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Two-thirds of moms say the government isn’t doing enough to support them: Poll

Reshma Saujani, Founder of Marshall Plan for Moms, Girls Who Code, joins Yahoo Finance to discuss the Marshall Plan for Moms’ bipartisan poll as it reveals moms on both sides of the aisle believe the government isn't doing enough for them.

Video transcript

ALEXIS CHRISTOFOROUS: Joining me now is the founder of Marshall Plan for Moms and Girls Who Code, Reshma Saujani. Reshma, good to see you, as always.

So talk to me about some of these findings. Now that things are starting to open up a little bit and working moms are slowly making their way back to the office, what are some of their greatest needs from the government?

RESHMA SAUJANI: Yeah, you know, we did a bipartisan poll because we wanted to-- as Congress is so partisan right now, you know, we believe that mothers on both sides of the aisle just want Congress to get something done. And this poll found that that's exactly right. You know, 2/3 of moms said that they thought that the government wasn't doing enough to support them. 3/4 of moms said that they support the policies in the Marshall Plan, which means that they afford-- they support affordable child care, paid leave, pay equity, opening up the schools safely.

And most importantly or most interestingly, 73% of moms said that they would support a candidate of an opposite party if they supported core parent issues. So that just proves that moms are ready to vote with their feet and that as there's all this mess happening in Washington right now, moms just want their political leaders to get something done.

ALEXIS CHRISTOFOROUS: Yeah, and I think that goes beyond mothers. It's fathers. It's everybody just wants lawmakers to be able to get something done.

So let's talk about specifics. What are these bipartisan moms asking for specifically of lawmakers?

RESHMA SAUJANI: Well, I think that there's this huge support of passing paid leave once and for all. As you know, the United States is one of the only few industrialized nations that don't provide paid leave. And so moms are saying get it done.

The second thing that really came out in the poll was affordable child care. Look, you know, moms-- 1.8 million moms have still not returned back to the workforce, and every study has shown that that's because child care still remains unaffordable. Half of our child-care centers are shut down. So if you don't have someone to take care of your kids, there's no way that you can return back to normal.

And as the private sector is, like, decrying the fact that there's labor-market shortages, they're not looking at their employees-- moms-- that are ready to go back to work and thinking about what are the solutions that we can actually offer to help make that happen?

And so Congress right now is debating, you know, the Build Back Better plan, which includes a plan to help make child care more affordable. And so it's a no-brainer. We should pass that bill and get that done.

ALEXIS CHRISTOFOROUS: We know-- we've talked a lot here about how women were disproportionately impacted by the pandemic. So many working moms left the workforce and still have not returned because of the pandemic, mostly because of child-care issues. What is there in the reconciliation bill right now that would help alleviate some of that for working mothers?

RESHMA SAUJANI: Well, I think most moms, when you talk to them, they'll say, well, my child care is-- you know, it's too expensive, and I just don't make enough money to be able to afford it. And so, you know, the bill would actually put a ceiling on that.

Secondly, you know, 50% of child-care centers are shut down because they lost workers, and so we need to bail out, you know, child care. We actually spent more money bailing out Delta Airlines, and it's the exact same amount we could have spent to bail out the child-care industry. That doesn't makes sense.

You know, and finally, you know, child-care workers have never been paid what they should. You know, you make more as a parking-lot attendant than you do as a child-care worker. We care more about keeping our cars safe than keeping our children safe.

And so the bill in Washington would finally rectify that, you know, and give child-care workers a living wage. And why that's so important is that values the fact that the care work that we want mothers to do, caretakers to do, that that's important, and we're going to value that financially. So it's sending the right message once and for all.

You know, one of the things that I find so fascinating is, you know, if we had a problem funding our schools, we would be having zero debate about whether we should be funding K-through-12 education. Studies have shown that the first four years of life are critical. Child care, you know, and child-care support should be just as critical as public education. It's one of the same sides of the coin.