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Statement

Moms Leaders on the White House Summit on Child Care and Paid Leave: We Need Real Solutions that Prevent Our Policy Failures from Driving Even More Families Into Crisis and Poverty

December 12, 2019
Workplace Justice, Paid Family & Medical Leave, Early Care & Education

Lisa Lederer, 202-371-1996

Statement from leaders of MomsRising, an online and on-the-ground organization of more than one million mothers and their families, on today’s White House Summit on Child Care and Paid Leave:

“This morning, an administration that has refused to support the child care and paid leave solutions America’s families urgently need – has treated low-income and immigrant families with hostility and, at times, outright cruelty – and has amassed the most anti-family record of any administration in modern American history – is convening a summit on child care and paid leave. At this moment when child care costs more than public college in most states and just 19 percent of the civilian workforce has access to paid family leave to care for a new child or a seriously ill loved one, we need much more than photo opps and empty rhetoric. We need real solutions that prevent our policy failures from driving even more families into crisis and poverty.

“Today’s summit isn’t that. We are truly disappointed that it will not include the top experts, the most experienced lawmakers, or the advocates who for years have been forging real solutions that more and more states and employers are adopting. Nor will it include any of the Democratic leaders whose tireless, long-term, strategic work resulted in an agreement last week for paid parental leave for the federal workforce.

“If the Trump administration were serious about improving child care and paid leave in the United States, it would demand that Congress pass the FAMILY (Family And Medical Insurance Leave) Act and the Child Care for Working Families Act. Those are the solutions families and our country need.”

--Statement of Kristin Rowe-Finkbeiner, executive director and CEO, MomsRising

“MomsRising was proud to join more than 95 other organizations in signing an open letter to the American people concerning the Trump administration’s anti-family policies. Instead of paid leave, this administration has offered tax handouts to businesses, cuts to unemployment insurance, and paid leave programs that would do nothing whatsoever for working people who need to care for seriously ill relatives or recover from illness themselves. And the Trump administration has not done nearly enough to make quality, affordable child care available to all families, even though every parent needs safe enriching places to be so they can work, every child needs quality early education so she or he can thrive, and all child care workers need to be paid living wages so they can succeed.

“Today’s White House summit is a sham. The country deserves better.”

--Statement of Ruth Martin, Vice President, Workplace Justice Campaigns, MomsRising

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MomsRising.org is an on-the-ground and online grassroots organization of more than a million people who are working to increase family economic security, decrease discrimination against women and moms, and to build a nation where businesses and families can thrive. Established in 2006, MomsRising and its members are organizing and speaking out to improve public policy and to change the national dialogue on issues that are critically important to America’s families, including criminal justice reform, immigration policy reform, and gun safety. MomsRising is working for paid family and medical leave, affordable, high quality childcare and early learning, and for an end to the wage and hiring discrimination which penalizes women — particularly moms and women of color — and so many others. MomsRising advocates for access to healthy food for all kids, health care for all, earned sick days, and breastfeeding rights so that all children can have a healthy start. MomsRising maintains a Spanish language website: MamásConPoder.org. Sign up online at www.MomsRising.org — and follow us on our blog, and on Twitter and Facebook.