[House Hearing, 117 Congress]
[From the U.S. Government Publishing Office]


                       UNDERPAID, OVERWORKED, AND
                        UNDERAPPRECIATED: HOW THE
                  PANDEMIC ECONOMY DISPROPORTIONATELY
                     HARMED LOW-WAGE WOMEN WORKERS

=======================================================================

                                HEARING

                               BEFORE THE

             SELECT SUBCOMMITTEE ON THE CORONAVIRUS CRISIS

                                 OF THE

                   COMMITTEE ON OVERSIGHT AND REFORM

                        HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES

                    ONE HUNDRED SEVENTEENTH CONGRESS

                             SECOND SESSION

                               __________

                              MAY 17, 2022

                               __________

                           Serial No. 117-81

                               __________

      Printed for the use of the Committee on Oversight and Reform
      
[GRAPHIC NOT AVAILABLE IN TIFF FORMAT]      


                       Available on: govinfo.gov,
                         oversight.house.gov or
                             docs.house.gov
                             
                                __________

                    U.S. GOVERNMENT PUBLISHING OFFICE                    
47-667 PDF                 WASHINGTON : 2022                     
          
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                   COMMITTEE ON OVERSIGHT AND REFORM

                CAROLYN B. MALONEY, New York, Chairwoman

Eleanor Holmes Norton, District of   James Comer, Kentucky, Ranking 
    Columbia                             Minority Member
Stephen F. Lynch, Massachusetts      Jim Jordan, Ohio
Jim Cooper, Tennessee                Virginia Foxx, North Carolina
Gerald E. Connolly, Virginia         Jody B. Hice, Georgia
Raja Krishnamoorthi, Illinois        Glenn Grothman, Wisconsin
Jamie Raskin, Maryland               Michael Cloud, Texas
Ro Khanna, California                Bob Gibbs, Ohio
Kweisi Mfume, Maryland               Clay Higgins, Louisiana
Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, New York   Ralph Norman, South Carolina
Rashida Tlaib, Michigan              Pete Sessions, Texas
Katie Porter, California             Fred Keller, Pennsylvania
Cori Bush, Missouri                  Andy Biggs, Arizona
Shontel M. Brown, Ohio               Andrew Clyde, Georgia
Danny K. Davis, Illinois             Nancy Mace, South Carolina
Debbie Wasserman Schultz, Florida    Scott Franklin, Florida
Peter Welch, Vermont                 Jake LaTurner, Kansas
Henry C. ``Hank'' Johnson, Jr.,      Pat Fallon, Texas
    Georgia                          Yvette Herrell, New Mexico
John P. Sarbanes, Maryland           Byron Donalds, Florida
Jackie Speier, California            Vacancy
Robin L. Kelly, Illinois
Brenda L. Lawrence, Michigan
Mark DeSaulnier, California
Jimmy Gomez, California
Ayanna Pressley, Massachusetts


                      Russ Anello, Staff Director
        Jennifer Gaspar, Deputy Staff Director and Chief Counsel
                          Derek Collins, Clerk
                      Contact Number: 202-225-5051

                  Mark Marin, Minority Staff Director

             Select Subcommittee On The Coronavirus Crisis

               James E. Clyburn, South Carolina, Chairman
Maxine Waters, California            Steve Scalise, Louisiana, Ranking 
Carolyn B. Maloney, New York             Minority Member
Nydia M. Velazquez, New York         Jim Jordan, Ohio
Bill Foster, Illinois                Mark E. Green, Tennessee
Jamie Raskin, Maryland               Nicole Malliotakis, New York
Raja Krishnamoorthi, Illinois        Mariannette Miller-Meeks, Iowa
                         
                         
                         C  O  N  T  E  N  T  S

                              ----------                              
                                                                   Page
Hearing held on May 17, 2022.....................................     1

                               Witnesses


Vicki Shabo, Senior Fellow, Paid Leave Policy and Strategy, 
  Better Life Lab, New America
Oral Statement...................................................     7

Cynthia Murray, Fitting Department Associate, Walmart
Oral Statement...................................................     9

C. Nicole Mason, President & Chief Executive Officer, Institute 
  for Women's Policy Research
Oral Statement...................................................    10

Mary Katharine Ham (Minority Witness), CNN Commentator and Author
Oral Statement...................................................    12

Yana Rodgers, Ph.D., Professor of Labor Studies and Employment 
  Relations, Rutgers University
Oral Statement...................................................    14

  * Written opening statements and the written statements of the 
  witnesses are available on the U.S. House of Representatives 
  Document Repository at: docs.house.gov.

                           Index of Documents

                              ----------                              

No additional documents were entered into the record for this 
  hearing.

 
                      UNDERPAID,  OVERWORKED,  AND
                       UNDER-APPRECIATED: HOW THE
                  PANDEMIC ECONOMY DISPROPORTIONATELY
                     HARMED LOW-WAGE WOMEN WORKERS

                              ----------                              


                         Tuesday, May 17, 2022

                   House of Representatives
                  Committee on Oversight and Reform
              Select Subcommittee on the Coronavirus Crisis
                                                   Washington, D.C.

