of labor day, we look at women and labor unions. >> hello, i'm bonnie erbe. welcome to "to the contrary," a discussion of news and social trends from diverse perspectives. up first: young women's earning power: in a wage gap reversal, young women in most us cities are now out-earning their male peers. this, according to a just-released analysis of 2008 census bureau data, finding single, young, childfree women take home, on average, 8% more income than their male counterparts. the income imbalance was initially found in the country's biggest cities such as new york and san francisco, but has since broadened. to smaller cities, too. this new trend is found in white- and blue-collar industries and includes the fast-growing metropolitan areas with large immigrant populations. what's behind the shift? experts point to the growing ranks of women who attend college and move on to high-paying jobs. but while they may be earning more, fewer are doing it on wall street. the number of high-earning female finance workers is dwindling fast due to the recession. this, despite a decrease in sex discrimination charges and a rise in corporate programs to attract and retain women. over the last decade, the finance industry has lost three percent of its female workers while the number of men increased by 10 percent. what's the main reason that these young urban women, in many, not all cities are outearning their male counterparts? >> bonnie, i want to say because they are much less watch football and work harder. i'll leave it with the fact that they're better educated. >> statistics show consistently that any one with higher education has more of an annual and lifetime earnings higher than anyone else. >> this is good news, but at the same time it's not an overall trend. we shouldn't be too happy about there's a lot more we can be doing. >> i really think education, i hate to repeat everybody else's comment, i think that women are more willing to take on jobs that are of course not as attractive that yields greater opportunities down the road. >> i want to get to your point amanda, welcome to the program, that it's a trend, but it's always been a trend by the way that young, i will educated women have earned 98% of what men earned. that's been going on, that was pointed out to me by a conservative women's group 10 or 15 years ago. where discrimination pays -- the pay gap sets in is when women get older they start having kids they drop out of the workforce, try to get back in. by the time they're in their 40s and 50s, forget about it. there's a huge pay gap. is that part of what you're referring to? >> if you take a woman and man who graduate from college, they have exact same attributes, same education that first year alone the women will make 5% less than the man. that will only -- >> on average you're saying. >> yes. that will exacerbate over time. women still make only 77 cents to every dollar that too man makes. this is great that this group does, women are being more educated still is this gap. >> and 41% of the gap is not controlled for by experience or education. which is even more interesting which tells me that part of the problem is placement. it's not just so you come win a degree but where you are placed once you get in to the workforce if you in those type of jobs those lead to the top of the organization. or as opposed to operating jobs when you really have lot more opportunity. >> i agree. particularly important not to over interpret what this means for women. this is such a tiny slice of women for a micro moment in their real lives. let's look at them ten years from now. when they're married, continue to work, continue to go to work eight hours a day and see if we don't see the kinds of discrepancies their mothers are now experiencing. >> you're saying, amanda, even with these new data or before the new data that two equally situated men and women right out of college she will make 5% less, but this report says on average in large and medium-sized cities, 26 of them anyway, certainly not all american cities by any -- in fact washington d.c. was not on that list which was very interesting. because of all the government jobs here. but you're saying that she will still make 5% less including this small covey of very well educated women in cities. >> i don't think this data came out maybe quite as recently. but i think it's still overall trend that there is some good news for some people. but women have been increasingly making up the college ranks for awhile. but that progress just hasn't been translated to more wages. we should be moving forward a lot faster. i think staffing is a big issue. i think workplace flexibility, women take maternity leave then many times their workplace are flexible enough to return and they're fired and heart to start over again they make plot less. >> i think it's also the choice, is that women make. >> women will chooses industries that aren't as lucrative. financial services will do well if you're man or woman. a nursing career, anything health care related though don't pay the same as something with a math and engineering degree. encourage more woman to go to the types of field which by and large aren't the most interesting for women to go in. we would see lot more women's progress. if woman chooses to stay in education you're not going to learn as much as that education. >> bonnie was getting at something very important. i think you're right. what is new here is that men and women normally, usually when they got out of college the woman earned less. i think a lot of this has to do with men not getting -- not as many men getting well educated. more to do with that than women somehow leaping ahead. >> do we want that? >> as an overall trend -- >> i don't want women to benefit at the expense of, even though it is not at their expense, but at the expense of men. that ought to be wake-up call for them. >> what do they need to do about it. >> graduate. the way women do. graduate and i am serious, watch less football and play less of it which you ought to do anyway. >> i agree with you on the watching less. i'm all for participating in sports. i think watching somebody else participate is pretty much a waste of time. but seriously, there are cultures like russia where women aren't even bothering to get married any more because the men just stay unemployed almost on purpose, have high rates of alcoholism. and the women are backbone of the workforce for the society. would that be a possibility here? >> i would hope not. the trends show that boys beginning at the time they're in junior high school are more laid back