This past election season, Senator Hillary Clinton proved that a woman can run for president. She astonished thousands of people -- men and women -- who never believed that a woman could get so close to becoming Commander in Chief in their lifetimes.

Although Senator Clinton broke through the glass ceiling, women across the country are still struggling for equality. When you look at the numbers, the inequalities that exist between men and women are staggering. Women earn 80% of what their male counterparts earn right out of school, and in 2007, women were paid 77 cents for every dollar that men were paid. This wage gap costs the average female full-time employee between $700,000 and $2 million over the course of her career. And it's not just wages where women are falling behind -- the numbers on healthcare, education, poverty and reproductive freedom tell the same story.  read more »

The facts about sick employees at work are, well, sickening. Three in ten employees say they have contracted the flu virus from a co-worker and average lost productivity to businesses (per employee per year) when employees show up to work despite suffering from a respiratory infection is $133.84. Add that to the fact that the flu virus can stay alive on inanimate surfaces like a door handle or office desk for up to eight hours, and it's not surprising that Americans are getting sick from going to work.  read more »

This post was written by Corinne Ramey and cross-posted from the DMIblog.

No matter who you're voting for, you have to admit that Barack Obama has good taste in TV. He told the Las Vegas Sun that his favorite TV show was The Wire, the HBO police drama set in inner-city Baltimore that just completed its fifth and final season. Obama even told the Sun that his favorite character is Omar Little, a "charismatic, sawed-off shotgun toting, Honey Nut Cheerios-eating, gay stickup artist." Some have compared Omar to a modern day Robin Hood because he kills drug dealers and then gives the drugs to the users that have been exploited by the dealers. “That’s not an endorsement. He’s not my favorite person, but he’s a fascinating character,” Obama said.  read more »

The Drum Major Institute's Marketplace of Ideas event this morning featured Boston Mayor Thomas Menino and his reforms to turn vacant buildings into affordable housing. Menino, who is now serving his fourth mayoral term, has reformed Boston's housing market in some pretty amazing ways. During the past decade, abandoned residential properties declined 77% as abandoned buildings were turned into viable housing.

The panel discussion featured Manhattan Borough President Scott Stringer, Pratt Community Development Center Director Brad Lander, and Executive Director of the Parodneck Foundation Carlton Collier. DMI Executive Director Andrea Batista Schlesinger moderated the panel.  read more »

Cross posted from the DMI blog.

In 1999, Boston had a housing crisis. The waiting list for public housing units had 15,000 people on it, and rent prices had gone up 47% in the past four years. More than 50,000 Bostonians were spending more than half of their income on housing, and the number of homeless people in Boston was at a record high.

But just four years later, the statistics told a different story. Almost 8,000 new housing units had been created, and 1,000 housing units were made accessible to the homeless. The new units represented about $2 billion in public and private housing investment. The number of abandoned buildings in Boston dropped by 66% -- from 1,044 in 1997 to only 350 in 2005, and by the end of 2003, 1,079 vacant public housing units had been renovated. Suddenly, housing in Boston was on its way to becoming available and affordable.  read more »