    The subcommittee met, pursuant to notice, at 12:06 p.m., in 
room 2154, Rayburn House Office Building, and via Zoom; Hon. 
James E. Clyburn (chairman of the subcommittee) presiding.
    Present: Representatives Clyburn, Velazquez, Foster, 
Raskin, Krishnamoorthi, Scalise, Jordan, Green, and Miller-
Meeks.
    Mr. Clyburn. Today our select subcommittee is holding a 
hybrid hearing where members have the option of appearing 
either in person or remotely via Zoom. Let me make a few 
reminders about hybrid hearings.
    For those members appearing in person, you will be able to 
see members appearing remotely on the two monitors in front of 
you. On one monitor, you will see all the members appearing 
remotely at once in what is known in Zoom as gallery view.
    On the other monitor, you will see each person speaking 
during the hearing when they are speaking, including members 
who are appearing remotely.
    For those members appearing remotely, you can also see each 
person speaking during the hearing, whether they are in person 
or remote as long as you have your Zoom set to active speaker 
view. If you have any questions about this, please contact 
committee staff immediately.
    Let me also remind everyone of the House procedures that 
apply to hybrid hearings. For members appearing in person, a 
timer
    [audio malfunction].
    Mr. Scalise. Mr. Chairman, are you still on the call?
    Mrs. Miller-Meeks. I also lost audio, so it's not just you.
    Mr. Raskin. Mr. Chairman, we can't hear.
    Mr. Clyburn. OK. Did you hear that?
    Mr. Scalise. I hear that. I don't see you, but I'm picking 
up your audio.
    Mr. Clyburn. Was that the ranking member speaking?
    Mr. Scalise. Yes, this is Ranking Member Scalise.
    Mr. Clyburn. Can you hear me now?
    Mr. Scalise. We can hear you, we just can't see you.
    There we go, I can see you too. Hear you and see you now. 
Perfect.
    Mr. Clyburn. OK. I even see me. OK. Thank you for that.
    Now, members who are not recognized should remain muted to 
minimize background noise and feedback. I will recognize 
members verbally, and members retain the right to seek 
recognition verbally. In regular order, members will be 
recognized in seniority order for questions.
    If you are remote and want to be recognized outside of 
regular order, you may identify that in several ways. You may 
use the chat function to send the request, you may send an 
email to the majority staff, or you may unmute your mic to seek 
recognition.
    Obviously, we do not want people talking over each other, 
so my preference is that members use the chat function or email 
to facilitate formal, verbal recognition. Committee staff will 
ensure that I am made aware of the request, and I will 
recognize you.
    Now, at the request of the House Recording Studio, I will 
count down from ten, and the livestream will begin when I get 
down to one. Ten, nine, eight, seven, six, five, four, three, 
two, one.
    Good afternoon. The committee will come to order. Without 
objection, the chair is authorized to declare a recess of the 
committee at any time. I now recognize myself for an opening 
statement.
    The coronavirus wreaked havoc on our entire economy and 
much of our work force. The harm, while broadly shared, fell 
disproportionately on the shoulders of women workers.
    Women bear a disproportionate share of the care-giving 
responsibilities in our country. Many more women than men are 
the exclusive childcare providers for their households. And in 
households where care responsibilities are shared, they are 
often shared unevenly.
    As a result, when the pandemic disrupted normal life in 
2020, many working mothers were left unable to balance their 
jobs with their increased responsibilities to take care of 
their children, ailing parents, and others for whom they had 
taken on this essential work.
    During the early months of the crisis, women all over the 
country are losing their jobs because of a lack of childcare 
and other care assistance.
    Women working low-wage jobs were hurt particularly hard. 
Women in low-wage jobs are more likely to be the sole or 
primary breadwinner for their household. This means they often 
must balance the burden of making sure their household has 
enough food on the table, with the challenge of taking care of 
children or elderly parents.
    For these women, there is rarely a rainy day fund to fall 
back on. Every day's wages are necessary to make sure that they 
can pay their rent and put enough food on the table.
    Far too often these workers face the difficult choice of 
either taking care of a sick child or going to work, or to try 
to earn enough to support their family.
    These women also tend to have fewer guarantees of job 
security or steady income from week to week. Low-wage jobs tend 
to have higher turnover.
    Excuse me. Will you please close that door? Thank you.
    These workers are more likely to get fired, forced out, or 
voluntarily leave because the stress of balancing the job with 
other obligations is simply too high.
    Even when low-wage workers are able to remain on the job, 
the precariousness of their employment takes a mental toll.
    These jobs are also less likely to provide critical 
benefits, like paid family and medical leave, and less 
scheduling security, or flexibility, making it more difficult 
for workers to manage caregiving responsibilities.
    The select subcommittee has conducted a survey of 12 of the 
Nation's largest private sector companies that reportedly 
experienced significant work force reductions during the 
crisis, to understand, among other things, who was laid off, 
who got promoted, and who may have been forced to leave the 
work force by other burdens.
    Our analysis found that in 2020, women working in hourly 
positions experienced disproportionate harm compared to men 
working in hourly positions at the same place of work when it 
came to firings, layoffs, voluntary quits, changes in wages, 
and promotions.
    Disproportionate harm exacerbated preexisting gender 
disparities, further straining the families who rely on those 
women's wages to make ends meet.
    Despite a record-setting 8.3 million jobs added to the work 
force since President Biden took office, low-wage working women 
continue to face disproportionate challenges to participating 
in the work force.
    As of February, the female labor force had declined by 1.1 
million workers since the pandemic began. The economy will 
suffer lasting consequences if women continue to face obstacles 
to full employment participation, too often forcing them to 
choose between caring for a family member or going to work.
    To build an equitable and thriving economy, we must take 
further action to address underlying disparities and eliminate 
barriers to work force participation.
    We must ensure working women, especially low-wage women, 
can support themselves and their families through times of 
personal or economic upheaval while remaining in the work 
force.
    I would like to thank our witnesses for being with us 
today. I look forward to hearing more about the challenges 
facing low-wage, working women and what can be done to enable 
them to contribute to our Nation's economy to the best of their 
ability.
    I now recognize the ranking member for his opening 
statement.
    Mr. Scalise. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. And I'd like to also 
thank our witnesses who are joining us today.
    I think it's obvious that the COVID lockdown policies that 
were adopted harmed parents and kids disproportionately. As 
more time passes, we see study after study confirming that 
tremendous damage was done personally and emotionally and 
economically by these lockdown policies, and much of it was 
entirely unscientific and unnecessary.
    Some states, mostly led by Democrat Governors, stayed in 
lockdown for much longer than others, prolonging the pain and 
exacerbating the damage. I wish we would've had this hearing 
much earlier on the pandemic so maybe we could've learned how 
to prevent some of the unnecessary harm that was inflicted on 
American parents and kids.
    But nonetheless, I'm glad we're having it now so that 
Americans can see how their policymakers failed them, and 
hopefully we, as a country, can do better and not repeat the 
mistakes that were made if another public health crisis 
actually hits.
    In my opinion, one of the worst consequences from the 
pandemic was the impact that school closures had on kids.
    Mr. Chairman, I ask that you please hold a hearing on the 
topic of the damage that was done to our young kids by these 
closures of schools.
    In fact, one of our witnesses, Mary Katharine Ham, is well 
versed on this as a CNN contributor but also wrote an opinion 
piece that I think would be a must-read for everybody. And the 
opinion piece was, Democrats support for school closings comes 
back to bite. And we'll hear from her later.
    But multiple studies have been released that compare test 
scores of kids, based on how much time they spent with remote 
learning, compared to those whose schools provided in-classroom 
learning. The numbers are heartbreaking.
    And this isn't new, we've talked about this, myself, many 
of the other Republicans on this subcommittee have highlighted 
this over and over again, pleading that we get our schools 
open, when we saw the Biden administration manipulating the 
science to side with union bosses against our students.
    A working paper from the National Bureau of Economic 
Research found that student pass rates declined dramatically in 
districts with fewer days of in-person instruction. The 
researchers found, and I quote, passing rates in math declined 
by 14.2 percentage points on average. We estimate this decline 
was 10.1 percentage points smaller for districts fully in 
person.
    Changes in English language, art scores were smaller, but 
were significantly larger in districts with larger populations 
of students who are Black, Hispanic, or eligible for free and 
reduced-price lunch, close quote.
    New evidence also proves exactly what we suggested would 
happen, low-income students were hit the hardest by this policy 
failure. According to a recent Harvard study, low-income kids 
had more remote learning, and high-poverty kids were impacted 
the most.
    The study found that, quote, within school districts that 
were remote for most of 2020 and 2021, high-poverty schools 
experienced 50 percent more achievement loss than low-poverty 
schools.
    In contrast, math achievement gaps did not widen in areas 
that remained in person.
    A co-author of the Harvard study told a New York Times 
reporter that, quote, this will probably be the largest 
increase in educational inequity in a generation.
    The New York Times article goes on to explain, quote, there 
are two main reasons. First, schools with large numbers of poor 
students were more likely to go remote. Why? Many of these 
schools are in major cities which tend to be run by Democrat 
officials, and Republicans were generally quicker to reopen 
schools.
    This is The New York Times article. This isn't me here. 
This is The New York Times article. I'll say that again. Why? 
Many of these schools are in major cities which tend to be run 
by Democratic officials, and Republicans were generally quicker 
to reopen schools.
    High-poverty schools are also more likely to have unionized 
teachers, and some unions lobbied for remote schooling. That 
was The New York Times.
    And finally, The New York Times says, second, low-income 
students tended to face even--to fare even worse when schools 
went remote.
    So, Mr. Chairman, that was a headline from The New York 
Times, which is not exactly a conservative publication. Look at 
the devastating impact on our next generation caused by 
Democrat leaders joining forces with union bosses to play 
politics with public health.
    These little kids are probably going to struggle 
academically for years to come because of the overbearing and 
scientifically misguided Democrat lockdown policies. This did 
not have to happen.
    By the summer and fall of 2020, the risks of keeping 
schools closed were well documented, as well as the roadmap for 
how to reopen them as safely as possible.
    Yet even as teachers were prioritized for vaccines, some 
refused to return to the classroom and under the Biden 
administration, the CDC went so far as to allow high profile 
union bosses to rewrite the administration's school reopening 
guidance to make it easier to keep schools closed. We've, of 
course, talked about this at multiple hearings too.
    I want to remind everyone that in the summer of 2020, 
Republicans, along with Donald Trump and CDC Director Redfield, 
were urging schools to reopen. Democrats chose union bosses 
over children. To me, that is unforgivable.
    It's past time for Democrats to take responsibility for the 
devastation that they caused and finally to start working with 
us to fix it.
    But instead of holding a hearing on this incredibly 
important topic, we are having a hearing today with a thinly 
veiled agenda to push for failed inflation-inducing policies 
like a new minimum wage and government subsidies for paid leave 
and childcare at a time when people are struggling to find 
workers. And pay is higher than we've seen it in a long time.
    Of course not only would these policies worsen inflation, 
the biggest burden on American families right now, but they 
would also have zero support for Republicans and even lack of 
support from Democrats. There are a number of Democrats who 
oppose this, because if this was something that was whole-scale 
supported, it would've already passed in an overwhelmingly 
Democrat House, Senate, with the White House. And it didn't 
pass.
    Mr. Chairman, I again ask that you please hold a hearing on 
the devastating impact of school closures, so that we can learn 
from these grave mistakes that were made and finally start 
holding the union bosses, and those in the Biden administration 
who did this, accountable.
    Thank you, and I yield back the balance of my time.
    Mr. Clyburn. I thank the ranking member. We are going to--
I'm really tempted, as you can imagine, to respond, but I'm not 
going to respond today. I'm going to move on with this hearing, 
because I expect for us to get a lot of good ideas today as of 
what to do going forward. I would hope we won't spend all our 
time today talking about yesterday. I'm concerned about 
tomorrow and the day after.
    And with that, I would like to introduce our distinguished 
witnesses. Vicki Shabo is a senior fellow for paid leave policy 
and strategy at New America's Better Life Lab, where she works 
closely with policymakers, researchers, advocates, and business 
leaders on policy design and strategies to advance paid family 
and medical leave for workers.
    Ms. Shabo has advocated for policies that would advance 
gender equity in the workplace for over a decade and has spent 
years researching and speaking about paid medical and family 
leave at the Federal and state levels.
    Cynthia Murray is a fitting department advocate--or 
associate at Walmart of Laurel, Maryland, where she has worked 
for 21 years, while raising two children and a grandchild. Ms. 
Murray has experienced firsthand the challenges faced by women 
in positions paying low hourly wages, given minimal scheduling 
flexibility, and only provided limited benefits.
    Ms. Murray is also founding member and board member of 
United for Respect which fights every day for dignity and 
respect for workers across the country.
    Dr. Nicole Mason is president of the Institute for Women's 
Policy Research. Dr. Mason is one of the Nation's foremost 
researchers on issues of women's work force participation, job 
security, and economic well-being.
    One of the few women of color to lead a major D.C. think-
tank, Dr. Mason coined the term ``she-cession'' at the start of 
the coronavirus crisis, to describe the disproportionate impact 
of the pandemic's employment and income losses on women.
    Dr. Yana van der Meulen Rodgers is a professor at Rutgers 
University's labor studies department, where she conducts 
research on women's labor and market status.
    Dr. Rodgers also serves as a faculty director for its 
Center For Women and Work, which focuses on promoting economic 
and social equity for women workers, their families, and their 
communities.
    A scholar with three decades of experience, studying 
women's work and well-being, Dr. Rodgers has consulted for the 
World Bank, the United Nations, and the Asian Development Bank, 
and served as the president of the International Association 
For Feminists Economists.
    Mary Katharine Ham is a CNN political commentator and co-
host of the parenting podcast, Getting Hammered.
    Will the witnesses who are present please stand, and will 
all the witnesses please raise your right hands. Do you swear 
or affirm that the testimony you are about to give is the 
truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth, so help you 
God?
    You may be seated.
    Let the record show that the witnesses answered in the 
affirmative.
    Without objection, your written statements will be made 
part of the record. Ms. Shabo, you are recognized for five 
minutes for your opening statement, and if I've messed up your 
name, you may correct me.

