WEBVTT

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It's the American Rescue Plan and it's basically it's about folks

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who are just trying to survive right now.

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We have hundreds of thousands of people who have lost family

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members and friends. People have died.

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We are looking at millions of people who have contracted

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the virus. We're looking at millions of people out of work.

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It really is literally about rescuing people.

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What does it do?

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It says "Hey minimum wage, $7.25 an hour means $15,000 a year.

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Two-thirds of minimum wage workers are women of color. Can't

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live off of that."

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Look at who the frontline workers are. A majority of them have

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been women and women of color.

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So we need to look at what those jobs are, and we need to

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pay people for their value.

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And we also need to understand the inequities that existed

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before the pandemic around race and gender are even worse now.

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Everyone wants the same thing.

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We want our kids to go back to school and we want them to

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go back to school in a safe way.

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And so we have in the American Rescue Plan, a big chunk of it

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is about helping to reopen the schools safely.

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We need to have a school system where kids can go back and socially

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distance, where they can have PPEs and masks and the ventilation

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systems. So those are the kinds of things that we do which is provide

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schools and local government with the resources

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they need for the kids to

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go back to school and be safe.

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We are always asking that question of ourselves.

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How is this gonna impact women?

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Is it gonna uplift women?

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How's it gonna impact, who know, black and brown folks?

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How is it gonna impact poor people?

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These are the questions

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we ask on everything that we're doing. We don't want to go back

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to where we were before the pandemic where women were not being

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paid their value, women were not being paid equal for equal work.

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Affordable child care. The cost of child care for most

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communities can be as expensive as sending a kid to college.

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So part of what we are doing is saying it's got to be affordable

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for everyone. Here's a basic point.

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When you lift up the economic status of women,

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you lift up the economic status of families and communities.

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One, it's a matter of equity and fairness. Two, it's a matter

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of how everyone as a society will benefit. How the economy

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as a whole will be better when women are in the workforce and

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when they are paid equal pay for equal work and when they have

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the benefits that all working people should have. This is the

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priority. It's a great priority for our administration.