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


                       ENSURING WOMEN CAN THRIVE
                       IN A POST-PANDEMIC ECONOMY

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

                                HEARING

                               BEFORE THE

                        COMMITTEE ON THE BUDGET
                        HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES

                    ONE HUNDRED SEVENTEENTH CONGRESS

                             SECOND SESSION

                               __________

            HEARING HELD IN WASHINGTON, D.C., MARCH 16, 2022

                               __________

                            Serial No. 117-7

                               __________

           Printed for the use of the Committee on the Budget
           
[GRAPHIC NOT AVAILABLE IN TIFF FORMAT]           


                       Available on the Internet:
                            www.govinfo.gov
                            
                               __________

                    U.S. GOVERNMENT PUBLISHING OFFICE                    
47-248                      WASHINGTON : 2022                     
          
-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------   

                      COMMITTEE ON THE BUDGET

                  JOHN A. YARMUTH, Kentucky, Chairman
HAKEEM S. JEFFRIES, New York         JASON SMITH, Missouri,
BRIAN HIGGINS, New York                Ranking Member
BRENDAN F. BOYLE, Pennsylvania,      TRENT KELLY, Mississippi
  Vice Chairman                      TOM McCLINTOCK, California
LLOYD DOGGETT, Texas                 GLENN GROTHMAN, Wisconsin
DAVID E. PRICE, North Carolina       LLOYD SMUCKER, Pennsylvania
JANICE D. SCHAKOWSKY, Illinois       CHRIS JACOBS, New York
DANIEL T. KILDEE, Michigan           MICHAEL BURGESS, Texas
JOSEPH D. MORELLE, New York          BUDDY CARTER, Georgia
STEVEN HORSFORD, Nevada              BEN CLINE, Virginia
BARBARA LEE, California              LAUREN BOEBERT, Colorado
JUDY CHU, California                 BYRON DONALDS, Florida
STACEY E. PLASKETT, Virgin Islands   RANDY FEENSTRA, Iowa
JENNIFER WEXTON, Virginia            BOB GOOD, Virginia
ROBERT C. ``BOBBY'' SCOTT, Virginia  ASHLEY HINSON, Iowa
SHEILA JACKSON LEE, Texas            JAY OBERNOLTE, California
JIM COOPER, Tennessee                MIKE CAREY, Ohio
ALBIO SIRES, New Jersey
SCOTT H. PETERS, California
SETH MOULTON, Massachusetts
PRAMILA JAYAPAL, Washington

                           Professional Staff

                     Diana Meredith, Staff Director
                  Mark Roman, Minority Staff Director
                                
                                
                                CONTENTS

                                                                   Page
Hearing held in Washington, D.C., March 16, 2022.................     1

    Hon. John A. Yarmuth, Chairman, Committee on the Budget......     1
        Prepared statement of....................................     4
    Hon. Jason Smith, Ranking Member, Committee on the Budget....     6
        Prepared statement of....................................     8
    Stefania Albanesi, Professor of Economics, University of 
      Pittsburgh.................................................    11
        Prepared statement of....................................    14
    Ai-Jen Poo, Executive Director, National Domestic Workers 
      Alliance...................................................    33
        Prepared statement of....................................    35
    Rosa Walker, Mother And Momsrising Member....................    51
        Prepared statement of....................................    54
    Carrie Lukas, President, Independent Women's Forum...........    57
        Prepared statement of....................................    59
    Hon. Janice Schakowsky, Member, Committee on the Budget, 
      letter and report submitted for the record.................    81
    Questions submitted for the record...........................   131
    Answers submitted for the record.............................   133