STATEMENT OF VICKI SHABO, SENIOR FELLOW, PAID LEAVE POLICY AND 
             STRATEGY, BETTER LIFE LAB, NEW AMERICA

    Ms. Shabo. That's fine. Thank you so much, Mr. Chairman. My 
name is Vicki Shabo, and I'm a senior fellow at New America, 
and I want to thank you for holding a hearing on this important 
topic.
    Yesterday we marked 1 million lives lost. Though the 
economy is strong overall, millions of families are still in 
crisis. At the beginning of the pandemic, Congress invested in 
paid sick time and childcare, and this made a big difference. 
But now most relief has ended, and despite the house Democrats 
passage of the Build Back Better Act, Federal policymaking is 
now stalled.
    Inaction poses grave risk with respect to women, work, and 
care. Women have borne the brunt of the last two years. For 
Black, Latina and immigrant women, the pandemic has been 
particularly challenging, and for women who are paid less than 
$15 an hour, it has been brutal.
    According to research by the National Women's Law Center, 
among low-paid women workers, 41 percent say they have lost or 
quit a job. Nearly half report having their hours cut. Nearly 3 
in 10 also have caregiving responsibilities for an older or 
disabled family member. And yet less than one-fifth low-paid 
women workers have paid sick time, paid family and medical 
leave, or even paid vacation time to care.
    The U.S. work force is still missing nearly 1 million 
women, disproportionately Black and Latina women, and too often 
work and care are incompatible, which is why women with 
caregiving responsibilities were more likely to exit the work 
force.
    Pundits and business leaders often speak of a labor force 
shortage, but what we really have is a shortage of policies, 
practices, and supports. This deficit forces too many people 
into impossible situations at high costs to their economic 
security and health, to businesses, and the economy.
    So, let me talk briefly about four things we must do, all 
of which are not only good for workers and families but also 
are proven to boost labor force participation, help businesses, 
and respond to the inflationary pressures that we're hearing so 
much about these days.
    So, first, paid sick time. To stay safe and healthy at 
work, people must have paid sick days. Even the limited 
temporary intervention Congress enacted early in the pandemic, 
through 2020, prevented an estimated 15,000 cases of COVID per 
day nationwide.
    To be frank, we haven't seen the private sector step up, 
large companies that weren't covered by that emergency-paid-
sick-days requirement. Some provided COVID-specific paid sick 
time early on, but many didn't, and put hurdles in place that 
could make using sick time very difficult.
    And as the pandemic has continued, large profitable 
companies that offered COVID paid sick leave has cut it back--
have cut it back just as Omicron surged.
    And now with another wave rolling through and more 
predicted to follow, Amazon announced that it is eliminating 
COVID emergency paid sick time entirely, leaving workers with 
just five days per year, for all COVID and non-COVID purposes.
    And these workers are lucky. About half of service sector 
workers don't have any paid sick days at all.
    We can't answer an endemic new normal without paid sick 
days as a public health mitigation and preventive health 
strategy. This isn't a nice-to-have, this is a must-do.
    Second, paid family and medical leave. The pandemic also 
showed that access to paid leave for more serious personal or 
family health issues, or to allow parents to care for a new 
child, is essential. Paid leave has important economic and 
health benefits for workers, children, people in need of care, 
and families, as well as benefits for business.
    And again, here the market, the private sector, has fallen 
short. Just 23 percent of private sector workers have paid 
family leave through their jobs, and the highest paid workers 
are seven times more likely to have paid family leave than the 
lowest paid. But even 60 percent of the highest paid don't have 
paid family leave.
    For workers in the service sector, there's a significant 
unmet need. Only half of all service sector workers and just 37 
percent of Black service sector workers took a leave that they 
needed. The inability to pay bills, the risks of losing jobs 
and health insurance loomed large.
    A national paid leave policy is long overdue. It helps 
families afford the income shock of missed weeks of work, which 
is especially important in a period of high inflation. It saves 
lives, support jobs, yields cost savings, and boosts the 
economy.
    Next, childcare. Workers' loss of access to childcare was 
perhaps the most acute barrier to work for parents during the 
pandemic. McKinsey reports that 45 percent of women who left 
the work force cited childcare as one of the reasons, compared 
to 14 percent of men.
    And even before the pandemic, access to childcare was 
challenging. About half of the population lived in childcare 
deserts, and now it's even worse, with 9 to 10 percent of 
childcare program spaces having been lost.
    Cost is also a significant barrier, and for low-income 
families with children under five, childcare expenses are 35 
percent of their income.
    The cost of childcare inflation exceeded annual inflation 
by four percent in 2020. Doing nothing on childcare at this 
moment is unacceptable. It's essentially telling tens of 
thousands of childcare providers, millions of parents, and 
millions of workers who lost jobs in this sector that their 
work and their interests don't matter.
    It's depriving businesses of workers, and it's depriving 
the economy of a source of strength.
    And briefly, scheduling predictably and flexibility in 
notice. Knowing when, where, and for how long one will work is 
key to planning our lives.
    Yet too many service sector workers, especially people of 
color, face short notice about shifts, canceled shifts, 
expectation of on-call work, and more.
    Shift Project research shows that the pandemic did nothing 
to improve these practices.
    So in conclusion, more than any other moment in modern 
history, the coronavirus crisis has revealed the ways in which 
our current practices, systems, and policies fail workers, 
families, businesses, and the economy.
    Inequalities by gender, race, and income have widened, 
particularly when it comes to people's ability to work and 
care. The current moment of gridlock and inaction is untenable 
in the short-term and will cause significant harm and danger 
and loss in the longer term. And we can't wait another moment 
for change. Thank you, and I look forward to answering your 
questions.
    Mr. Clyburn. Thank you very much.
    We will now hear from Ms. Murray.
    Ms. Murray, you are recognized for five minutes.

  STATEMENT OF CYNTHIA MURRAY, FITTING DEPARTMENT ASSOCIATE, 
                            WALMART

    Ms. Murray. Good afternoon, Chairman Clyburn, Ranking 
Member Scalise, and members of the House Subcommittee on the 
Coronavirus Crisis. Thank you for the opportunity to testify 
today.
    My name is Cynthia Murray, and I have been a Walmart 
associate for 21 years. I work at a store not far from where 
you're sitting today, just 20 miles away in Laurel, Maryland.
    I'm here today on behalf of all retail workers who have 
been on the front lines keeping our country running during this 
pandemic. In the beginning, we were dubbed essential but 
treated as expendable.
    Since the onset of the pandemic two years ago, large 
corporations like Walmart and Amazon have made historic profits 
at our expense, at the expense of our health, our families' 
health, and in many cases, our lives.
    In return, we've seen little to no increase in wages, had 
to fight for basic protections, and are still dealing with 
inadequate paid leave and unpredictable scheduling that affects 
our work-life balance.
    It took two decades at Walmart before I made even $15 an 
hour. Even though I risked my safety and my son's safety day in 
and day out to keep my store running, Walmart is the largest 
private employer of American women and people of color in the 
country. And our fight for dignity has been going on since well 
before the pandemic.
    As a founding member of United for Respect, I've been a 
huge part of our fight for respect at work since our founding 
in 2010. Next month, I will bring a resolution to Walmart 
shareholders that will create a first-ever National Pandemic 
Advisory Task Force at Walmart, made up of associates like me.
    I'm doing this because we can't afford to wait for change. 
My fellow workers are suffering. Workers like Janikka Perry, 
who was a Walmart associate in North Little Rock, Arkansas.
    Janikka clocked in for her shift on January 16. She felt 
sick that day but knew that calling in would likely result in 
retaliation, or worse, termination. Janikka finished her shift 
feeling ill and then went into the bathroom.
    Paramedics found her unconscious on Walmart's bathroom 
floor two hours later. She was pronounced dead that night. She 
was only 38 years old.
    And Walmart isn't the only company sacrificing people for 
profit. At Amazon, the COVID-19 pandemic resulted in rapid 
growth, expansion in profits, but it's been a very different 
story for the workers who made that success possible.
    Workers battled illness, injuries, and unpredictable 
schedules. Thousands of workers contracted COVID-19, and many 
tragically passed away.
    Amazon was accused of concealing cases from workers and 
health agencies and retaliating against employees that 
advocated for their safety.
    Amazon workers work in a high-tech sweatshop. Workers like 
Courtenay Brown and Daniel O., from the moment customers click 
the purchase button until the second the product reaches their 
home, Amazon workers like Daniel and Courtenay are monitored, 
timed, and punished if they don't meet super human standards 
for fulfilling orders.
    These dangerous practices create high levels of stress, 
anxiety, and depression among workers, and injuries that are 
more frequent and more severe than at competing businesses.
    Daniel will make history this month by presenting a 
resolution to Amazon shareholders to end the punishing quotas 
and surveillance that drive Amazon's injuries.
    I'm also testifying for workers at PetSmart, owned by the 
private equity firm BC Partners, workers like Isabella Burrows 
who struggles on just $14 an hour and knows the emotional 
difficulty of trying to take care of sick animals while the 
store is understaffed.
    Isabella just wants to receive the support, policies, and 
pay she needs to succeed at her job she loves.
    I'm urging you today to act on behalf of workers like 
myself, like Janikka, like Courtenay, like Daniel, and like 
Isabella.
    We are looking to you to move crucial policies that give us 
the time off, the dignity we deserve, like the Healthy Families 
Act, the Part-Time Worker Bill of Rights, and the Schedules 
That Work Act, just a few to name.
    Thank you again for your time.
    Mr. Clyburn. Thank you very much, Ms. Murray.
    We will now hear from Dr. Mason.
    Dr. Mason, you are recognized for five minutes.

