Harris: Women exiting workforce a U.S. emergency

WASHINGTON» Vice President Kamala Harris said on Thursday that the 2.5 million women who have left the workforce since the beginning of the pandemic constituted a “national emergency,” one that she said could be addressed with the Biden administration’s $1.9 trillion coronavirus relief plan.

“Our economy cannot fully recover unless women can participate fully,” Harris said on a video call held with several women’s advocacy groups and lawmakers, essentially reiterating the argument she made in a Washington Post op-ed published last week. “Women leaving the workforce in these numbers is a national emergency which demands a national solution.”

According to Labor Department data, some 2.5 million women have left the American workforce, compared with 1.8 million men. As part of its relief plan, the Biden administration has outlined several elements that officials say will ease the burden on unemployed and working women, including $3,000 in tax credits issued to families for each child, and a $40 billion investment in child care assistance, and an extension of unemployment benefits. Harris said it would “lift up nearly half of the children that are living in poverty” in the United States, a claim backed up by a Columbia University analysis of the plan.

The proposal has no Republican support in Congress, but Democrats aim to pass the plan using a fast track budgetary process known as reconciliation, which would allow them to push it through the Senate with a simple majority. (Sen. Mitt Romney, R-Utah, unveiled his own child tax credit proposal this month, but it was promptly panned by his Republican colleagues.)

In her call on Thursday, Harris painted a dire picture of the reality that millions of women are facing as the pandemic continues to dig its teeth into American life.

“In one year,” Harris said, “the pandemic has put decades of the progress we have collectively made for women workers at risk.”

Child care remains an issue for working mothers: Nearly 400,000 child care jobs have been lost since the outset of the pandemic, Harris said. The closings of small businesses and the loss of millions of jobs have created the “perfect storm” for women, and particularly for Black business owners, she added. “The longer we wait to act, the harder it will be to bring these millions of women back into the workforce.”

The administration’s relief proposal would provide some $130 billion to assist in the reopening of K-12 schools, a major source of child care, but how and when to do so — and how to explain decision-making to Americans — has proved to be a stumbling point for the president and his advisers.

The Biden administration has promised to reopen as many schools as possible within the first 100 days, a promise that is already under stress by teachers’ unions who want to be assured that safety measures will work before schools reopen.

On Wednesday, Harris said in an appearance on the “Today” show that “teachers should be a priority” to receive vaccinations.