 
                       ENSURING WOMEN CAN THRIVE
                       IN A POST-PANDEMIC ECONOMY

                              ----------                              


                       WEDNESDAY, MARCH 16, 2022

                           House of Representatives
                                    Committee on the Budget
                                                    Washington, DC.
    The Committee met, pursuant to notice, at 11 a.m., at 210 
Cannon Building, and via Zoom, Hon. John A. Yarmuth [Chairman 
of the Committee] presiding.
    Present: Representatives Yarmuth, Higgins, Doggett, Price, 
Schakowsky, Horsford, Plaskett, Jackson Lee, Jayapal; Smith, 
Kelly, Grothman, Smucker, Burgess, Carter, Cline, Boebert, 
Donalds, Feenstra, Good, Obernolte, and Carey.
    Chairman Yarmuth. This hearing will come to order. Good 
morning and welcome to the Budget Committee's hearing on 
``Ensuring Women Can Thrive in a Post-Pandemic Economy''. At 
the outset I ask unanimous consent that the chair be authorized 
to declare a recess at any time. Without objection, so ordered.
    Now, before I welcome our witnesses I will go over a few 
housekeeping matters. Today the Committee is holding a hybrid 
hearing. Members and witnesses may participate remotely or in 
person. For individuals participating remotely, the Chair or 
staff designated by the Chair may mute a participant's 
microphone when the participant is not under recognition for 
the purpose of inadvertent background noise. If you are 
participating remotely and are experiencing connectivity 
issues, please contact staff immediately so those issues can be 
resolved.
    Members participating in the hearing room or on the remote 
platform are responsible for unmuting themselves when they seek 
recognition. We are not permitted to unmute Members unless they 
explicitly request assistance. If you are participating 
remotely and I notice that you have not unmuted yourself, I 
will ask if you would like staff to unmute you. If you indicate 
approval by nodding, staff will unmute your microphone. They 
will unmute your microphone under any other conditions.
    I would like to remind Members participating remotely in 
this proceeding to keep your camera on at all times, even if 
you are not under recognition by the chair. Members may not 
participate in more than one committee proceeding 
simultaneously. If you are on the remote platform and choose to 
participate in a different proceeding, please turn your camera 
off.
    Finally, we have established an email box for submitting 
documents before and during Committee proceedings and we have 
distributed that email address to your staff.
    Now, I want to introduce our witnesses. This morning we 
will be hearing from Dr. Stefania Albanesi, a professor of 
economics at the University of Pittsburgh, Ms. Ai-jen Poo, the 
executive director of the National Democrat--Domestic--not 
Democrat--Domestic Workers Alliance--I see that D and I go for 
it--Ms. Rosa Walker, a mother and MomsRising member, and Mrs. 
Carrie Lukas, the president of the Independent Women's Forum.
    We welcome all of you.
    I now yield myself five minutes for an opening statement.
    Every March, we celebrate Women's History Month to honor 
the vital role of women and girls in our nation's history. From 
revolutionaries, abolitionists, and suffragists to labor 
leaders, equal rights activists, and elected officials, women 
have always been on the front lines in the fight for progress. 
Generations of women have struggled and sacrificed to build a 
better country for the next generation of trailblazers to 
inherit. But despite the progress made and battles won, women, 
especially women of color, still face systemic barriers to 
opportunity.
    The COVID-19 pandemic and resulting recession raised these 
barriers even higher, worsening underlying inequities and 
disparities that have pushed women out of the labor force, 
compounded their care-giving responsibilities, and more.
    Last week marked one year since the American Rescue Plan 
was signed into law and Democrats delivered lifesaving and 
life-changing relief for working families, small businesses, 
and communities across the country. Since President Biden took 
office, we have added a record-breaking 7.4 million jobs back 
to our economy. But when you look below the surface, it is not 
hard to see the challenges women are still facing.
    Since the beginning of the pandemic, women have been pushed 
out of the work force at a shocking rate, losing 12.2 million 
jobs at the depth of the recession. Women accounted for 52 
percent of jobs lost at the peak of the crisis, despite making 
up only 47 percent of the labor force at that time. Sectors in 
which women are overly represented, like education, health 
services, leisure, and hospitality, saw the greatest job loss 
to date and have been the slowest to recover.
    Because women typically bear the brunt of childcare and 
caring for family members, as businesses shuttered, schools 
closed, and working from home became the norm for many, it was 
women, especially women of color, who found themselves laid off 
or forced to make the impossible choice between caring for 
their families or providing for them. Without childcare, in-
person schooling, or paid leave, the burden of this crisis fell 
disproportionately on the shoulders of women.
    Women also constitute the majority of our frontline 
workers. So even if they did not lose their jobs, these women 
faced increased health risks, fewer opportunities for remote 
work, and a lack of paid leave. Again, there is a 
disproportionate impact on women of color. Black women are more 
likely to be the sole earners for their families, meaning that 
they may be forced to take lower wage jobs or more dangerous 
work to make ends meet for their families.
    Today, two years later, we have made tremendous economic 
progress, but we simply aren't there yet when it comes to women 
in the work force. When compared to February 2020 levels, there 
are currently 1.2 million women missing from the labor force. 
In contrast, the number of men in the labor force is above pre-
pandemic levels. And not all groups have been impacted equally. 
The unemployment rate for white women is 3.1 percent, for 
Latina women it is 4.8 percent, and for Black women it is 6.1 
percent.
    Our economy cannot afford to permanently lose 1.2 million 
workers, and women should not be forced to stay out of the work 
force because we have failed to respond to very obvious unmet 
needs in our country. Congress must address these issues or we 
will be left with a partial recovery, diminished productivity, 
and curbed economic growth for decades to come.
    We have to lower the costs of childcare and extend the 
Child Tax Credit expansion. Establishing universal pre-K for 
all three-and 4-year olds is essential. U.S. workers, 
particularly women, need paid leave. And they certainly need 
and deserve equal pay.
    These are the types of investments that will make it 
possible for more women to return to the work force. They will 
help business owners fill open positions and grow. And they 
will ensure we recover from the pandemic stronger than before, 
with a more fair and equitable economy, and build an America 
that better reflects our values.
    That is what we are focusing on today at this hearing and 
that will remain a top priority of this Congress until we get 
it done.
    I now yield five minutes to the Ranking Member, Mr. Smith, 
for his opening statement.
    [The prepared statement of Chairman Yarmuth follows:]
    [GRAPHICS NOT AVAILABLE IN TIFF FORMAT]
    
