Girls Who Code CEO calls on Biden to implement 'Marshall Plan for Moms'

Reshma Saujani, Girls Who Code Founder & CEO, joins Yahoo Finance's Kristin Myers to discuss her letter to President Biden, asking him to create a "Marshall Plan for Moms" amid the COVID-19 pandemic.

Video Transcript

KRISTIN MYERS: Now our next guest has called for a Marshall Plan for women-- paying mothers for being mothers. And now she's calling on President Biden to enact a task force on the subject. We're joined now by Reshma Saujani, founder and CEO of Girls Who Code. Reshma, great to chat with you again. I know we've talked about this before. Now, in your letter to President Biden, you say-- and I want to quote you here-- that it's time to put a dollar figure on our labor. Motherhood isn't a favor, and it's not a luxury. It's a job.

Now when we were talking about this the last time, you were mentioning how payments need to go out to moms. Now I'm hoping you can connect the dots for those at home that think that motherhood is a choice. Paying moms aren't going to impact non-mothers. How does helping moms really help everyone?

RESHMA SAUJANI: Well, it helps society. I mean, we have a national crisis. Four times as many women, mothers, have left the labor force as men. Our labor market participation is what it was in the 1980s. And the reason why this is happening is, one, we have a child care crisis, right? So many of us were asked to homeschool our children. And so, to do that, we had to cut back our hours, say no to promotions, go on food stamps. We'd essentially replace our paid labor for unpaid labor.

And the second reason why we have this crisis is that so many of the jobs where women have lost jobs have been in industries like healthcare, education, retail. These are jobs and industries that are not coming back for women. And so, we are absolutely in a crisis. And we have to increase the labor market participation of women. And we got to do it now. And we need to plan to do that.

KRISTIN MYERS: So, as I mentioned just a second ago, a lot of folks are out there saying, you know, motherhood's a choice that you made. Don't get into motherhood, right, if you can't juggle all of these responsibilities. What do you say to folks that say, it's your personal responsibility. Quit whining. You decided to become a mom to one or two or however many children. And you just need to deal with it.

RESHMA SAUJANI: Listen, I am like many women, right? I am Zoom schooling my child. I am nanny. I am cook. All at the same time, I have a full-time job. So when schools closed and they expected us to homeschool our children, nobody asked us. Nobody put a value on our labor. Nobody even thought, what's going to happen to mothers? Are they going to be able to do their jobs? They just assumed that we would do it.

And look, I am not America's social safety net. Mothers are not America's social safety net. And so, as we think about this crisis, is that we think about how to get this country back on its feet. We need a plan for mothers because we are America's essential workers. Things do not happen without us. And right now, we are being asked to work for free. And we're also being asked to work to our detriment.

I mean, everyone I know right now, we're not just exhausted. We are at a breaking point. Can't do it anymore. We can't do everything anymore. So I'm simply asking the federal government to put a value on our labor. What is it worth to you?

KRISTIN MYERS: All right, so sustained economic support is really only one part of this and one part of this issue. There is other parts that are also very important, like paid maternity leave, increasing sick days for mothers to take care of their children that are at home from school. I'm wondering if you think that perhaps some of those initiatives might be easier to get done here than this sustained economic support. Because I can already hear folks arguing about this and not wanting to support something like this.

RESHMA SAUJANI: Oh, Kristin, you're in my inbox. [INAUDIBLE] for months. But that's right. You know, a 360 plan from-- a Marshall Plan for moms is a 360 plan. So one part of that is basic income. The second piece of that is affordable daycare-- paid leave. Many of these policies that we have been fighting for pay equity for decades that we haven't got done.

The third thing is a school reopening plan so that schools are open five days a week, full time. And the last piece of this is about what-- you know, engaging the private sector, Wall Street and Main Street, to get flexibility, you know, to have daycare in the office, to figure out what they're going to do to retrain the women that they have lost and to bring them back into the workforce. We need a 360 plan.

But a piece of that-- see, like, for example, I'm getting a ton of emails from, you know, educators here in New York City that they are considering continuing with remote learning in the fall. Listen, you better not put that plan in place unless you have value on the implications on women's labor here in New York City. What's the taxes we're going to lose? What is the lost value to our city, to our country, to our state when we take women literally out of the labor force?

You know, again, it has taken us decades to get to this point. You know, before COVID happened, we were over 50% of the labor market. Now we're at where we're at in 1980s. If you close schools till September, we're going to be back where we were in the 1960s. Nobody wants that. It's not good for innovation. It's not good for our country.

KRISTIN MYERS: So I have literally 30 seconds. So I'm going to try to do the impossible and get this done in 30 seconds. As you are lobbying politicians, leaders on this, do you see growing support for this Marshall Plan for moms on a federal level?

RESHMA SAUJANI: I do. I think that this president cares about moms. He sees it with Dr. B. If we're ever going to get it done, if we're ever going to have a leader in the White House who understands this issue, it's Joe Biden. And then, secondly, I have a lot of faith in our states. From this morning to now, I have gotten 10 emails from state legislators across the country, saying, I want to introduce legislation in my state.

My inbox is inundated with CEOs who are like, you know what? I want to work on this. How do we get women back to work? This is the right thing to do. Our country is depending on it. So we all got to come together, unify, and figure out how to make this work. We can get back to where we were in six months, but we need a plan.

KRISTIN MYERS: You know, what you're saying resonates so much. I'm not a mom, but I am a woman. And before I even consider having something like children, these are the things that I have to ask myself and my friends are asking themselves.

And I think that what you said is so poignant, that no one ever asked moms about taking on all these other tasks. And isn't that always the case? No one ever asks moms. No one ever asks women. We just do it. We always just rise to the challenge. So it's absolutely a fascinating proposal. Thanks so much, Reshma Saujani, founder and CEO of Girls Who Code.

RESHMA SAUJANI: Thank you, Kristin, for having me.