Thursday, June 26, 2014
Summit on Working Families
On Monday,
June 23rd, 2014, the White House Council on Women and Girls, The Department of
Labor, and the Center for American Progress hosted a Summit on Working
Families. The Summit convened policymakers, economists, advocates, business leaders,
and workers to discuss policy solutions which can strengthen the economy
through strengthening the stability of the working family. Though working
families were the topic of discussion, the focus unsurprisingly often came upon
working women, who would be disproportionately affected by the policy solutions
discussed.
Working
families are increasingly dependent on the income of women to make ends meet.
Reported at
the summit, women today make up 47% of the workforce with married women bringing
home 44% of their families’ income on average and 40% of mothers acting as the
sole or primary source of income for the household. However, policy fails to
guarantee that workers will experience equal pay or equal protection in the
workplace or will have the flexibility to maintain a healthy work/family life
balance. As stated in the description of the event, the special focus on women
is merited because while “all workers will directly benefit from better workplace
policy, the impact will be greatest for working women and their families.”
The White
House Council of Economic Advisors released three reports relevant to the discussions
of the Summit, “Nice Facts about American Families and Work”, “The Economics of
Paid and Unpaid Leave” and “Work-Life Balance and the Economics of Workplace Flexibility”,
which laid the foundation for a conversation of how policy can ensure that for American
workers. The Summit proposed “A Year of Action”, a collection of policy priorities
for the next year which would change the workplace to support the changing
demographics of working families. Goals include expanding workplace flexibility
and empowering workers, increasing access to affordable childcare, making
progress toward solutions for paid leave, closing the pay gap by increasing
access to non-traditional occupations, expanding tax credits that support
working families, and encouraging the private sector in efforts to bring
solutions to more workplaces. Policy solutions implied by these goals include
but are not limited to increasing access to paid parental leave and paid sick
leave, expanding the Earned Income Tax Credit and Child Tax Credit and
guaranteeing access to universal preschool programs.
If the Summit
were successful in achieving its goals, America’s workers, especially women, would
experience a dramatic shift in their economic stability and freedom. However,
the politics surrounding these policies may obstruct the path to success.
Despite the vast majority of Americans supporting policies like paid sick
leave, American Prospect author
Sharon Lerner points out these policy suggestions have faced decades of political
turmoil in “Get Sick, Get Fired: America’s Low-Wage Workers Push Back”. If this
deadlocked Congress fails to make progress in strengthening workplace policy in
the coming months, this midterm election cycle may be America’s chance to elect
a Congress who will.
Allysha Roth, MWPC Intern