    Mr. Smith. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
    It is fair to say the pandemic has had a disproportionate 
impact on women. It is also important to acknowledge that much 
of that negative impact came in the form of policies enacted in 
response to the pandemic. For example, working mothers 
represent 27 percent of Americans who left the work force 
during the pandemic. And school closures played a huge--a huge 
part. According to a 2020 study, mothers were almost 70 percent 
less likely to be working in states that closed schools early 
compared to other states. In other words, school closures 
harmed both the child and the parent.
    It was under the guise of responding to COVID-19 that just 
over a year ago Democrats chose to spend $2 trillion and less 
than 9 percent of which went to combatting and eliminating the 
virus. They ignored the warnings, including from those in their 
own party, that the spending spree would only ignite inflation. 
We now have the highest spike in prices in 40 years. The most 
recent data from February showing a year-to-year increase of 
7.9 percent, the highest in 40 years.
    Prices are up on everything from groceries to gas to the 
clothes that you put on your back. The cost of women's apparel 
is up 11 percent. And mothers are having to shell out more and 
more money for infant and toddler clothing too, with the 
pricing rises by nearly 9 percent. If Democrats want to help 
women, if they want to help women thrive in a post-pandemic 
economy, they ought to stop the inflationary spending that is 
undermining paychecks and family budgets.
    When it comes to jobs, Democrat policymakers are also 
keeping women out of the work force. Right now, 80 percent of 
the top 10 states with the highest unemployment rates for women 
are run by Democrat Governors. Of the 15 states with the lowest 
unemployment rate for women, 11 are run by Republican--11 out 
of 15 are run by Republican Governors. That is no coincidence. 
Democrats will claim that the policies in their $5 trillion 
Build Back Broke bill will solve these challenges, just as they 
claimed spending another $5 trillion will solve a spending 
driven inflation crisis. Democrats are trying to re-frame and 
rename their agenda to fit the moment rather than change the 
agenda to fix the challenges in the moment. Their spending 
policies will further drive up prices, their policies will 
reduce incentives to work and make childcare for many mothers 
more expensive. In fact, a Congressional Budget Office analysis 
from November found that the Build Back Broke government 
mandated childcare policies would raise costs for those middle-
class families whose care is not subsidized. Those working 
mothers who are just above the income threshold to qualify for 
subsidized childcare would be forced to make a choice--work 
less to qualify or pay more out of pocket for childcare.
    To create an economic environment under which all 
Americans, but particularly women, can find greater opportunity 
to thrive, we need to only look to the recent past. Under the 
economic policies of Donald Trump, which included regulatory 
relief and tax relief that put money back in the pockets of 
working families and spurred substantial growth in our economy, 
the labor force participation rate for women reached 57.9 
percent--the highest since 2011. For mothers, that labor force 
participation rate was even higher at 72.4 percent--the highest 
since 2000. Median real earnings for women grew by 9.6 percent 
during the Trump Administration, and that is including the year 
2020. That wage growth was also 2 percentage points higher than 
wage growth for men.
    Under President Biden's economic policies, earnings for 
women have gone down by 2.6 percent, the decline for men has 
been less than still 1.2 percent. We ought to be disturbed by 
the negative impact your policies--Democrat policies--are 
having on all Americans, but since our colleagues often wish to 
make comparisons, let us be clear, under President Trump 
earnings for women grew substantially and more so than earnings 
for men. Under President Biden wage growth for women has 
declined and declined more so than for men. The data does not 
lie. It tells a clear story about how damaging lock down 
policies and a Washington knows best spending agenda have been 
and will be for women.
    To help women thrive in a post-pandemic economy, Washington 
needs to stop with the permanent pandemic narrative, stop 
undermining wages with inflationary spending and stop telling 
Americans, particularly women, how to raise their kids.
    Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
    [The prepared statement of Jason Smith follows:]
    [GRAPHICS NOT AVAILABLE IN TIFF FORMAT]
    
