THE OBAMA ADMINISTRATION’S IMPACT ON AMERICAN WOMEN AND THEIR FAMILIES

“Lifting women up lifts up our economy and lifts up our country.”
– President Barack Obama, 11/9/2011

Since the day he took office, President Obama has been a staunch advocate for women, working to protect and advance policies that promote fairness, equal opportunity, and a level playing field. From working to ensure equal pay for an equal day’s work to expanding access to quality, affordable health care, child care and education, the President’s agenda showcases his belief that women’s issues are America’s issues.

LAYING THE FOUNDATION FOR AN ECONOMY BUILT TO LAST

•When President Obama took office, jobs were disappearing at a rate of more than 700,000 a month. Under his leadership, we have seen 20 straight months of private sector job growth and the creation of nearly 2.8 million private sector jobs

•President Obama helped pass emergency funding to support more than 260,000 jobs in public schools around the country.

•He passed 17 small business tax cuts to boost entrepreneurship and innovation.

•Through the Recovery Act, he issued more than 2,300 microloans and invested more than
$3 billion in 12,000 grants to women-owned small businesses.

•And to lay the foundation for an economy built to last, he helped direct government investments in the jobs and industries of the future, so American companies can invent the next Facebook, Google, or clean-energy automobile.

EXPANDING ACCESS TO AFFORDABLE, QUALITY HEALTH CARE

•President Obama has worked to expand health coverage to four million previously uninsured kids through the Children’s Health Insurance Plan Reauthorization.

•He’s providing health security to middle-class families by holding insurance companies accountable. Under the Affordable Care Act, it will be illegal for insurance companies to:

–Deny coverage to people with pre-existing conditions like heart disease, arthritis, or cancer
–Cancel someone’s coverage if they get sick
–Refuse to cover kids born with medical conditions
–Charge women more than men for health coverage

•The Affordable Care Act helps bring health care costs down by requiring insurance companies to give rebates to consumers if they don’t spend at least 80% of their premium on providing care.

•And it makes insurance fairer by requiring health plans to include coverage without copay for the preventive services women need, including cervical cancer screenings, well woman visits, domestic violence screening and counseling, contraception, and breastfeeding support.

•The Affordable Care Act also ensures women can see an OB-GYN without having to get a referral first.

•President Obama has consistently stood up to Republicans trying to defund Planned Parenthood, the largest provider of women’s health care in the country.

•And he continues to stand by a woman’s right to choose. He reversed the global gag rule, which banned the government from providing aid to international family planning groups that provided abortion information.

EXPANDING ACCESS TO QUALITY, AFFORDABLE EDUCATION

•President Obama is making college more affordable for working families by doubling Pell grant funding and providing tax credits for tuition expenses. An estimated 9.4 million families have benefited in 2011 alone.

•The Recovery Act included one of the largest increases in financial aid since the GI Bill, including funding aimed at helping single and married mothers go back to school.

•President Obama enacted loan forgiveness after 10 years for people who go into fields including teaching, nursing, and the armed forces who have made their loan payments on time.

•He capped the maximum amount of student loan payments for certain borrowers at
10 percent of income and allows remaining debt to be forgiven after 20 years for those who have made their loan payments on time.

•The President launched Race to the Top, which has led over 40 states to raise their standards for teaching and learning in K-12 schools so students are prepared for success in college and the workplace.

•And the Recovery Act helped fund 286,000 jobs in public schools across the country, including more than 100,000 teachers in 2010. Seventy-six percent of teachers are women.

INVESTING IN WOMEN AND FAMILIES

•Census findings confirm that the President helped keep millions of Americans out of poverty by expanding or extending programs that helped those who were hardest hit by the recession.

–More than six million Americans were lifted out of poverty by the Earned Income Tax Credit,
–5.2 million by the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP),
–2.8 million through housing assistance—and more than a million through the national school lunch program and Supplemental Nutrition Assistance for Women, Infants, and Children (SNAP).

•President Obama has championed flexible work policies to guarantee that women need not choose between keeping their jobs and meeting the needs of their families.

•He promoted efforts to provide flexibility to new parents in research fields, so new moms and dads can delay or suspend grants for up to a year to care for their newborns.

•The Recovery Act increased investments to improve the quality of child care for infants and toddlers, and expanded Head Start and Early Head Start to reach an additional 61,000 children and families.

•The President’s 2012 budget included funding to help 1.7 million children receive child care.

PROTECTING AND ADVANCING WOMEN’S RIGHTS

•The first bill the President signed into law was the Lilly Ledbetter Fair Pay Act, ending a decades-long battle to ensure that women could demand equal pay for equal work.

•President Obama nominated two women to the Supreme Court, including the first Latina, and seven women to cabinet-rank positions.

•He created the White House Council on Women and Girls to help ensure that they are treated fairly in all matters of public policy and to ensure that cabinet-level agencies coordinate their policies and programs that impact women and families.

•His administration has made a substantial investment in the effort to expand opportunities for women and girls in the science, technology, engineering and mathematics (STEM) fields critical for growth in the 21st century economy.

•And the President launched a broad effort to protect victims of domestic violence and reduce violence against women. The Recovery Act allocated $225 million to the Department of Justice to promote law enforcement strategies that address violence against women. The President’s 2010 budget increased funding for the enforcement of the Violence Against Women Act, and his administration announced new initiatives to protect children, improve legal protections for victims, increase sexual assault arrests and successful prosecutions, and help victims regain housing and financial independence.