Women Policy in the United States
Obama Administration Women Policy
President Obama has signed major legislation like the Affordable Care Act, the reauthorization of the Violence Against Women Act, and the Lilly Ledbetter Fair Pay Act — the first legislation he signed into law. He’s dramatically expanded fair pay and paid leave protections. And his administration has systematically encouraged cities and states to embrace policies like higher minimum wage and paid leave.
Underpinning these actions, the President has spoken out and driven a conversation about treating women fairly in America and around the world. He has pushed for cultural change that gives women the respect they deserve in schools and in workplaces, and joined advocates in dramatically changing our country’s approach to sexual assault on campuses and elsewhere. That conversation has spurred changes in cities and states, businesses big and small, schools from early education to higher education.
The White House Council on Women and Girls (CWG), which the President created in March of 2009, has played an active role in working on these issues. The CWG is comprised of representatives from each Federal agency, as well as each White House office, and coordinates efforts across Federal agencies and departments to ensure that the needs of women and girls are taken into account in all programs, policies, and legislation.
Here is a look at the progress that has been made under the Obama Administration on issues that affect so many women and girls across the country.
Expanding Economic Opportunity
Fighting for equal pay
- Signed the Lilly Ledbetter Fair Pay Act, which empowers women to recover wages lost to discrimination by making it easier to bring pay discrimination claims
- Prohibited federal contractors from retaliating against employees who choose to discuss their compensation
- Created the National Equal Pay Task Force to crack down on violations of equal pay laws
- Worked with the Department of Labor and the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission to announce a new proposal requiring businesses with 100 or more employees to submit summary pay data by gender, race, and ethnicity, helping focus public enforcement of existing laws
- Repeatedly called on Congress to pass the Paycheck Fairness Act
Promoting broader economic participation through modern workplace practices and educational opportunity
- Led the way on paid sick and family leave, including signing an Executive Order requiring federal contractors to provide up to 7 paid sick days each year to employees working on federal contracts, and calling on Congress to pass legislation providing the same paid leave to most Americans. Since 2014, four states have passed paid sick and family leave laws, including Vermont, and recently, New York passed a paid family leave law and California expanded its paid family leave program. Since 2014, 24 cities and counties have taken action on paid sick leave and 21 cities and counties have taken action on paid family leave.
- Called on Congress to pass the Healthy Families Act which would allow millions of working Americans to earn up to seven days per year of paid sick time
- Required federal contractors to raise their minimum wage and to lift the tipped minimum wage (which disproportionately impacts women), and led a national push for an increased minimum wage, supporting minimum wage increases in 18 states and the District of Columbia as well as 29 cities and counties
- Extended minimum wage and overtime protections under the Fair Labor Standards Act to home health care workers
- Expanded overtime protections to up to 4.2 million workers – more than half of whom are women
- Prohibited federal contractors from discriminating in employment on the basis of sexual orientation or gender identity
- Invested $2 billion to significantly expand partnerships between employers and community colleges to prepare students for in-demand jobs in fields like health care, information technology and energy
- Worked to expand participation in STEM fields by encouraging mentoring to support women throughout their academic and professional experiences and supporting efforts to retain women in the STEM workforce
Stopping the cycle of poverty
- Cut unemployment by more than half to 4.7 percent during a record streak of private sector job creation, and reduced child poverty further in the last two years than it has been reduced in any other two-year-period since 2001
- Improved the Earned Income Tax Credit and the Child Tax Credit that are helping 16 million working families’ make ends meet
- Worked with the private sector to tackle the diaper gap and increase access to affordable diapers to help the nearly 1 in 3 American families who struggle to afford enough diapers for their babies
- Worked to strengthen high-poverty communities through better federal partnership with local leaders in place like the 22 urban, rural, and tribal communities that have been designated as Promise Zones since 2014
- Fought homelessness through the Opening Doors plan which, to date, has resulted in significant declines in veteran, chronic, and family homelessness
- Worked with a coalition of women’s foundations—Prosperity Together—who have collectively committed $100 million to a 5-year funding initiative to improve economic prosperity for low-income women, particularly women and girls of color
- Engaged open data and technology to empower women and girls and expand ladders to opportunity through The Opportunity Project, a platform for using Federal and local data and digital tools to help people navigate information on resources they need to thrive
Fighting against human trafficking
