Remarks as Prepared for Delivery by Director Jennifer Klein to Business Forward

It is great to be with you all today.  My name is Jen Klein and I’m the Co-Chair and Executive Director of the White House Gender Policy Council.

I’m thrilled to be here to share some of our key priorities, including our ongoing efforts to strengthen policy frameworks across the U.S. Government to advance gender equity and equality everywhere, as well as to share key details in the American Jobs Plan and American Families Plan that speak to the importance of women in the workplace and getting women back to work.

Last month, on International Women’s Day, President Biden issued an executive order formally establishing the White House Gender Policy Council, reaffirming our commitment at the highest levels to the empowerment of women and girls around the world.

This Council represents one of the most significant elevations of gender equality within a U.S. administration to date– and our intention is to make our work a whole-of-government effort. To this end, the Council counts among its members representatives from more than 30 departments and agencies, working together to coordinate a comprehensive approach to gender equity and equality in both foreign and domestic policy.

The Gender Policy Council works with agencies across the Federal government, in partnership with other White House policy councils — including the Domestic Policy Council, the National Economic Council, and the National Security Council — to cover the Administration’s policy priorities and ensure a focus on gender equity and equality at every level of decision-making.

One of our key priorities as a Council is increasing women’s economic security and labor force participation.

This pandemic has exacerbated and spotlighted enormous economic barriers facing so many women, particularly women of color, and the consequences of those barriers for them and for our economy.  The American Rescue Plan is the first step in creating an economic recovery that removes barriers for women of color, and gives every American a fair shot. More than 161 million payments of up to $1,400 per person have gone out to households, schools are reopening, and 100% of Americans ages 16 and older are now eligible for a COVID-19 vaccine.  The direct payments to individuals, alongside increased tax credits, which help cover the cost of childcare and support low-wage workers, are critical to providing economic security for working women.

The Rescue Plan is projected to lift more than 5 million children out of poverty this year, cutting child poverty by more than half; poverty levels for Black children are expected to fall by 52%, by 45% for Hispanic children, and by 61% for Indigenous children.

Yet, the economic fragility and the caregiving crisis that we have seen in stark relief during the pandemic has long-existed, particularly for women of color and women in low-paid jobs.  It’s not enough to return to the status quo. Instead, we need to build back better – and rebuild an economy that works for everyone.

The stakes are high. There are now 3.7 million fewer women working than there were in February 2020, in large part because of the pandemic, eroding more than 30 years of progress in women’s labor force participation and resulting in a $64 billion loss in wages and economic activity per year.  Even more women have reduced their hours. Many others have managed precarious job conditions and additional caregiving responsibilities, threatening economic security for them and their families and unmasking the fragility of our caregiving infrastructure. 

Our economic recovery depends on addressing longstanding discrimination and barriers that have hampered women—particularly women of color—from fully participating in the labor force. 

In addition to the strides we’ve already taken with the American Rescue Plan, the American Jobs Plan and the American Families Plan represent once-in-a-generation investments in our nation’s future. 

The American Jobs Plan will support women’s employment by creating millions of good jobs, rebuilding our country’s infrastructure and strengthening economic competitiveness– including by modernizing schools and upgrading child care centers, creating good-paying, quality jobs; investing in a robust care infrastructure, a cornerstone of a resilient and sustainable economy; and developing the workforce and new career pathways which will strengthen the pipeline for more women and communities of color. This includes ensuring jobs with fair and equal pay, safe and healthy workplaces, and workplaces free from racial, gender, and other forms of discrimination and harassment. 

And, the American Families Plan invests $1.8 trillion in our children and our families—helping families cover the basic expenses that so many struggle with now, lowering health insurance premiums, continuing the American Rescue Plan’s historic reductions in child poverty, and producing a larger, more productive, and healthier workforce in the years ahead through direct support to children and families.

An important component of the American Families Plan is its paid leave provisions. The American Families Plan will provide direct support to families by creating a national comprehensive paid family and medical leave program. 

Paid family and medical leave support workers and families and is a critical investment in the strength and equity of our economy. 

But the United States is one of the only countries in the world that doesn’t guarantee paid leave. In fact, a lack of family-friendly policies, such as paid family and medical leave for when a worker needs time to care for a new child, a seriously ill family member, or recover from their own serious illness, has been identified as a key reason for the U.S. decline in competitiveness.

Nearly one in four mothers return to work within two weeks of giving birth 9 and one in five retirees left or were forced to leave the workforce earlier than planned to care for an ill family member.

Further, today nearly four of five private sector workers have no access to paid leave. And 95 percent of the lowest wage workers, mostly women and workers of color, lack any access to paid family leave.

The program provisions in the American Families Plan will ensure workers receive partial wage replacement to take time to bond with a new child, care for a seriously ill loved one, deal with a loved one’s military deployment, find safety from sexual assault, stalking, or domestic violence, heal from their own serious illness, or take time to deal with the death of a loved one.

It will guarantee twelve weeks of paid parental, family, and personal illness/safe leave by year 10 of the program, and also ensure workers get three days of bereavement leave per year starting in year one.

The program will provide workers up to $4,000 a month, with a minimum of two-thirds of average weekly wages replaced, rising to 80 percent for the lowest wage workers. We estimate this program will cost $225 billion over a decade. The provisions laid out in the American Jobs Plan and the American Families Plan aren’t just good for families—they’re good for businesses, too. I’m excited to talk more about the Biden Administration’s commitments to advancing gender equity and equality, including in the workplace, and will do my best to answer any questions you have.