than girls. and it continues through college, does not graduate from high school, does not graduate from college. we can turn these trends around if we get on them right now. >> okay, you mentioned finance earlier. we did at the end that have voice over also point to some new data that came out this week showing that women are leaving wall street in greater numbers than men are leaving wall street. those are really high paying jobs. >> they are. but the women were oftentimes in the back room jobs. those in the presessions those are jobs that are cut first. women lost their jobs at higher rate on wall street than men did. and there are lot of women who made it to the top, on the trading floor they have decided when you're in your 50s after doing it for 10 or 20 years maybe not the kind of life you want to have. dog eat dog world. sometimes women have different priorities and it comes to certain point in your 50s or 60s when you have health care concerns, taking care of parents, you choose something else other than going to a rat race. >> i mean, i think that is exactly right. you think of wall street, you think of this really tough place to work, it's grueling, you work and be on call times of the day, it's -- that's not very good workplace to try to raise a family. that is something women think of that men don't have to think of as much. so i think that is a major issue that wall street has to address if it wants to bring more women in. >> again, we -- one of the things i did when i was at eoc was study on financial services industry and participation of women. again, there is a concentration of women in retail bank in mortgage banking, commercial banking when you look at the banking industry. >> you look at the brokerage, women make up over 60% of all the workforce participants in financial services. when you look at some of the factors, of course, wall street paying $20 billion last year to the people in the brokerage and investment bank. $356,000 on bonus. the women aren't getting any of that, they're doing all the work. >> combination of segmentation in the industry and real sexism. >> absolutely. >> all right. let's go from high-earning women to high-costing insurance many workers who've been lucky enough to hold onto a job with benefits in this recession are finding luck comes at a price. this, according to a new study finding businesses are shifting a larger share of health care costs to their employees. american workers will pay an average of $4,000 this year for their employer-based family health care coverage, a 14% increase over last year. premiums, deductibles, and other out-of-pocket costs have all been on the rise in the last decade, but this year the burden has fallen disproportionately on workers. 30% of employers offering benefits say they reduced the scope of coverage or increased cost-sharing due to the recession. workers are paying about $900 annually for single coverage, up from $779 in 2009. some are hoping the newly enacted health care reform will help in controlling costs, but the effect of the legislation may not be seen for several years. so, cari, do you think that these shifting of costs to the employee has more to do with the recession and companies pulling back in lots of different ways, or including, for example, family friendly benefits are down as well. or is it that insurance companies are just raising premiums in anticipation of health care reform. so companies have to push those costs elsewhere. >> i think both. i think that for most -- especially small businesses, they're taking the brunt on the health care reform hit. i think matter of economic survival. when 40% of your payroll goes in to health care other kinds of benefits for your employees, the question becomes, do i keep this person on board or do i try to spread the cost among a number of employees. i really think that -- like -- >> first what kinds of small businesses are they is 40% of their cost health care? >> i think health care in general was is of, especially larger employer is 40%. but for the small business, most don't even offer health care. i just got back from california, sat next to a business owner, he's got 12 employee he says, i can't offer health care. hard for me to afford -- >> that's one of the great benefits of health care legislation because of the very favorable tax credits employees will get for offering health care. but another advantage will be that if a small business still thinks that it's not in its interest. us can send employees to this exchange take advantage of much larger pool. we don't know the precise difference this will make because of the almost inherent cost of health care and because health care is at the forefront of scientific change. some that have is built in to your cost care. >> but isn't spreading the cost of insuring 30 million more americans who will be covered by by -- they will be paying small premiums but not nearly the actual cost of getting insurance, isn't part of this in preparation for that, the costs are going to the insurance companies they're going to stick them back on the employees? >> no. the fact that more people are ensured -- insured will help the company, not hurt, a whole big new fat market out there for them. they may be and there's no evidence to show precisely, i think, cari is right. i would have been much more critical of employers because they started this cost shifting before the recession. now i think car six absolutely right. if you have a choice between a greater deductible where most of your employee or let somebody go i think most employees will say, let's take this deductible. i'm afraid it will stick is my problem even after the recession. that's what we have to guard against. >> i'm really concerned about small businesses which do make up two-thirds of the jobs in our economy. i've talked to a lot of people who have said that the employers are going to be dropping coverage in favor of the exchanges, they simply can't afford it. even for what they're offering the folks now, they said not only -- >> wait a second. but with these exchanges there's a subsidy. but does -- if a small business is offering or a big business is offering no health insurance, will it be very cheap for them to enroll and pay for new employees who don't have health insurance? >> any business large or small is going to run the numbers. you're going to do what's going to cost you the least. most businesses are still trying to stay afloat and keep the workers that they do have. and the ones that i've talked to have run the numbers said, it would be cheaper to go to the government health