“Every mother I know is getting crushed, especially women of color”: Founder Marshall Plan for Moms

Reshma Saujani, Girls Who Code Founder and Marshall Plan for Moms Founder joins the Yahoo Finance Live panel to discuss how ‘Marshall Plan for Moms’ seeks to "revitalize and restore mothers in the workforce" and pay moms to do the work they’re already doing at home or support them if they wish to return to full-time jobs.

Video transcript

EMILY MCCORMICK: And we're sticking now with the topic of the labor market. But we do want to take a closer look at women in the labor market specifically, with Reshma Saujani. She's founder of Girls Who Code and the Marshall Plan for Moms. Reshma, thank you so much for being here.

And I want to ask what you're seeing when it comes to employment for women. Because, of course, we've been seeing those non-farm payroll gains really accelerate over the past couple of months. But one of the things that we've been seeing is that women, and especially women with young children, have remained on the sidelines. And what do you think it's going to take in order to bring back some of this employment for that demographic?

RESHMA SAUJANI: Yeah, I mean, every mother I know is getting crushed, especially women of color. We're having to be nannies and tech support. We're still doing remote schooling, all the while we're trying to maintain our full-time jobs. As you know, our labor market participation is where it was in 1989. We've lost over 30 years of progress in nine months. That's frightening. While we're making some progress in some of the policy initiatives that are coming out of the Biden administration, we still haven't passed them yet. And so, moms-- particularly, moms of young children-- are still struggling.

ZACK GUZMAN: Yeah, and obviously, we've talked about how it's been lopsided in terms of impact for parents, for moms versus parents who are dads. And we've heard kind of a piece of this plan here from President Biden talking about potentially boosting pre-K. And we've talked a lot about parental time off. I mean, talk to me about what those things might do to maybe help close the gaps we're talking about here and what more can be done on that front, even on the part of employers.

RESHMA SAUJANI: Yeah, I mean, it's interesting. We're heading into Mother's Day, right? And we've been celebrating this holiday for over 117 years. But this year, like, moms need more than just flowers and a card, right? We need pre-K. We need affordable child care. We need paid leave. And so, you see some of these policies that are embedded into President Biden's America Family Plan. And we desperately need them because our social safety structure is broken, which is why so many mothers have been operating as America's social safety net.

But we have to pass those policies. And we got to make sure that we get bipartisan support for it. I mean, to be honest, we need a national reckoning on motherhood that steps beyond legislation, but that's also about culture and social norms. Only 7% of America's dads take paternity leave, right? And so how do we change that? And we need to change it because the only way we're going to shift the unpaid labor that's happening in the home is if we move towards gender equality in the home, as well as gender equality in the workplace.

EMILY MCCORMICK: And when it comes to the workplace, what do you think private companies can do better in order to support working mothers and really help alleviate this gender gap that we're seeing?

RESHMA SAUJANI: Well, we're going to be putting out a Marshall Plan for Moms at Work in a couple of months. And we've been really thinking deeply about this and surveying tens of thousands of moms about this. I mean, first of all, you know, I often ask, like, why am I getting resources to freeze my eggs, but you're not subsidizing my child care? The data is clear, which is why the president's been pushing for pre-K education, that that investment early on is extraordinary. People live longer. They're healthier. They have-- they make more money, right? If you invest at the earliest of possible ages in children's education, health, and care, it pays off for the nation. So I think that that is critical.

ZACK GUZMAN: The other piece of the Marshall Plan for Moms that caught, I think, a lot of people's attention is your call for more stimulus checks here. And, obviously, I think a lot of people saw what it could do in the last couple of rounds of stimulus checks. So why maybe push for that versus what you're talking about there with dedicated checks to care?

RESHMA SAUJANI: It's not just one single piece of legislation. We need a 360 plan. If we're going to build America back better, we got to build motherhood back better. So when you talk to moms, what they say first is, I need cash. Because every mother's situation is different. Some moms need cash to pay the rent. Some moms need cash to put food on the table. Some moms need cash to pay for school care.

In addition to basic income payments for mothers-- and I think the CTC, the Childcare Tax Credit, is a step in the right direction. It's a down payment on the Marshall Plan. And I'm really proud that we helped push this piece of legislation and get it done. It's revolutionary. It's still just a down payment. Because in addition to that, we need paid leave. Far too many mothers in our country go back to work after two weeks after having a child-- two weeks. Only one out of four private sector workers has paid leave.

We need to have affordable childcare. I'm the daughter of refugees. And I was a latchkey kid because my parents couldn't afford the $50 a week for childcare. Too many moms today have to make that choice. It's why we've launched the Moms Deserve More Flower Store, which I encourage you to come check out. Because it shows you, right?

Instead of getting mom flowers today, buy her an $800 billion bouquet because that's the global amount of lost income that women across the globe suffered this year. Buy her a $13,000 bouquet for childcare because that's how much childcare costs. Buy her a bouquet for $3,500 for her mental health and stress. We don't talk enough about the mental toll that has-- that mothers have taken on this year.

EMILY MCCORMICK: And Reshma, of course, we talk a lot as well about many of the shortcomings that we're seeing in corporate America when it comes to supporting mothers and families. But are there any companies that you think have really set a good model for what reform on these fronts should look like?

RESHMA SAUJANI: You know what's interesting is I think companies are still thinking about it, which I find fascinating. Because so many of them are inviting workers to come back in, in September. But, like, when I ask them, what's your plan for moms, I don't hear as much. So-- because I think we have to be thoughtful about this. Design is very important. How are we designing remote and flexibility such that we don't have women at home doing the unpaid labor and dads across the water cooler planning for their next promotion? How do we offer benefits in a way that encourages both moms and dads to take them?

I talked about parental leave earlier. How do we get rid of the motherhood penalty once and for all? Tomorrow's Mothers Equal Pay Day. Mom still makes $0.70 on every dollar. When I hire a father, I think stability. I think that that's going to be a great worker. When I hire a mother today, I think she's not as committed. There is literally a parental penalty that moms face in the workforce when they become mothers. And this penalty is going to get even deeper. I'm hearing it-- my inbox is full of moms saying, I didn't get that promotion because my kid pops up on the Zoom screen. I asked my lawyer if I can leave early because I got to pick up my son's laptop, and I got fired.

So there is a caretaking penalty. And that-- we're not coming out of this past year going back to things as normal. We-- our kids are broken. And we're going to need to make a greater investment in them. And quite frankly, what I think is so powerful about President Biden and his American Families Plan is, this is what it means to be American. We take care of our families. We take care of our mothers. And the structure of motherhood today is broken. And there's no better time to meditate on that than Mother's Day.

ZACK GUZMAN: Yeah, no, and there's no better time to give shoutouts to moms every day as far as I'm concerned. So I appreciate you coming on here to chat with us again there. Reshma Saujani, Girls Who Code founder, thanks again for taking the time. Appreciate it.