 STATEMENT OF DR. C. NICOLE MASON, PRESIDENT & CHIEF EXECUTIVE 
         OFFICER, INSTITUTE FOR WOMEN'S POLICY RESEARCH

    Ms. Mason. Good afternoon, Chairman Clyburn, Ranking Member 
Scalise, and members of the subcommittee.
    My name is Dr. C. Nicole Mason, and I'm the President of 
the Institute for Women's Policy Research, an economic think 
tank focused on women's economic security and understanding 
women's labor force participation.
    I thank you for the invitation to testify today about the 
long-term impact on the pandemic on women and how we might 
chart a path forward toward a full and equitable recovery for 
those most impacted by job and income losses; specifically, 
women of color and lower-wage workers.
    I ask that my written testimony be submitted for the 
record.
    Two years ago this month, the national unemployment rate 
was 13.3 percent, and the number of unemployed persons was 21 
million. For women, the unemployment rate was 17.8 percent.
    During the early months of the pandemic, women lost four 
times as many jobs as men, triggering a she-cession, an 
economic downturn defined by income and job losses in sectors 
dominated by women--service, leisure and hospitality, 
education, and healthcare.
    To put this in perspective, at the start of 2020, we were 
celebrating the gains made by women in the work force. At that 
time, women made up 51 percent of the labor force. This is no 
longer the case.
    In April 2022--2022, 180,000 women left the labor force, 
compared to 131,000 men, and there are still close to 1 million 
fewer women than men working or actively seeking a new job in 
February 2020.
    While the national unemployment rate has dropped 
significantly to 3.6 percent, the unemployment rate for Black 
and Latina women is still 1.8 and 1.4 times higher than the 
unemployment rate of White women.
    The pandemic has also exacerbated and deepened many of the 
existing inequalities and disparities in our society--health, 
income, racial--and exposed the many--that many of our systems 
are failing women and families.
    Prior to the pandemic, many women, especially those in the 
hardest-hit sectors, did not have health insurance, paid family 
and sick leave, job security, predictable scheduling, or 
flexibility. Many women had to choose between their pay or 
coming to work sick, or fear losing their job for taking care 
of themselves or their loved ones.
    Now, two years into the pandemic in terms of women's mental 
health and economic well-being, one in four women report their 
families are worse off financially than they were a year ago, 
and almost one half are either very worried or somewhat worried 
about whether or not their total family income is enough to pay 
their bills.
    Now, as women begin to return to the work force, we are 
seeing disparities between the policies women need to succeed 
and what is being offered by employers. In a recent IWPR survey 
of women workers and the future of work, we found there is a 
gap between the women--the benefits women desire, such as paid 
leave, health insurance, and fair compensation, and what--what 
employers currently offer.
    For women reentering the work force, a living wage and 
health insurance are the top two desired benefits, followed by 
retirement benefits and job security. Paid vacation, family and 
sick leave are also top consideration. But at least one in 
three women workers say they lack these critical benefits, 
including paid leave, health insurance, or job security. And 
more than 75 percent of women surveyed said these benefits in 
particular are very important, or important when considering 
future job opportunities.
    Prior to the pandemic, we did see some progress in terms of 
the enactment of policy--workplace--workforce policies that 
helped to facilitate women's participation in our economy at 
the state and local level, but the pandemic all but wiped out 
those gains.
    It also bought into sharp relief the fundamental needs of 
women in today's work force, comprehensive paid leave and 
childcare policies, so women can take care of their families 
and pursue their education and/or professional careers.
    In this moment, we have an opportunity to address these 
issues head-on. We can advance policies and programs, many that 
have been mentioned by my--by the other witnesses, at the 
Federal and state levels and in our workplaces to support 
women's reentry into the work force and their career 
advancement. We can also fix the systems that weren't working 
for women, families, and workers before the pandemic, while 
creating the post-pandemic policies and structures to build a 
fair and equitable economy for all.
    Mr. Clyburn. Thank you very much, Dr. Mason.
    We will now hear from Ms. Ham.
    Ms. Ham, you are recognized for five minutes.

  STATEMENT OF MARY KATHARINE HAM, CNN COMMENTATOR AND AUTHOR

    Ms. Ham. I am here as a couple of things. I'm a mom of 
three girls. I am a commentator and public figure, and I'm 
someone who watched, wrote about, and worked with a generation 
of parents, particularly moms, as they fought tooth and nail 
for months on end to get access to one of the most basic 
legally required public goods there is: School.
    In 2020, American mothers were called upon to parent in 
crisis. One day in March, I was a newly married working mom of 
two with a first grader in my local public school. By Friday of 
that same week, the school we walked half a mile to was closed. 
It did not reopen its doors for more than a year.
    My life changed. My career shifted. I was one of the lucky 
ones. One of the reasons I'm interested in this issue is 
because I know it was harder for other people. Had this 
happened when I was a single mom, I don't know what I would 
have done.
    Sometimes people don't believe me when I tell them the 
schools were closed for a year. If you didn't see it up close, 
it seems absurd, impossible even, but more than 6 million 
students in this country, mostly concentrated in America's 
bluest metro areas and their suburbs, where I live, were 
deprived of in-person instruction for more than a year. They 
got the worst of it, but some 30 percent of American students 
missed more than four months of school. That's another 15 
million kids. Imagine how many moms.
    The length and breadth of school closings are important to 
remember because, as you might imagine, functioning schools are 
pretty important to the participation of moms in the workplace. 
You guys have mentioned all the inequities. I have no quibble 
with them at all.
    According to a Brookings publication, between February and 
August 2020, mothers of children 12 years old and younger lost 
2.2 million jobs, compared to 870,000 among fathers. In the 
month of September 2020 alone, 1 million people left the work 
force, and 80 percent of them were women.
    The month is not a coincidence. September 2020 was the 
month that women had to make or break. They had to make the 
decision whether they were going to stay home with their kids 
when schools did not open or go back to work.
    Their jobs--this pandemic had a way of exacerbating many of 
the issues we had before the pandemic, as my fellow panelists 
have pointed out. Women did more caregiving and housekeeping at 
the home. They did more once they had to be Zoom butlers for 
their children.
    Childcare was expensive and hard to come by for young 
children before the pandemic. It became worse as daycares 
closed in many states and large cities obliterated the one 
stable source for older children as schools shut down for the 
foreseeable future.
    This remains important because those schools, particularly 
the ones who shut down for the longest periods of time, remain 
incredibly unstable and not reliable as a source of putting 
your kid in an educational space due to quarantines and all 
sorts of other things. Normalcy has not returned.
    While private schools functioned with safety and success 
just blocks from shuttered public schools, children most in 
need of both structure and education public schools formerly 
offered languished in virtual school. You heard about some of 
the results of that, and I will not belabor them. But the bad 
effects are compounding as those kids who missed most school 
have both emotional and academic tolls that make school harder 
on students, teachers, and parents alike. It did not have to 
happen, and we need to account for it.
    In American cities, while children weren't getting an 
education, their moms were. They learned about teachers unions, 
that their first priority wasn't necessarily students. They 
learned how to FOIA. They learned that, if they asked for the 
public good that unions and school boards claim to value, 
they'd be accused of being racist, no matter how diverse their 
coalition was, or wanting to sacrifice children. They learned 
occasionally Federal law enforcement might look into them for 
the sin of attending and speaking at school board meetings. One 
Alexandria, Virginia school board official asked parents if 
they'd like their children to be alive or educated.
    A friend of mine who advocated for children with 
disabilities to get their legally required aides was told by a 
school official she just wanted her brunches back.
    Some moms learned they could be swing voters, something 
they never imagined, which certainly fueled the win of 
Republican Governor Glenn Youngkin in Virginia, who made 
concentrated appeals to frustrated parents.
    The political part of this is not--I don't intend to use it 
as a cajole, but it's important to understand because there is 
a trust issue here. Democrats have lost a 15-to 20-point lead 
on the issue of education in the last two years that existed 
perennially for 20 years before that, because of alignment with 
teachers unions and because of support for vast spending on 
education. But it's gone.
    And so, when we talk about structural change to help moms, 
we have to account for the fact that they were failed 
dramatically by bureaucratic debacles, politics, in the public 
good closest to their homes and most important to them. Many of 
them have looked elsewhere for solutions.
    And I would just say, if we want to make structural change 
that makes life easier for working moms--and we should--we 
should note that 5 trillion has been out the door, and still 
the most persistent structural change is that these folks don't 
have a public school to send their kids to, in many cases, on a 
reliable basis.
    If we wanted to come up with creative solutions and apply 
them to this generational problem, we need to earn that trust 
back by acknowledging it.
    Mr. Clyburn. Well, thank you very much.
    Ms. Ham. Sure.
    Mr. Clyburn. The chair now recognizes Dr. Rodgers for five 
minutes.

  STATEMENT OF DR. YANA VAN DER MEULEN RODGERS, PROFESSOR OF 
   LABOR STUDIES AND EMPLOYMENT RELATIONS, FACULTY DIRECTOR, 
   CENTER FOR WOMEN AND WORK, ON BEHALF OF RUTGERS UNIVERSITY