care, i hate to do this to my family and everybody else working for me, but simply not going to be affordable with the increase in taxes, and also what the fact that 14% increase across the board of health care plans, it's not feasible for them to continue to the plans that they do have. there's a huge assumption right now with the health care legislation that there's going to be administrative costs are going to go down. that is a huge prediction which no one knows until few years from now. assumption that i'm concerned won't actually pan out it's going to cost more in the long run. >> i mean, my thought -- >> last word. >> what is the alternative? right now, this seems to be the best solution, we need to try this premiums are skyrocketing need to get more people so that right now people, healthy americans who decide they don't need health insurance they need to get in the system to bring costs down for -- so the bud earn doesn't have to be placed on the employers or the public. >> all right. behind the headlines. the new labor union. as today's workforce changes labor unions change along with it. once the voice of blue-collar, white men, today's unions are becoming increasingly diversified by race and gender. as women become the majority of workers, they are also establishing themselves as leaders in the labor movement. this year, one of the largest labor unions in the country, the service employees international union, elected its first woman president. to commemorate labor day, "to the contrary" spoke with the seiu's mary kay henry about what some are calling the feminization of the labor movement. >> i think that what is a key part of the labor movement is the word solidarity. and so for me, solidarity means brothers and sister together so i wouldn't want feminization to be seen or heard by my brothers in the labor movement by not including them, because they are a key reason for why i am here today. if feminization is meant to advance women to make sure we assumed our rightful place alongside our brothers, i'd be all for it. >> men still are the majority of union members. but women are catching up. overall, women represent 44% of union members. and at some unions like the seiu, women outnumber men, thanks to the focusing pink collar jobs, careers in health and child care fields. >> women know from the depths of our being that being a part of a community is the way to get things done. that just like it takes a village to raise a child, it takes a union or a bigger community to help improve wages and benefits and working conditions and safety and economic well being for people. women see a union as a vehicle for change. >> union leadership is another story. less than a quarter of union leaders are women. some hope high-profile leaders like henry, randi weingarten of the american federation of teachers, and former change to win chairwoman anna burger, will encourage more women to take on leadership responsibilities. >> i think as more and more >> if women are the primary people for raising children in their family that's a balance between the work that we do everyday and caring for children is an incredibly stressful balancing act. so i think as we try and shift who is raising the next generation of children, we will have more women assuming the leadership. >> while unions are becoming more diverse, union jobs are declining, just 11% of women and 13% of men belong to unions. but anna burger, who was once called the queen of labor, argues unions are still relevant. she believes they will have a major influence on the economic recovery and, down the line, on immigration reform. >> given that wages are stagnant, middle class is slipping away, more people are living in poverty than ever before that there's never been a moment that we've needed labor unions more than we need it today. the unions need to speak not just for our members but for all workers, which is what historically we had done. it was the labor unions who fought for social security and medicare. it was the labor unions who fought most recently for healthcare for all. it's what we have historically done. and i think we need to do it even more so and more aggressively. >> employers in the country decided long ago that they were going to invest major resources to make sure workers did not have a voice. either at work or in their communities. and so labor has been facing fierce opposition from the employer community for decades. and that has been driving the loss of strength that workers have in being able to win immigration reform, getting back to work, you know all these things in our minds are related to the employers opposing people being able to have a voice at work. karen, you were at the bush labor department for six years, seven years? >> almost eight. >> almost eight years. what do you see labor's role in this recovery? >> i don't know if labor has as much a role as some of the leaders think it does. the unions like to blame employers for a lot of the problems of society, quite frankly union membership is down. because of a lot of their practices but also because congress passed a -- >> is it because of their practices or because it was harder to unionize under the bush labor department. >> no. that's not the case. if you take look at union polls over the past decadesa lot of union members do not advocate some of the practices, you have to be able to trust your union know that the money is going where it's supposed to go. the bush labor department enacted a lot of rules where you knew where the money wenta lot of transparency. this administration's rolling a lot of those back to the great surprise of a lot of the members. every -- website that was posted in i think 2004, there were a million unique viewers, every single month seeing where their union dues were being spent, what their union lead are ship of making. what their bonus packages were. a lot of people have never seen that data until the mid bush administration. now that all the information is being rolled back that information is much harder to get, union members want to know where the money is going. if you don't show them they're not -- >> let's talk about the recovery, though. i understand about -- >> union membership has been decreasing for decade. this decrease -- >> it has stayed between 11-15% for the last couple of decades. the layoffs have been mostly in -- with union labor. men have taken a bigger hit in this recession. unionized men -- that accounts for this plunge that we see now. but what is really important about what your film showed was the increasing membership of women during this long period.