion dollar recovery and reinvestment act set in place by the Obama administration. A lot of state and local government jobs were lost. The U.S. is starting to slowly see a rise in jobs and a decrease in unemployment, but that is only growing very slowly and should be increasing 300% more than what it is. This is a serious problem for the country because another recession in the next decade would be detrimental.

Boschey did an excellent job with her presentation. She was extremely clear in her speech, very organized, and did not read straight off of the PowerPoint. She did a Q and A session and had an answer to every question that came her way. She is very knowledgeable and that is important when you are presenting because you do not want to look uneducated. I am very glad I had the opportunity to attend this presentation because I learned a lot. She opened my eyes to see how effected the average U.S. citizen’s life was effected by the recession.