[Congressional Bills 117th Congress]
[From the U.S. Government Publishing Office]
[S. Res. 87 Introduced in Senate (IS)]
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117th CONGRESS
1st Session
S. RES. 87
Recognizing that the United States needs a Marshall Plan for Moms in
order to revitalize and restore mothers in the workforce.
_______________________________________________________________________
IN THE SENATE OF THE UNITED STATES
March 3, 2021
Ms. Klobuchar (for herself, Ms. Duckworth, Ms. Smith, Ms. Rosen, Mr.
Wyden, Mr. Heinrich, Mr. Merkley, Mr. Whitehouse, Mr. Blumenthal, Mr.
Brown, and Mr. Durbin) submitted the following resolution; which was
referred to the Committee on Health, Education, Labor, and Pensions
_______________________________________________________________________
RESOLUTION
Recognizing that the United States needs a Marshall Plan for Moms in
order to revitalize and restore mothers in the workforce.
Whereas any relief and long-term recovery from the economic fallout of the
COVID-19 pandemic must recognize, rebuild, and return mothers to the
workforce;
Whereas women, and especially working mothers, are bearing the brunt of the
economic fallout from the COVID-19 pandemic as a result of existing
social barriers and policy failures such as--
(1) the lack of a care infrastructure, including child care deserts and
lack of care infrastructure caused by high child care costs;
(2) the lack of family-supportive workplaces;
(3) the lack of a national paid leave policy; and
(4) gender and racial pay inequity;
Whereas, at the beginning of 2020, women made up the majority of the workforce
for the first time in almost a decade, even as women continued to face
unjust gender and racial wage gaps;
Whereas 2,300,000 women have left the labor force since the beginning of the
COVID-19 pandemic, including 275,000 who exited in January 2021;
Whereas participation by women in the labor force was less than 55 percent in
April 2020 for the first time since 1986, in part because of the child
care crisis caused by the COVID-19 pandemic;
Whereas participation by women age 20 and older in the labor force fell to a 33-
year low in January 2021, hitting 57 percent;
Whereas women--
(1) have suffered the majority of pandemic-related job losses; and
(2) have lost over 5,400,000 net jobs since February 2020, and account
for 55 percent of overall net job loss since the start of the COVID-19
pandemic;
Whereas 86 percent of net jobs lost in December 2020 were jobs held by women,
with women losing 196,000 jobs during that month;
Whereas mothers in the prime of their working lives have paid an especially high
price, with mothers ages 25 to 54 experiencing a 5.7-percentage point
decline in employment since the COVID-19 pandemic began, compared to a
3.1 percentage-point decline for fathers in the same age group;
Whereas women are overrepresented in low-wage jobs and underrepresented in high-
wage jobs;
Whereas employment in the bottom quartile of the wage distribution has declined
by 17 percent since February 2020, far exceeding the overall employment
decline of 6.5 percent;
Whereas wages for women are key to the economic security of the families of such
women;
Whereas women of color play a particularly vital role in the financial stability
of their families, and any disruption to their earnings can be
detrimental to the welfare of their families;
Whereas the absence of affordable child care exacerbates inequality by severely
inhibiting low-income parents from attaining promotions and higher
salaries;
Whereas child nutrition is strongly linked to the employment status of mothers,
such that almost 1 in 4 children experienced food insecurity in 2020 at
the same time that mothers experienced work disruptions or unemployment
that led to income loss;
Whereas work interruptions caused by school closures and child care closures
have disproportionately impacted women, forcing women to reduce work
hours, take a leave of absence, or permanently leave the workforce;
Whereas, without reliable and affordable child care, mothers who have left the
workforce will not be able to return to work, since such mothers often
cannot pay for child care without the income made from going back to
work;
Whereas essential workers who are single parents face additional challenges and
greater financial burden due to needing affordable child care;
Whereas the COVID-19 pandemic has exacerbated existing stigmas against working
mothers that falsely assume that their role as caregivers will
negatively impact their work performance;
Whereas mothers forced to permanently leave the workforce or reduce work hours
because of the COVID-19 pandemic are experiencing career trajectory
disruptions that lower their lifetime earnings potential and endanger
their future Social Security earnings and other potential retirement
income;
Whereas child care is a lifeline for working mothers, and over 75 percent of
mothers with children younger than age 10 say child care is one of their
top 3 challenges during the COVID-19 pandemic;
Whereas, in 2019, before the COVID-19 pandemic hit the United States, there were
roughly 9,700,000 working mothers with a child younger than age 6;
Whereas 95 percent of the child care workforce is composed of women, and yet
nearly \2/3\ of child care workers with children report problems with
accessing public support programs and often struggle to afford high-
quality child care for their own families;
Whereas 60 percent of businesses in the child care industry are minority owned;
Whereas a significant investment in child care would be simultaneously job
creating and job enabling, creating care jobs and supporting parental
employment, both of which would benefit women;
Whereas women of color are disproportionately represented in many frontline
industries that also lack critical benefits such as paid sick leave and
flexibility to telework, including food services, hospitality, retail,
and social assistance;
Whereas the unprecedented burdens of child care, work, and remote learning have
strained the mental and emotional health of mothers; and
Whereas access to paid leave during the COVID-19 pandemic has been linked to a
reduction in the spread of COVID-19 by as many as 15,000 new cases per
day where people were able to use the leave, such that paid leave has
prevented the compounded stressors of countless evictions,
hospitalizations, and hungry children: Now, therefore, be it
Resolved, That it is the sense of the Senate that--
(1) mothers, especially mothers of color, have been pushed
to the brink of economic, social, and emotional collapse during
the COVID-19 pandemic because of the existing economic and
social inequalities that women have long faced;
(2) any relief and long-term recovery package to address
the COVID-19 crisis should recognize and rebuild moms in the
workforce, in order to secure meaningful and sustainable
economic recovery, by including, at a minimum--
(A) a robust paid leave plan, which is essential to
securing the physical health and financial health of
families, including emergency paid leave policies that
would create a path toward permanent paid leave
solutions;
(B) the means to rebuild and stabilize the child
care industry, which is essential to economic recovery
and bolstering women in the labor force;
(C) major investments in our education systems,
which must be made in order to safely reopen schools
and campuses, providing funding to support and protect
the safety and health of educators, support staff,
students, and families;
(D) recurring child benefits, and expanded and
improved child tax credit and earned income tax credit
to help reduce child poverty and provide economic
security for families;
(E) an expanded unemployment insurance program that
benefits struggling workers, including those
experiencing long-term unemployment; and
(F) access to mental health support for mothers,
which is essential to maintaining the health of the
family; and
(3) employers and policymakers in the United States must
prioritize addressing the economic cliff facing mothers, and
make permanent the aforementioned policies so that mothers are
protected against any future economic calamities.
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