"We want parents to be in the work force"

[Alma]

Opinion | Give Power to the Parents!

But the Biden administration is not entirely neutral when it comes to family policy. When, during a conference call, I asked three administration officials Thursday about this, they mentioned two other social goals. First, getting people working. “We want parents to be in the work force, especially mothers,” said Susan Rice, head of the Domestic Policy Council. Second, the administration wants kids in classroom settings, to extend the public school system down two years. The administration is aggressively expanding child care subsidies and pre-K programs.

After this graf, David Brooks gets boring, and never gets around to asking Rice the most basic question: Why?

But perhaps the second goal is really the first, and getting parents "in the workforce" is part of the way you get kids in classrooms at 3.

 

[Michael_ Gee]

Opinion | Give Power to the Parents!

But the Biden administration is not entirely neutral when it comes to family policy. When, during a conference call, I asked three administration officials Thursday about this, they mentioned two other social goals. First, getting people working. “We want parents to be in the work force, especially mothers,” said Susan Rice, head of the Domestic Policy Council. Second, the administration wants kids in classroom settings, to extend the public school system down two years. The administration is aggressively expanding child care subsidies and pre-K programs.

After this graf, David Brooks gets boring, and never gets around to asking Rice the most basic question: Why?

But perhaps the second goal is really the first, and getting parents "in the workforce" is part of the way you get kids in classrooms at 3.

A disproportionate number of mothers who were working before the pandemic no longer are. Since two-income families are now essential for many in the middle class, it's natural the administration would like to get many of them back into the workforce. The Trump administration's oft-stated goal was to get everybody back in the workforce. I assume that included moms, they just weren't specifically targeted by any policy.

 

[User 150927]

Especially mothers of color lost jobs

 

[Alma]

A disproportionate number of mothers who were working before the pandemic no longer are. Since two-income families are now essential for many in the middle class, it's natural the administration would like to get many of them back into the workforce. The Trump administration's oft-stated goal was to get everybody back in the workforce. I assume that included moms, they just weren't specifically targeted by any policy.

I appreciate your answer, but I don't think this initiative is about lost jobs in the last year. (Indeed, lots of jobs are open at the moment. Places can't find people to hire.) It's a much longer initiative designed to reshape America, even by Biden's own definition. Rice's answer, remember, is in response to the extension of the child tax credit.

 

[Michael_ Gee]

Families with both parents working have needed help for a long time. No such thing as federally guaranteed day care loans. When my children got to kindergarten age, we saved thousands of bucks a year.
(Of course, right then my TV producer wife's show got canceled. I remember thinking I'm glad I'm with a newspaper and not a risky business like that. Long ago, that was.)

 

[dixiehack]

Places can’t find people to hire because for a brief moment in time our government has seen fit to provide something resembling a working safety net for unemployment insurance, so that people who had solid middle class jobs can have a bit longer to get another one in that category instead of having to crawl on their knees to take a $10.50 position (must have full availability!) flipping burgers at a drive thru in Potterville.

 

[sgreenwell]

Places can’t find people to hire because for a brief moment in time our government has seen fit to provide something resembling a working safety net for unemployment insurance, so that people who had solid middle class jobs can have a bit longer to get another one in that category instead of having to crawl on their knees to take a $10.50 position (must have full availability!) flipping burgers at a drive thru in Potterville.

Or, $3 an hour plus tips to work nights at quarter to half-full restaurants.

 

[Regan MacNeil]

Who's more afraid: Trumpists of Black people or Alma of "liberal" policies?

 

[User 149557]

“I heard they’re putting razor blades and microchips in the child tax credits. Bill Gates is writing the checks.”

 

[dixiehack]

Moms working outside the home stopped being a “liberal” issue sometime during the Reagan years.

 

[Alma]

Places can’t find people to hire because for a brief moment in time our government has seen fit to provide something resembling a working safety net for unemployment insurance, so that people who had solid middle class jobs can have a bit longer to get another one in that category instead of having to crawl on their knees to take a $10.50 position (must have full availability!) flipping burgers at a drive thru in Potterville.

Who had the Potterville jobs before COVID?

Also: Susan Rice wants parents in the workforce. Especially mothers. I'm not sure her bar is "solid middle class jobs." It may very well be Potterville.

FWIW, again, I'm just struck by Brooks having that statement, on the record, and then not drilling down into it, and prattling about with whatever he was going to prattle on about. Many columnists - not all, but many - seem to lose the ability of stacking 6,7,8 questions on top of each other in order to get more out of the source. Brooks falls upon interesting nuggets sometimes, only to become far more interested in David Brooks as most pieces continue.

 

[Alma]

Who's more afraid: Trumpists of Black people or Alma of "liberal" policies?

I like the policy. And, with the exception of, say, 2 issues - one of which is gun control - I'd say I'm pretty liberal.

But I'm not sure the statement "we want parents in the workforce" is a liberal one. Progressive - as in, that's what Susan Rice thinks will make a better America - yes, it's that. Liberal is "we really don't care what they do with the money."

You don't usually get so straightforward an ideological belief. I suppose I appreciate Rice being frank.

 

[Neutral Corner]

The stats on how many women had to step out of the workforce during a Covid year are well documented. Schools closed, and many child cares did as well, or their enrollment is very limited. There's no one to take care of the kids, so mom stays home. Or she can find child care, but it's so expensive that if you have more than one child the cost to go to work is so high that it makes no sense to go in. Women's career arcs are being affected by this, as they're competing with men who work while *their* wife stays home.

 

[Inky_Wretch]

I appreciate your answer, but I don't think this initiative is about lost jobs in the last year. (Indeed, lots of jobs are open at the moment. Places can't find people to hire.) It's a much longer initiative designed to reshape America, even by Biden's own definition. Rice's answer, remember, is in response to the extension of the child tax credit.

There wouldn't be an "initiative designed to reshape America" if wages had continued to grow naturally. Instead, they've been held down by CEOs and politicians to the point that for most families both parents must work to pay the bills.

 

[Alma]

most families both parents must work to pay the bills.

I can't speak to that. I know both parents often do work to pay for life. Whether that's "the bills" or not, or "must" is the key word, is harder for me to say. And, of course, there are many single parents.

 

[Neutral Corner]

Nod. Anything that was said above with regard to the difficulties for families with children applies to and is much more of a hardship for single parent families.

 

[dixiehack]

Even at the last several Sharia Baptist churches I attended, there were seldom more than two or three couples with kids out of a congregation of 300-plus that made a deliberate decision for the mom to stay at home. Many of the women (gasp) even enjoyed having careers and found them fulfilling.

Sorry Rev. Shaw, but this genie has been out of the bottle a long time.

 

[Slacker]

I can't speak to that. I know both parents often do work to pay for life. Whether that's "the bills" or not, or "must" is the key word, is harder for me to say. And, of course, there are many single parents.

 

[Alma]

Even at the last several Sharia Baptist churches I attended, there were seldom more than two or three couples with kids out of a congregation of 300-plus that made a deliberate decision for the mom to stay at home. Many of the women (gasp) even enjoyed having careers and found them fulfilling.

Sorry Rev. Shaw, but this genie has been out of the bottle a long time.

It has. And, yet, the statement nevertheless would make it seem as if not enough parents were in the workplace.

 

[Regan MacNeil]