    Ms. Rodgers. Thank you.
    Chair Clyburn, Ranking Member Scalise, and distinguished 
members of the committee, thank you for this invitation to 
address the issue of low-income women's experiences and gender 
disparities in the pandemic economy. As a labor economist, I've 
spent the past three decades studying women and work, and I now 
serve as the faculty director of a university research center 
that focuses on women and work.
    In terms of women's work during the pandemic, we've already 
heard some of the statistics from Dr. Mason. Women were more 
severely hit in terms of higher unemployment rates, and 
disparities were even worse for women of color.
    The gender wage gap overall remained about the same, but 
gender pay inequities worsened for Hispanic and Black women 
during the pandemic. Women were also disproportionately 
represented among frontline workers. Overall, 64 percent of 
frontline workers during the pandemic were women. And frontline 
workers were overrepresented by Black workers and Hispanic 
workers. And, as we heard from Cynthia Murray, they experienced 
a number of hardships. They were also more--less likely to be 
covered by health insurance, and they earned less on average 
than those working in nonessential industries, meaning their 
safety nets were especially weak if they were to contract 
COVID.
    Men and women both allocated more time toward childcare and 
household chores during the pandemic, but the research does 
show overwhelmingly that women's workloads increased relatively 
more.
    At the national level, in the spring of 2021, about 6.5 
million families with children reported experiencing childcare 
disruptions, and research by my center at Rutgers shows that, 
specifically in New Jersey, 21 percent of low-income parents 
indicated that they had to cut their work hours because of 
childcare disruptions. And another 23 percent indicated that 
someone left or lost their job as a result of childcare--the 
childcare crisis. That was low-income parents. These 
percentages were much lower for high-income families; only 
about 7 or 8 percent indicated these kind of losses.
    Now, as Chairman Clyburn said, we do need to look forward 
at a host of policies that can support low-income workers, and 
first is that the Federal Government can help to incentivize 
employers to provide employment policies in the private sector 
that support and retain women, especially in the area of work-
life balance, but also to develop resources, remove bias, and 
eliminate sexual harassment.
    In addition, the government needs to work with employers to 
do more to help workers with unstable schedules. Scheduling 
instability leads to economic hardship because of limited 
opportunity for career growth and fluctuating paychecks. There 
is also evidence that scheduling practices have a role in 
perpetuating racial inequality.
    The public sector needs to do a lot to support low-wage 
working parents. First and foremost is to develop national 
legislation that values care. Priorities for strengthening the 
care infrastructure include providing paid family leave and 
paid sick leave, creating universal free childcare and long-
term eldercare, boosting pay inequity and job creation in 
nursing, and improving working conditions and pay for paid care 
providers. Investing in the care infrastructure can grow 
employment and reduce women's unpaid work burdens.
    In addition, one of the most important policy levers for 
helping low-income workers is the minimum wage. Women are more 
clustered than men in low-wage jobs, so raising the minimum 
wage will help to close the overall male-female wage gap, as 
well as the racial and ethnic wage gaps. The Federal minimum 
wage is just $7.25 per hour, which is not considered a living 
wage in most parts of the country. A number of states and 
localities have raised their minimum wages, and it's time for 
the Federal Government to follow suit.
    The research shows that minimum wage hikes do not lead to 
big layoffs or to higher inflation. So overall, in summary, the 
best way for the government to shore up a supportive work 
environment in the future is to develop national legislation 
that values care, raise the minimum wage, and incentivize 
employers to adopt workplace policies that recognize the 
domestic responsibilities of their employees.
    Thank you.
    Mr. Clyburn. Thank you very much, Dr. Rodgers. And thanks 
to all of you for your statements today.
    And we will now move into a period of questions. And the 
chair recognizes himself for five minutes, and I think I will 
get to a question. But I must make a statement.
    Today is May 17. It may not mean anything to anybody in the 
room but me, but it was 68 years ago today--I remember exactly 
where I was--when the Supreme Court handed down its 1954 Brown 
decision. Sixty-eight years ago today.
    Now, I could spend the rest of my life talking about what 
happened before Brown, and all of us can spend the rest of our 
lives talking about what happened before COVID-19, or we can 
spend a little time trying to figure out how best to move 
forward from whatever mistakes may have been made, whoever may 
have made them, or we can spend a lot of time assigning blame.
    I would hope that, after listening to these statements here 
today, that we can come up with some recommendations that this 
committee can hopefully get the entire Congress to respond to 
so that we can do something about going forward. I was 
attending triple-shift school--not double shift, but triple 
shift--when that decision came down. But I have not spent all 
my life worrying about that. I'm trying to see what we can do 
going forward.
    And so I'm going to ask this question. Ms. Murray, you work 
at a Wal-Mart. You shared with us some dramatic--two dramatic 
situations involving your fellow employees.
    What would you suggest we do going forward?
    Ms. Murray. We need quite a few things to move forward. 
One, we need to put in place for workers to have paid sick time 
off. We need to stop pushing workers to come to work sick 
because they get penalized for missing a day. That is one thing 
that we need--we need definitely in our country right now.
    We need better healthcare for workers that work the hours 
that they work, and childcare. We need to do a whole lot better 
for our working mothers that have to take time off when they're 
sick, and then they become sick.
    So, our policies overall have to change with our companies. 
Our companies have to stop pointing out our workers. Our pay 
has to become better for each and every one of us.
    Thank you.
    Mr. Clyburn. Thank you.
    Ms. Shabo, would you have some answers to the problems just 
expressed by Ms. Murray?
    Ms. Shabo. Absolutely. I mean, the situations that Ms. 
Murray described are horrible, and they're not unique. And we 
know that, when workers have access to paid sick time, they are 
more likely to take themselves out of the work force for a 
shorter period of time. They're more likely to get healthcare 
that they need in an acute way. They're more likely to get 
preventive healthcare. People are healthier. Contagions spreads 
less.
    As I said, even the limited temporary policy that Congress 
put in place on a bipartisan basis at the beginning of this 
pandemic prevented 15,000 cases of COVID per day nationwide. 
And, if that policy had been expanded to businesses of all 
sizes, if the Department of Labor had enforced it, if the 
regulations that had been written had not been circumscribed, 
we would have been in a much different place.
    And, if workers had had paid sick time without being 
penalized, we could have had a shorter pandemic, which would 
have actually produced better results for the country overall.
    Mr. Clyburn. So----
    Ms. Shabo. We also do need child--I mean, childcare is a 
huge problem. It's something we have to do something about. 
It's something we needed to do before. Paid family and medical 
leave has long been an issue. Fair schedules, entirely 
beneficial to workers and to businesses, and yet we keep 
perpetuating these policies that hold people back.
    Mr. Clyburn. Dr. Mason, I'm interested in what your 
research may have found regarding this issue.
    Ms. Mason. Much of our research supports what Vicki has 
said about the impact of the lack of paid sick leave on workers 
and the need for us to have and pass paid sick and family leave 
at the Federal level.
    What we've found during the pandemic and some other of my 
colleagues pointed out that, because of the lack of childcare, 
because of the overrepresentation of women of color in the 
hardest hit sectors, what--they suffered disproportionately 
during the pandemic.
    And so, when we look at policies that we will need, it's 
paid sick and family leave, it's health insurance, but it's 
also raising the minimum wage, because you noted yourself that, 
before the pandemic and during the pandemic, many of these 
women were hanging on by a thread economically, and the 
pandemic exacerbated their economic vulnerability.
    So, in this moment, we've learned so much over the last two 
years, and we have an obligation to workers and to families to 
get it right this time around and create policies that are 
equitable, fair, and that move us toward our goal--I believe 
our shared goal of economic prosperity for all.
    Mr. Clyburn. Thank you very much.
    The chair now recognizes--I think the ranking member--Mr. 
Jordan, you are now recognized.
    Mr. Jordan. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
    Mr. Clyburn. I'm going to give you six minutes.
    Mr. Jordan. That's fine. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
    Ms. Ham, has the Biden administration--has the Biden 
administration done anything right?
    Ms. Ham. On the issue of schools, they have----
    Mr. Jordan. Well, I'm saying in general.
    Ms. Ham. In general?
    Mr. Jordan. I mean, seven out of ten Americans think the 
country--I don't know if I've ever seen wrong track numbers 
this high. Seven out of ten of our fellow citizens think----
    Ms. Ham. I mean----
    Mr. Jordan [continuing]. this country is on the wrong 
track.
    Ms. Ham [continuing]. they're pretty bad, which is one of 
the reasons I speak about this issue and bring the political 
part of it to bear, because great confidence has been lost in 
this particular demographic, with really good reason.
    Mr. Jordan. Yep. You're----
    Ms. Ham. In order to improve one's political fortunes, one 
needs to recognize that that happened.
    Mr. Jordan. Now, you said you're a mom with, I think, two 
children. Is that right?
    Ms. Ham. Three kids.
    Mr. Jordan. Three kids? Mom with three kids. Everything 
costs more? Everything costs more today?
    Ms. Ham. Yes, that's correct.
    Mr. Jordan. Clothes cost more for your kids, food costs 
more, gas to take them to soccer practice, band practice, 
whatever your kids are involved in. That probably costs more, 
too, right?
    Ms. Ham. That's correct.
    Mr. Jordan. Yes. And, if you're a mom who needs baby 
formula, that costs more, too, if you can even find it. I mean, 
everything costs more, right?
    Ms. Ham. It--yes. If you can find it, which is another 
grave issue for many moms. And I would say, on the of issue of 
the--of economic issues and inflation, just like with the 
school stuff, the reason I care about these things is because, 
if it is hurting me, I know that it is hurting other people----
    Mr. Jordan. Yes.
    Ms. Ham [continuing]. far more, because I have some amazing 
things in my employment. I have some flexibility. I don't have 
some of the things that you guys have mentioned, but I have 
some flexibility. I have abilities to work around this. I have 
the ability to teach my kids at home. I opened up my home to 
other people's families who did not have that ability----
    Mr. Jordan. Yep.
    Ms. Ham [continuing]. because I knew that these trends were 
hurting other people who did not have the resources I had far 
worse than they were hurting me. And I deeply want those to be 
acknowledged and dealt with before we move to the solution, 
because the problem must be acknowledged before we move to the 
solution.
    Mr. Jordan. Well said. And let's talk about some of those 
people who were directly impacted in a much worse way than you.
    Everything costs more today. They kept your kids out of 
school, I think you said for a year. But more than--for more 
than 6 million students in the country, mostly concentrated in 
America's bluest metro areas--I'm reading from your testimony--
they were deprived of in-person instruction for more than a 
year. They got the worst of it.
    But some 30 percent of American students missed four 
months. That's another 15--21 million kids missed 30 percent or 
more of their education.
    So, everything costs more. They kept your kids out of 
school. And here is the thing that gets me. If you are a mom 
who showed up at a school board meeting to speak out against 
some of the things that were being done to your son or 
daughter, you might have been targeted by the Justice 
