Dem Rep. Clark: More Money Needed in Next COVID Bill to Help Women with ‘Pay Equity’

 

By TRENT BAKER

Wednesday on CNN’s “New Day,” Rep. Katherine Clark (D-MA) voiced her support for more money in the next COVID-19 relief bill to help women with “pay equity” and “paid family leave.”

Host Alisyn Camerota noted to Clark that “women have been hit so hard by COVID” by getting sick and losing their jobs as a result of the pandemic.

On top of the additional money for women, Clark also pushed for raising the minimum wage to address problems with the “pandemic economy.”

“Child care is absolutely critical infrastructure if we want to reopen an economy,” Clark emphasized. “And we have to look at it also — child care is a great example of what you were just talking about — the devastating effect for women in the pandemic economy. So, we look at who helps us raise our children, who provides the early education. It is women and predominantly women of color. And we have this terrible paradox in this country where child care is very expensive for parents and pays very low wages and benefits for providers. All of the pieces that we need to rebuild an economy are really seen in the child care example because we need to support women with pay equity, with paid family leave, making sure that we’re raising the minimum wage and that people are paid a living wage that when they’re working full-time, they can support their family. And schools have to become the safest place in our communities.”

She concluded, “We are not going to have a recovery, even with a fair and equitable vaccine distribution, if we don’t address these issues. We always have known they existed, but now they’re in stark relief.”