The YG Network is seeking solutions that create jobs, encourage innovation, instill fiscal discipline, establish a patient-centered health care system and pursue energy security in an environmentally focused manner. Polling shows that women prioritize these issues.
The concerns of most women do not differ dramatically from the concerns of men. YG Network is committed to researching the best ways those issues should be approached, communicated, and prioritized. Most women are concerned with pocketbook issues related to their economic well-being and that of their families. Despite this, the YG Network believes that the issues most important to women have been lost in recent media attention to periphery issues.
As an editorial in the WSJ recently noted, “Government creates myriad roadblocks for women’s economic progress,” and much damage is done to women by antiquated laws.
“Rarely noted in the ‘women’s’ debate is that most of this country’s major institutions and laws were developed at a time of one-earner households. In 1950, only 12% of mothers with children under the age of six were in the labor force. That number is today more than 60%. Yet many women who now work are penalized by outdated policies that haven’t kept pace with these big shifts in American society.” (WSJ Editorial, April 13, 2012)
Policymakers fail to make this case.
To reverse that trend, YG Network has launched YG “ Women Up!”
Contact: WomanUp@YGnetwork.org
FOCUS GROUPS
YGW Up seeks to find the most effective way to communicate center-right policies to women. Therefore, a deeper understanding of issues affecting women is needed. The women we are speaking to are not ideologically or politically aligned. They are busy focusing on their lives, their careers and their families. They are independent or women in the center of the political spectrum. We believe there is an opportunity to communicate with these women and offer solutions on the issues most important to them.
This process began in early May, when YGW UP hosted focus groups in Las Vegas, Nevada and Suburban Philadelphia , Pennsylvania. We looked to identify and develop the most effective messages and to determine the words and tone to use. We will use this data in our efforts to activate women towards center-right policy solutions.
POLLING
The economy and health care are the most cited concerns for women voters. The YG Network recently conducted a national poll on health care with an oversampling of women.
The specialized oversample reveals that women do not approve of the Affordable Care Act (ObamaCare), believe it has done little to lower the cost of care, and would like the Supreme Court to repeal it. It also reveals a widely held belief (over 80%) among women that health care is personal and that patients should have control over their own health care decisions. Finally, by large margins, if women could change one thing about health care in America, it would be to make it more affordable. They believe that ObamaCare has done the opposite.
“Women, in particular, like the health care that they currently have, want to keep it, and believe that ObamaCare will take it away,” said Mary Anne Carter, Executive Director of the YG Network’s “Woman Up” effort. “Health care is a personal issue for women and ensuring that costs are low for them and their families is top priority. Both single and married women prefer that Congress take steps to make health care more patient centered, simple, and affordable after the November elections.”