Department. I mean, I think you mentioned in your opening 
testimony, the election in Virginia, Mr. Youngkin, it was a 
huge issue last fall. But I've never seen anything like this.
    We had whistleblowers come forward, over two dozen cases 
where this threat tag designation that Mr. Garland put in 
place, this apparatus and process he put in place. So, they 
keep your kids out of school. Everything now costs more for a 
mom, for a dad. And, if you go show up at a school board 
meeting to speak out against some of the things they're doing 
with your kids' education, oh, my goodness, you may get 
investigated by the FBI. Such a deal for the tax-paying moms of 
this country.
    Ms. Ham. Yes, it's a problem, because--and, again, the 
reason I talk about this as often as I do is because a lot of 
families were hurt who have far more--fewer resources than I 
do. And, when they had the temerity to go before their public 
servants and ask for the public good, to which they are 
entitled and for which they paid the same amount of taxes, even 
when it did not exist, they were pilloried, and, in fact, 
sometimes targeted by Federal law enforcement, which is a very, 
very big deal.
    Mr. Jordan. Now, Ms. Ham, you're a journalist, right?
    Ms. Ham. Yes, I am.
    Mr. Jordan. And who do you work for?
    Ms. Ham. CNN.
    Mr. Jordan. You work for CNN?
    Ms. Ham. And I freelance various other places. I've written 
for The Atlantic and----
    Mr. Jordan. So, I just want to walk you through real quick, 
because I've never seen anything like this in my life. 
September 29, the last year, the National School Board 
Association sends a letter to the Biden administration saying, 
Use domestic terrorism acts and laws and statutes, the PATRIOT 
Act, to go after moms and dads.
    Five days later, the Attorney General of the United States 
issues a memorandum where he actually puts in place a process--
an apparatus to do just that. He sets up a--what he called a 
dedicated line of threat communication, what I would call a 
snitch line, so people could snitch on their fellow citizens 
who were showing up at these school board meetings.
    And then, 16 days after that, the F--and he sends that 
memorandum, by the way, to every U.S. attorney in the country. 
And then, 16 days later, the FBI sends out an email to FBI 
agents around the Nation. And, as I said, we learned from 
whistleblowers that they used that apparatus to go after moms 
and dads.
    So, from September 29th to October 20th, they put this in 
place. First thing I always say is I've never seen the Federal 
Government move that fast on anything. But, when it comes to 
chilling moms' and dads' speech, oh, my goodness, they can 
operate at record speed. That is frightening.
    And as a journalist, I would think--and as a mom, you would 
say the same. Is that correct?
    Ms. Ham. Yes. And, by the way, the sort of exodus from the 
National School Board Association by local school boards 
shows--and some----
    Mr. Jordan. And----
    Ms. Ham [continuing]. State school boards shows that----
    Mr. Jordan. State of Ohio got out of it.
    Ms. Ham. Yes. Shows that this was a--this was a misstep, 
and it became very public. And it is a betrayal of parents, who 
have the right to speak to their public servants--and, by the 
way, we're barred from doing so for much of the pandemic 
because they were not allowed to be in person, just like their 
children were not allowed to be in person.
    And I also, as a free-speech enthusiast, would love--love 
for people--parents who disagree with me to speak----
    Mr. Jordan. Sure.
    Ms. Ham [continuing]. vociferously----
    Mr. Jordan. That's called America. That's called the First 
Amendment.
    Ms. Ham [continuing]. at all of these meetings as well. So, 
look, it's a problem. I think it, again, goes to the trust 
problem. And one of the reasons that parents will look with a 
highly skeptical eye on the next solution coming down the pike 
for them is because this very basic service was taken away from 
them.
    Mr. Jordan. Yep.
    Ms. Ham. And it was taken away from them in such a way that 
it was very hard to address. They were left with, as you guys 
note, very few safety nets in some cases. And they remain 
rightly skeptical that their local government or the Federal 
Government in some cases is going to be able to step in and 
solve these problems.
    So, I think it's very important to look to the future. And 
one of the things we need to recognize is that, in the present, 
many of America's metro area schools remain unstable for the 
very women we're talking about----
    Mr. Jordan. Yep.
    Ms. Ham [continuing]. because their children have to 
quarantine teen for 10 days because they saw a person at a 
soccer field that had COVID.
    Mr. Jordan. I'm out of time, but I just want to get one 
more question in if I could, Ms. Ham.
    Do you support school choice?
    Ms. Ham. I do.
    Mr. Jordan. God bless you. I do, too. And I don't think--I 
don't think Americans should vote for any candidate for any 
office if they're not in favor of letting moms and dads decide 
where their son or daughter is going to get the best education. 
That's so fundamental.
    Mr. Chairman, I yield back. Thank you, Ms. Ham.
    Mr. Clyburn. I thank the gentleman for yielding back. Just 
keep on living. You'll see how fast the government can work. It 
worked real fast before 1954.
    With that, the chair recognizes Ms. Velazquez----
    Mr. Jordan. We'll deal with that later.
    Mr. Clyburn [continuing]. For five minutes.
    Ms. Velazquez. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
    Dr. Mason, women of color are overrepresented in the 
hospitality and service sectors, which tend to feature lower 
pay and fewer benefits. And these jobs saw some of the 
largest--saw some of the largest dropoffs in employment during 
the pandemic.
    Dr. Mason, what kinds of challenges have women of color, 
particularly those who work in low-wage jobs, faced in 
participating in the work force during the pandemic?
    Ms. Mason. So, thank you so much for this wonderful 
question, and I also want to say that I appreciate Ms. Ham's 
invocation of her experience as a mother and navigating the 
pandemic. I do want to say that I am, too, a mother, a single 
mother of 12.5-year-old twins.
    And the caregiving challenges for me was exacerbated by 
school closures. And I understood that it was really important 
in this moment for us to really take the pandemic and its 
impact on--you know, on the public health really, really 
seriously. And, for many women of color, I was very fortunate 
to be able to work remotely. For many of the workers that we've 
been talking about today, that was not the case.
    Many women of color, lower-wage workers, because of the 
lack of paid sick and family leave and the fact that, in order 
to get paid, you have to show up physically to a location, had 
to drop out of the work force. And a lot of the conversation 
and narrative around who was able to drop off--out of the work 
force left these women out of that conversation.
    But, in truth, Black and Latina women, because of 
caretaking responsibilities and demands, the lack of paid sick 
and family leave, were more likely than other women to exit the 
work force.
    And, as I said, many of these issues around workplace 
flexibility, lack of paid sick leave, the high cost--high and 
exorbitant costs of childcare, were issues for many women of 
color in the work force, lower-wage workers. And the pandemic 
just exacerbated those challenges and that reality for many 
women.
    And, when we look at the--even the policies that were 
passed to stem the pandemic, many workers--immigrant workers 
and lower-wage workers who worked at companies who were 
excluded from providing paid sick leave, were women of color.
    So, you know, I just want to say, in this moment, as we are 
thinking about how we move forward, thinking about a 
comprehensive package of policies that will improve the working 
conditions, wages of lower-wage workers is what we need. The 
blame game and looking at who is to blame for what happened 
during the pandemic is counterproductive and doesn't get us to 
where we need to be.
    Ms. Velazquez. Thank you.
    Ms. Mason. All right.
    Ms. Velazquez. Thank you.
    Ms. Shabo, while policies like paid leave will benefit 
women greatly, these type of low-wages jobs are the least 
likely to provide access to these benefits.
    How have differences in access to benefits like paid leave 
impacted the experiences of different segments of women 
workers?
    Ms. Shabo. Thank you for the question, Ms. Velazquez.
    We know from states that have paid family and medical leave 
programs in place--and there are now 11 of them, plus D.C.--
Delaware just passed this past week, which is very exciting--we 
know from states like California that are going on nearly 20 
years of experience that women are better able to stay 
employed. They have wages that go up over time.
    The program has been particularly beneficial to Latina 
women, who are able to take a longer leave, which means that 
they're able to care for their new children. We know that women 
who are caregivers to older people or disabled adults are able 
to come back to work.
    These are prowork policies that support women. They support 
families and the people who need care. They support businesses. 
And, in fact, businesses in New York, your state, and New 
Jersey became more favorable toward paid leave policies--public 
paid leave policies during the pandemic. These are our win-win 
policies for workers, businesses, families, and the economy 
overall.
    And if I could just say one--one thing about this school 
closure. I just want to point out that, actually, Democrats' 
HEROES Act, which was passed in July 2020, included $5 billion 
to upgrade schools for HVAC and ventilation. If that had passed 
with Republican support that it needed, we would have been past 
the school closure issue much faster. We would have gotten kids 
back to school.
    But I agree with Dr. Mason. And I'm a mother as well. We 
can't have kids be in schools that are unsafe.
    But I want to pivot toward the future, and I really 
appreciate the question, Ms. Velazquez.
    Ms. Velazquez. Mr. Chairman, I know my time is up, but I 
just would like to add that, coming the midterm election, no 
one in this country should support any candidate who really 
talk about and support replacement theory.
    I yield back.
    Mr. Clyburn. Thank you, Ms. Velazquez.
    The chair now recognizes Dr. Green for five minutes.
    Mr. Green. Thank you, Mr. Chairman and Ranking Member 
Scalise, and I want to thank our witnesses for joining us 
today.
    The committee today is titled to have us discuss and focus 
our remarks and questions on the pandemic's economy's impact on 
low-wage working women. And I'm going to do just that. I'm 
going to speak about the No. 1 impact on low-income families 
across the board in our country.
    The most important pressing economic issue facing American 
workers is inflation. Some of us have been warning that the 
massive amount of Federal spending pumped into the economy 
would lead to sustained inflation. I warned the fed chair in 
this room about this back in 2020.
    Yet, in 2021, Democrats rammed through $2 trillion spending 
package on a party line vote. And, unsurprisingly, United 
States is witnessing the highest inflation in four decades. 
Inflation is crushing the budgets of working families, who are 
now struggling to afford everyday expenses. In April, the 
consumer price index was 8.3 percent over the previous year. 
Think about that.
    Prices are going up by over eight percent across the board 
on many of the most common household goods. Rent has increased 
11 percent in the past year, disproportionately hurting low-
income Americans. High gas prices are causing pain at the pump, 
with the average price of gallon of a gas up nearly 50 percent 
in the past year.
    According to the Joint Economic Committee, inflation costs 
American households an average of $569 each month. That's 
nearly $7,000 a year.
    Parents go to the grocery store and find that food prices 
keep going up. That assumes that what they are looking for, 
such as baby formula, is even in stock.
    Even Amazon founder Jeff Bezos, a donor to the Democrat 
Party and liberal causes, warned that--and I quote--``this 
administration tried hard to inject even more stimulus into an 
already overheated inflationary economy, and only Manchin saved 
them from themselves. Inflation is a regressive tax that most 
hurts the least affluent,'' end quote.
    Bezos is right about inflation being a tax on the least 
affluent. Working Americans are bearing the brunt of 
Bidinflation, and each passing day makes it more and more 
difficult for them to afford everyday expenses. Working mothers 
have been especially hard-hit as they try to provide for their 
children while their paychecks are eaten up by inflation.
    The Biden administration has stubbornly chosen to ignore 
this reality. First, they said that inflation was transitory. 
