U.S. Labor Secretary Marty Walsh Thursday touted President Joe Biden’s $3 trillion-plus infrastructure bill as a potential solution for some of the problems holding back women in the workplace, including women of color.
He also used a roundtable discussion in St. Louis to take a swipe at those, including some Republican governors, who blame extra unemployment dollars for keeping women at home.
“What I didn’t realize in the beginning [of the coronavirus pandemic] was that 4 million women were going to leave the workforce,” said Walsh, former Boston mayor and the only male on an eight-member panel convened at Rung for Women, a local nonprofit that offers programs and services for women who “want to earn more money and elevate their lives.”
“…these women left the workforce for various reasons. Many of those reasons were childcare,” and the need to care for an older adult.
“They didn’t leave the workforce because they got an extra $300,” he said.
Many Republican-led states have axed unemployment benefits enacted to help Americans facing financial uncertainty during the coronavirus pandemic.
In May, Gov. Mike Parson directed the Missouri Department of Labor and Industrial Relations to end participation in all federal pandemic-related unemployment insurance programs effective June 12. The move was said to be aimed at addressing workforce shortages across the state.
But Walsh, who was accompanied by St. Louis Mayor Tishaura Jones, joined others on the panel who pointed to structural barriers — including child care — that are keeping women sidelined.
Noting that nearly 2 million still have not returned to the workforce even as some industries have begun to rebound, Walsh said “we should spend less time talking about the extra benefit from employment and more time talking about how do we make sure we [promote efforts] to help women return to the workforce.”
A primary vehicle, Walsh said, will be Biden’s “$3.4 trillion investment in people.”
“Job training is in that bill, workforce development, apprenticeships, clean energy, and …childcare. Universal pre-kindergarten is in that bill.”
Democratic senators said Tuesday that they reached a deal on a $3 trillion-plus infrastructure bill, according to media reports. The measure includes Biden’s “human” infrastructure priorities, including child care, health care and education, not covered by a smaller bipartisan proposal.
Walsh was in St. Louis to meet with Jones, workers, union and business leaders, and state and local officials to discuss the administration’s plans to invest in infrastructure and the nation’s workforce.
Jones said she and Walsh “discussed the importance of empowering women with good jobs and the necessity of federal infrastructure funding in helping our city build back better.”
Karen Robinson-Jacobs is The St. Louis American / Type Investigations business reporter and a Report for America corps member.