“Today’s unemployment numbers issued by the Labor Department, the worst unemployment numbers since 1974, paint a bleak story for the American economy, 7.6% unemployment overall. Unmarried women are unemployed at an even higher rate than the overall national average – Unmarried women’s unemployed rate is 9.3% while married women’s’ unemployed rate is below the national average at 4.9%.

“By comparison, single women – widowed, divorced, separated – had an unemployment rate of 6.9% in December 2008.

“These staggering numbers prove, once again, why the President’s Reinvestment & Recovery Plan is so important and why it must be passed now.

“This is a critical time for this sector of the population – a sector whose voices were heard loud and clear this past election cycle. Since 2004, Women’s Voices Women Vote has worked to register unmarried women – an historically underrepresented demographic – and has generated over one million voter registration applications to date, including over 900,000 in 2008 alone.”

WVWV has worked to ensure unmarried women get out and vote through efforts including mailing approximately one million vote-by-mail applications to unmarried women in Colorado, Ohio, Iowa, Montana, and Nevada; calling over one million women asking them to “Promise” to vote; mailing voter information packets to unmarried women in 18 states; sending same-day registration packets to women in Wisconsin and Iowa; and placing a Public Service Announcement on national talk radio, in which Barbra Streisand urges women, particularly unmarried women, to vote.

###