- Through the Department of Labor, the Department of Justice, and the Department of State, played an important role in combating human trafficking through the civil enforcement of federal labor laws, research and funding for grants overseas, and employment and training expertise
Increasing Opportunity for Entrepreneurship and Innovation
- Provided training and counseling for women entrepreneurs through the Small Business Administration
- Increased access to credit for women business owners through the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act and the Small Business Jobs Act, through which lending to women-owned businesses has reached historic levels
- Expanded access to federal contracting for women business owners, opening up more opportunities for women-owned small businesses
- Enhanced investing and innovation for women entrepreneurs through the Small Business Administration’s ChallengeHER National Initiative, the InnovateHER Business Challenge, and the USPTO Women’s Entrepreneurship Symposium
- Supported entrepreneurship for women around the globe through multiple programs including the Fortune/U.S. State Department Global Women’s Mentoring Partnership and the African Women’s Entrepreneurship Program
- Led a movement for inclusive entrepreneurship through dozens of partnerships between the federal government and private sector
Improving Educational Opportunity
Expanding access to quality early childhood education
- Expanded and improved Head Start by investing an additional $4 billion in the program, and implementing important reforms to raise the program’s standards, focus on school readiness results, and promote accountability
- Expanded access to high-quality early learning for our youngest learners by launching new Early Head Start-Child Care Partnerships, which are providing early learning opportunities to more than 30,000 additional infants and toddlers in 275 communities across the country
- Expanded access to high-quality preschool through the Preschool Development Grants competition, which has provided development and expansion grants to 18 states to support high-quality preschool programs for children from low- and moderate-income families
- Proposed landmark investments to expand high-quality, affordable child care to every eligible working family with young children and to expand high-quality preschool to every 4-year-old
- Expanded access to voluntary, evidence-based home visiting programs by serving more than 145,500 parents and children in 825 counties across all 50 states, the District of Columbia, and five territories
Fostering school success
- Signed the Every Student Succeeds Act, which fixes the No Child Left Behind Act by building on the progress we have made over the past seven years while maintaining critical protections for equal educational opportunity and civil rights of all students
- Addressed the disproportionately high rates of suspension for girls of color by releasing a school discipline guidance package to assist states, districts, and schools in developing practices and strategies to enhance school climate, and to ensure those policies and practices comply with federal law
Increasing access to and support for those who want to enter STEM fields
- Supported the increased participation of women and girls in STEM by including a STEM education priority in the $4.35 billion Race to the Top competition, which encouraged states to develop comprehensive strategies to improve achievement and provide rigorous curricula
- Launched new commitments to help institutions better understand their obligations under Title IX and remove barriers to women’s participation within STEM fields
Expanding secondary and higher education opportunities
- Oversaw the highest rate of students graduating college than ever before
- Invested in college affordability for millions of low-income and middle class families across the country by raising the maximum Pell Grant award by $1,000 and awarding Pell Grants to 2 million additional students each year
- Improved college affordability by establishing the American Opportunity Tax Credit, which provides a maximum credit of $2,500 per year, and will cut taxes by over $1,800 on average for nearly 10 million families
- Made applying for financial aid easier and faster by revamping the online form of the Free Application for Federal Student Aid (FAFSA) and allowing students to use tax information from an earlier year
- Through First Lady Michelle Obama’s Reach Higher Initiative, the President and First Lady announced over 700 commitments to expand opportunity for more students to enroll and succeed in college
- Proposed making two years of community college free for responsible students, with states, communities, and community colleges across the country announcing new programs or introducing legislation since the President’s announcement of the America’s College Promise Act in January 2015
- Capped loan repayments to 10 percent of income and expanded enrollment in income-based student loan to nearly 5 million borrowers, up from 700,000 in 2011
- Helped student borrowers better understand their repayment options by launching the streamlined StudentLoans.gov/Repay website
- Launched the Let Girls Learn initiative to address adolescent girls’ secondary education globally
- Worked with a coalition women’s foundations called Prosperity Together, and a coalition of academic institutions and civic groups called the Academic Collaborative to improve outcomes for women and girls of color. Collectively, these groups have committed over $175 million dollars to advance equity for women and girls of color
- Launched a U.S. Global Strategy to Empower Adolescent Girls to address the challenges faced by adolescent girls, safeguard their rights, and encourage their full social, political, and economic participation