Again, I remember asking the fed chair in this room. That's 
exactly what they said. It's transitory.
    As it became obvious that inflation wasn't going away, 
President Biden tried to cast the blame everywhere else to 
avoid responsibility for a crisis that his policies have 
created in the past year. Meanwhile, inflation continues to 
rise, costing Americans hundreds of dollars every single month, 
and eating away at the value of their savings.
    In conclusion, massive infusions of cash within this 
economy have actually taken almost $7,000 a year out of the 
pockets of the poorest among us. This is the legacy of the past 
year, and it is academic truth.
    Let me ask a question to Ms. Ham in the little bit of time 
that I have left.
    What do you think are some of the impacts of this inflation 
on the working moms and, you know, folks that are--what we 
would call less affluent in our society?
    Ms. Ham. Well, again, speaking--you read out all the 
numbers, and the numbers are very stark. And I'm sure that 
every single person here has felt them when you go to the 
grocery store.
    It's not rocket science, and, again, I know that I have 
abilities and resources and flexibilities that other families 
do not have. And, if we are hurting, then other people are 
hurting so much worse.
    And the idea that the solution to all of this always is 
more trillions of dollars, I think, is misguided, because we 
have put ourselves in a situation with the 5 trillion already 
out the door, and yet somehow couldn't get schools back open. 
Strangely, as I said, public schools all over the country, 
public schools in Europe, public schools in Scandinavia, in 
Britain, they all opened. The counterfactual exists where you 
could safely reopen.
    That is not to say March 2020, right? This is not a 
reckless pursuit. But to note that the costs to children, 
particularly those who were already at a disadvantage, and 
their families would be greater and terrible from a year of 
closed school--the idea that that is improper to look at, to 
acknowledge, the idea that that is somehow only in the past 
when a generation of gains for minority students have been 
wiped out and then some, they will be dealing with this for the 
foreseeable future.
    And my thought is, given that the 5 trillion couldn't 
handle opening schools properly, maybe we should concentrate on 
those issues, because the Federal Government is not that great 
at doing a bunch of things well.
    Mr. Clyburn. The lady's time has expired.
    The chair recognizes Mr. Raskin for five minutes.
    Mr. Raskin. Thank you, Mr. Chair.
    The right to make your own reproductive decisions about 
your own body is a basic human right, but the GOP has been 
advocating for decades to take that right away from American 
women. And now we know that, after packing the Supreme Court 
with right-wing ideologs, they are about to get their way. If 
Justice Alito's narrow majority holds and the Supreme Court 
strikes down Roe v. Wade and abolishes the constitutional right 
to privacy, access to safe and legal abortion will be abolished 
or dramatically curtailed in more than 20 states immediately.
    But our colleagues say in Congress that abortion is murder, 
and they want a nationwide law making it a crime for women to 
have abortions anywhere in the country.
    So, these bans will be terribly painful for women who work 
in low-wage jobs. And, Ms. Mason, I want to ask you that--what 
would a nationwide Republican law against abortion in the 
United States do to affect women's ability to participate in 
the economy?
    Ms. Mason. Thank you so much for this question. It's 
actually a real travesty, the impending Supreme Court decision, 
and will have a devastating impact on women workers, especially 
workers of color.
    IWPR did a study this time last year, and we found that, as 
a result of state-level abortion restrictions, not even 
thinking about the recent Supreme Court decision, states--state 
and local economies and women workers would lose $105 billion 
annually because of these restrictions. And, with the impending 
Supreme Court decision, we know that those costs will be 
exacerbated.
    And, when we talk about the losses--the economic losses to 
women, we're talking about lost wages, lost productivity, and 
especially without paid sick and family leave as well as 
healthcare insurance, the costs to these workers are 
exponential, including the--potentially the loss of jobs.
    And so, when I think about this ban and put it in context, 
what I want to point out for sure is that many of the states, 
Mississippi included, are--have been and historically been 
hostile to not only women, but women of color and people of 
color.
    Mississippi ranks low--the lowest, or among the lowest 
states on every social indicator of well-being for women. This 
ban before the Supreme Court, as well as the other states that 
are considering similar laws, are all states that have not 
taken care and concern around women's economic security, and 
this bill or these bans just, again, will have a devastating 
impact on women's economic security, but also families' 
economic well-being overall.
    Mr. Raskin. Thank you for that.
    You know, the same people who want to brand women in United 
States as criminals for exercising what is today, at least for 
a few more weeks, a constitutional right have consistently 
voted against paid family leave policies.
    So, Ms. Rodgers, what will be the effect on women in the 
workplace if they have neither reproductive choice in the full 
panoply of healthcare that women enjoy today, nor paid family 
leave policies available to them?
    Ms. Rodgers. I agree very strongly with what Dr. Mason just 
said, that there is no gender equality in the workplace without 
paid family leave, without access to affordable childcare, and 
without full access to reproductive health services, including 
access to safe abortion.
    And there is now a large body of very rigorous empirical 
evidence showing that access to abortion services affects 
positively women's investment in their education, women's 
attachment to the labor force. It also reduces their likelihood 
of living in poverty as a result of being denied an abortion. 
And access to these services reduces their likelihood of 
raising children in poverty if women are denied an abortion.
    There is even evidence at the macroeconomic level showing 
that abortion rights and liberalizing abortion laws also 
positively improves GDP per capita. There is as much as an 11 
percent increase in women's labor supply when we have a 
reduction in abortion restrictions, which could lead to an 
increase in GDP per capita of up to seven percent.
    Mr. Raskin. Well, thank you for that.
    Mr. Chairman, I just want do say that, when you look around 
the world, giving women control over their own reproduction and 
fertility is the key to ending poverty, and we're moving in 
exactly the wrong direction today.
    I yield back.
    Mr. Clyburn. Thank the gentleman for yielding back.
    The chair now recognizes Dr. Miller-Meeks for five minutes.
    Mrs. Miller-Meeks. Thank you, Mr. Chair.
    And, first, I'd like to thank all of our witnesses for 
coming before the committee to testify today.
    And I think that we're all concerned with the impact that 
the COVID-19 pandemic lockdowns and school closures have had on 
children and parents alike. And, unlike some of what I've heard 
in this room today, there is not a blame game, but the reason 
you have to look back, as I can tell you, being a physician, a 
nurse, a 24-year military veteran, and a director of the 
Department of Public Health, if you don't--if you don't do a 
review of what you've done, that sets the precedent.
    And, since the beginning of the pandemic in 2020, I have 
written extensively--and even being sworn into Congress--
written extensively and talked about the adverse consequences 
of locking down a society, that the pandemic was life versus 
life. It was never life versus the economy. And, if we don't 
want to recognize that, the precedent going forward for the 
next pandemic is that we do exactly the same thing.
    Just last week, The New York Times reported on the high 
cost of school closures. Thank goodness they finally recognized 
that there was a cost of school closures on our most vulnerable 
population. They found it was very clear that remote schooling 
was not good for learning and that schools with large numbers 
of poor students were more likely to go remote.
    They even link this finding to the fact that students 
typically live in cities run by Democrat officials, and even 
the World Health Organization last year said we should not 
continue locking down schools, that childhood poverty had 
increased by over 15 percent because of our response to the 
pandemic, and it would be decades until we recovered that loss.
    Our great Governor, Governor Reynolds in the state of Iowa, 
with the concert and approval of our legislature--and I was a 
state senator at that time--decided in the fall--the end of the 
summer, fall of 2020, we would reopen Iowa schools to in-person 
learning and had no adverse consequences or effects.
    Ms. Ham, can you talk how disproportionately low-income 
students and parents have suffered from prolonged school 
closures?
    Ms. Ham. I mean, it's becoming painfully obvious in these 
studies of learning loss during this time. And this is the kind 
of thing--again, to your point and to your point, made 
eloquently, Representative Clyburn, about Brown v. Board, we do 
not fix things by not talking about this grave error, right, 
which was the pre-Brown v. Board era of schooling in American 
society, right?
    We should never put that in the rearview mirror forever, 
because it then causes us to make the same mistakes in the 
future, which is a great reason for you to bring it up in this 
hearing.
    The same goes for this, where we have made grave errors. 
And, as I said, these are not in the past. Schools remain 
destabilized. And the kids and the parents who have to deal 
with this learning loss, in Chicago in particular--I believe it 
was in Cook County, one county board member--a Democrat 
obviously--it's Cook County--said, like, in the last 18 months, 
that they've had two years of learning loss among those kids.
    They will have to wrestle with that, and their parents, 
many of them single parents, will have to be doing the 
tutoring, finding the tutoring, floundering to get them back up 
to speed.
    And my suggestion is simply that, when we are talking about 
solutions, let's concentrate a whole lot of it on clawing back 
what we gave away during the last two years, which were 
consistent and very good gains for minority students in places 
where they really needed help.
    And we gave it away for no reason, because, after a very 
short period of time, the facts made clear that you could have 
kids in school safely and that it was, in fact, a safer place 
than many other places, because it did--it only reflected 
community spread and, in fact, was insulated from it a bit with 
other mitigations.
    Mrs. Miller-Meeks. And we talked a lot about the lack of 
child nutrition--nutrition when schools closed, with child 
abuse because mandatory reporters were not in school to see 
children.
    We also--when I came into Congress and my first markup in 
Education and Labor happened to reveal that there was over $60 
billion that was allocated to schools that was not spent, and 
even after the ERF package COVID relief was passed for schools 
to reopen and teachers put at the top front of the line to get 
vaccinations, still schools remained closed.
    So, we also note that, once schools reopened, some harmful 
policies have remained in place, such as forcing our children 
to be masked.
    I recently introduced a resolution to express disapproval 
of the requirements in the Head Start programs to wear masks in 
the classroom. Three and four-year-olds continuing to wear 
masks, despite being very obvious now and research showing now 
on the negative impacts, the speech impediments on children 
having to wear masks in school.
    So, Ms. Ham, we only have a few short minutes. Can you 
discuss the impact that masking in schools has had on our 
children?
    Ms. Ham. Yes. I think there is a broader point here, which 
is that, you know, the experts say don't look backward, we need 
to spend more money on these problems in the ways that we have 
proscribed. But the experts were wrong about sending kids back 
to school and whether it would be dangerous. And they told you 
that putting your kid on a screen for six hours a day would be 
an awesome idea and everything would work out fine, even though 
we knew from years of study that that probably wasn't a great 
idea.
    They told you that covering your kids' face with a mask was 
the safe thing to do, and it was totally worth any of the 
interaction and socializing and speech therapy that they would 
lose as a result. In many cases, it wasn't, particularly for 
children with disabilities who suffered the worst from some of 
these mitigation processes.
    Mrs. Miller-Meeks. Thank you.
    I yield back my time.
    Mr. Clyburn. There is a vote on, and we have to vote.
    So, we would like to go to Mr. Foster for five minutes, and 
I'm going to try to get to Mr. Krishnamoorthi before we have to 
go vote.
    Mr. Foster. Thank you, Mr. Chair.
    One of the biggest factors pulling women out of the work 
force during the pandemic was needing to care for ill or loved 
ones or children learning from home.
    The bipartisan Families First Coronavirus Response Act 
required employers to provide paid sick and family leave to 
certain employees that were--are affected by their coronavirus. 
Although the coronavirus is still circulating, that provision 
expired at the end of 2020.
    Last year, I introduced the Pandemic Leave Extension Act, 
which would extend FFCRA's paid leave requirement until the end 
of the public health emergency.
    Ms. Shabo, how would widespread access to paid family and 
medical leave for coronavirus-related issues make a difference 
for women workers?
    Ms. Shabo. Mr. Foster, thank you so much for your 
leadership and for your question.
    So, the FFCRA was a good first step. It prevented 400 cases 
per day per state, or more than 15,000 cases per day 
nationwide. And it was limited, as you know. It did not affect 
workers in larger businesses who had trouble.
    If we were to bring back FFCRA, even if it's in its 
original form, it would have a significant effect on the spread 
of illnesses through workplace, particularly as masks have been 
removed, particularly as large companies are no longer telling 
people that there has been a spread in their workplace, 
particularly as they're rolling back, as Amazon has, all of 
their emergency paid sick leave. So, it would be tremendous.
    In addition, if we still covered childcare leave, when 
workers do have children who are being asked to quarantine or 
stay home or when schools do have outbreaks, it would allow 
parents to maintain their jobs and take care of their children.
    FFCRA was tremendous. It was helpful to employers. 
Actually, more employers filed for FFCRA tax credit relief than 
filed for some of the other employer retention tax credits and 
others.
    So, this was an important first step. It was bipartisan, 
and I applaud Congress for that. And it's a real travesty, a 
misstep, and shortsighted that it expired, and in particular 
that the requirement expired. But now there is not even tax 
credits available either.
    Mr. Foster. Yes. So--but it's fair to characterize it as a 
probusiness piece of legislation----
    Ms. Shabo. Absolutely.
    Mr. Foster [continuing]. In its effect?
    Ms. Shabo. When workers have access to paid sick time, 
they're more likely to stay home, which means a shorter period 
of spread through their workplaces.
    Actually, Ms. Mason's institution, IWPR, did a study of the 
H1N1 flu several years ago and found that the period of 
illnesses or contagion within workplaces was shorter. And, you 
know, we can't miss--misread the steps here. People need access 
to paid sick time.
    And businesses need to know that their workers are healthy, 
that they're not coming to work at lower productivity, and that 
everyone is working as they should.
    Mr. Foster. Thank you.
    I'd like to speak for a moment about the macroeconomic 
effects of this. Women's incomplete work force participation 
has economic consequences for everybody. Studies show that the 
labor market disparities cost our country trillions of dollars 
of potential GDP, let alone the impact on families--individual 
families' well-being. And this places the United States at a 
global competitive disadvantage, and it's left the United 
States ranking second to last in growth for women's work force 
participation among the OECD countries.
    The pandemic has just exacerbated that trend. If labor 
force participation for American women was at rate similar to 
those of Canada, Germany, or the U.K. during the pandemic, the 
United States would have saved an estimated $97 billion of GDP 
losses.
    Now, so, Dr. Rodgers, could you explain how low female 
labor force participation and over a million women leaving the 
labor force during the pandemic impacts our economic growth?
    Ms. Rodgers. That is such an excellent question.
    One of the fundamental inputs into economic growth is the 
input of workers. We need both physical capital as well as 
human capital. And it's both the number of workers as well as 
their education that matters.
    So, when women are withdrawing from the labor force because 
of constraints that they face, that is indeed a--puts a damper 
on economic growth, and there is a number of studies that have 
shown what you've just alluded to, that women's labor force 
participation, when that gap with men closes, gender inequality 
is reduced, and economic growth is promoted.
    And we've also seen literature showing that, when laws are 
changed and companies are more inclusive, when women have 
greater rights around the world, including in the U.S., that 
also promotes economic growth.
    One study that I did looked specifically at laws 
surrounding sexual orientation as well as gender identity, and 
we found that one additional right supporting inclusion in the 
economy contributes to an increase in GDP per capita of $2,065 
on average. These are large effects, and gender equality does 
matter for the macro-economy.
    Mr. Foster. Thank you. And I guess I can't let your 
reference to both human and physical capital slide without 
mentioning--giving a shout-out to the Cobb-Douglas production 
function. One of the fundamental macroeconomic papers of I 
guess all time, and authored--coauthored by Senator Paul 
Douglas of Illinois.
    Ms. Rodgers. Absolutely.
    Mr. Foster. I yield back.
    Mr. Clyburn. Thank you very much, Mr. Foster.
    The chair now recognizes Mr. Krishnamoorthi for five 
minutes.
    Mr. Krishnamoorthi. OK. Thank you, Mr. Chair.
    Ms. Ham, I'd like to turn your attention to an article that 
we found in The Federalist dated April 10, 2018. It's entitled 
``Equal Pay Day Hypes''--I'm sorry--``Equal Pay Day Hype 
Ignores the Facts and Women's Feelings About the Workplace.''
    I have this article in front of me. And I just want to draw 
your attention to page four of this article.
    And, here, you say, quote, ``Women are far more willing to 
give up higher pay for more comfortable work requirements.''
    You wrote that as part of this piece, correct?
    Ms. Ham. Yes. The piece is about how, when you do the 
calculations of equal pay day in such a way that does not take 
into account people's desires for what their workplace looks 
like, you end up not accounting for the fact that women desire 
the ability----
    Mr. Krishnamoorthi. Correct. I'm just--I want to turn our 
attention to this statement. Women are far more--this is what 
you said: Women are far more willing to give up higher pay for 
more comfortable work requirements.
    And, you know, I'm just thinking about Ms. Murray, who has 
testified today, who spent over 20 years working at Wal-Mart, 
and to this day brings home just over $16 per hour.
    Do you really believe, Ms. Ham, that Ms. Murray doesn't get 
paid a living wage or higher than $16 per hour because she 
chooses not to be paid more?
    Ms. Ham. No, I do not believe that. The----
    Mr. Krishnamoorthi. And do you believe that she chooses----
    Ms. Ham. The poll that--may I--may I----
    Mr. Krishnamoorthi [continuing]. Comfortable work 
requirements over being paid more?
    Ms. Ham. No. The poll--what I'm referring to in that 
article, which you clearly read, is polling on what women want 
in a workplace, which I think is important to all of us, and 
one of the things they do want--and one of the things that, by 
the way, we've taken out of the pandemic and can increase, to 
you guys' points, is more workplace flexibility.
    Mr. Krishnamoorthi. I'm looking at this----
    Ms. Ham. I am not casting----
    Mr. Krishnamoorthi. I'm looking at this article.
    Ms. Ham [continuing]. Aspersions on any particular worker 
at all.
    Mr. Krishnamoorthi. There is no poll. There is no polling 
that this is citing here for this very broad statement. I don't 
see any citation whatsoever to any polling data.
    Ms. Ham. The New York Times and others have----
    Mr. Krishnamoorthi. In fact, there is data that underlies 
that very broad statement.
    Ms. Murray, I want to ask you a very simple question. You 
are paid $16 per hour. You've worked 20 years at Wal-Mart. Do 
you feel like you've chosen to get paid less than your male 
counterparts?
    Ms. Murray. No, not at all. And a lot of male workers get 
paid more than the women do at Wal-Mart.
    Mr. Krishnamoorthi. For doing the same job?
    Ms. Murray. Yes. And we've asked Wal-Mart to be opened 
about how they pay--how the pay rate is for men and women, and 
of course they will not show us that.
    But, no, I don't choose to get paid less than men, and I 
don't stay at Wal-Mart because it's a comfortable position. 
It's not. I stay there now because I feel workers need a voice 
across the country, and the only way that's going to happen is 
through other workers, like me and other workers that speak up 
and speak out.
    And that's why I'm asking for workers to be put on boards 
of big companies, workers that work inside stores, so that they 
understand what these workers go through, because they just 
ignore us. They don't come in and really truly look and see 
what's happening.
    So, the only way we can make these changes is to ask your 
workers that are on the front line. We are deemed essential 
workers. Treat us like that.
    We do not need just the 40 cents a year raise. That does 
nothing for any worker in the country.
    Mr. Krishnamoorthi. So, let me--let me turn to Dr. Rodgers 
for a second.
    With regard to this statement, women are far more willing 
to give up higher pay for more comfortable work requirements, 
what is your opinion about that statement? And let's just say 
that there is polling that shows that some people make 
tradeoffs----
    Ms. Ham. Of course they do.
    Mr. Krishnamoorthi. Is this an accurate----
    Ms. Ham. Of course they do.
    Mr. Krishnamoorthi. Is this--is this an----
    Mr. Clyburn. Excuse me.
    Mr. Krishnamoorthi. But is this an accurate----
    Mr. Clyburn. Ms. Ham?
    Mr. Krishnamoorthi [continuing]. Statement to describe the 
entire--entirety of the situation with regard to women?
    Ms. Rodgers. No, absolutely not. It's not a willingness to 
give up pay. Women face a whole structure of constraints 
forcing them to make decisions and difficult choices. And 
especially low-wage women or low-income women are not willing 
to give up pay in order to be able to care for their children. 
These are constraints they face.
    Ms. Ham has mentioned several times that education is a 
public good that we need to be investing in, but I want to 
emphasize that health is also an incredibly important public 
good, and we need to invest in health.
    That means investing in HVAC systems in schools and 
improving the health at schools when they are open. It also 
means investing in our paid care workers, investing in our 
nurses, investing in personal protective equipment, which, as 
you probably remember, was in scarce supply at the beginning of 
pandemic.
    So, we really need to invest in health as well as education 
in order to achieve gender equality.
    Mr. Clyburn. Thank you very much----
    Mr. Krishnamoorthi. Thank you.
    Mr. Clyburn [continuing]. Dr. Rodgers, and thank you Mr. 
Krishnamoorthi.
    We are just a few moments before we have to go to the floor 
to vote, and I want to thank all of our witnesses here today 
for being here.
    And of course I'm going to truncate my closing statement 
here today to say that every one of you that testified today 
expressed some kind of research that has been done. And we came 
to this hearing because of surveys, questionnaires, and getting 
information from, I think, about 20 employers, about who got 
laid off and why.
    Now, we can spend the rest of our lives analyzing--in fact, 
I think when I was coming along, we used to call it the 
paralysis of analysis. At some point in time, we've got to stop 
analyzing and start making recommendations as to what we do 
going forward. For some reason, we want to keep studying the 
issue.
    We don't need to study these issues anymore. We know what 
the problems are. We want your good minds to help us find some 
solutions, and solutions are what we're looking for with these 
hearings.
    So, I want to thank you all for being here today. And, to 
the extent that we got some solutions, we're going to try to 
act upon them.
    But let me just close with our standard statement.
    Without objection, all members will have five legislative 
days within which to submit additional written questions for 
the witnesses to the chair, which will be forwarded to the 
witnesses for their response.
    With that, this meeting is adjourned.
    [Whereupon, at 1:48 p.m., the subcommittee was adjourned.]

                                 [all]