    Chairman Yarmuth. I thank the Ranking Member for his 
opening remarks. I will note that I gave you 40 seconds extra 
time just----
    Mr. Smith. Thank you.
    Chairman Yarmuth [continuing]. for the log we are keeping.
    In the interest of time I ask that any other Members who 
wish to make a statement submit their statements for the record 
to the email inbox we established for receiving documents 
before and during the committee proceedings. Again, we have 
distributed that email address to your staff. I will hold the 
record open until the end of the day to accommodate those 
members who may not yet have prepared written statements.
    Once again, I would like to thank our witnesses for being 
here this morning. The Committee has received your written 
statements and they will be made part of the formal hearing 
record. You each will have five minutes to give your oral 
remarks.
    And I will now yield to Dr. Albanesi. You may unmute your 
microphone and begin when you are ready.

    STATEMENT OF STEFANIA ALBANESI, PROFESSOR OF ECONOMICS, 
                    UNIVERSITY OF PITTSBURGH

    Dr. Albanesi. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
    Chairman Yarmuth, Ranking Member Smith, and Members of the 
Committee, thank you for inviting me to speak today.
    The COVID-19 pandemic has upended our lives and disrupted 
the economy in many ways. One reason it has been hard to 
grapple with the impact of the resulting recession is its 
unique nature. Economic downturns in the United States are 
usually associated with larger employment drop for men than for 
women. But during the COVID-19 recession employment losses were 
larger for women.
    There are labor demand and labor supply reasons for the 
gender differences in typical recessions. On the demand side, 
the asymmetry is partly explained by gender differences in the 
occupation distribution, with men primarily employed in 
production occupations and women concentrated in services, 
which tend to be cyclical. During the pandemic, however, there 
was a large drop in the demand for services, hitting women with 
the corresponding employment losses. More specifically, 
employment fell most in inflexible occupations in which remote 
work was not possible. These can be further divided into high 
contact occupations that entail close contact with co-workers 
and customers and low contact occupations that do not.
    Women are over represented in inflexible high contact 
occupations that primarily comprise personal service and 
healthcare jobs. Employment in these occupations dropped by 
more than 35 percent when the pandemic started and was still 
more than 10 percent below pre-pandemic in December 2021. 
inflexible low contact occupations, many comprising production, 
construction, transportation, and farming, exhibited a decline 
in employment of approximately 30 percent at the onset of the 
pandemic. But the job losses for women nearly were twice as 
large as those for men. And employment in these occupations was 
still approximately 5 percent lower than pre-pandemic in 
December 2021.
    On the labor supply side, married women tend to increase 
their attachment to the labor force during standard recessions, 
a form of family level insurance against the risk of job loss 
by their husbands. This mechanism acts as an automatic 
stabilizer and as the share of women in the labor force grew in 
the 1970's and 1980's, it actually mitigated the aggregate 
effects of recessions in the states. By contrast, during the 
pandemic, increased childcare need led some mothers to exit the 
labor force.
    So why did mothers, more than fathers, respond to the 
increased childcare needs by reducing labor supply? Gender 
norms possibly played a role, but from an economic perspective, 
this was likely driven by the differences and the opportunity 
costs of time measured by wages. In the United States there is 
a substantial child penalty that reduces wages for women when 
they become mothers. Three years after having their first child 
the child penalty is about 40 percent and it accounts for two-
thirds of the overall gender wage gap in the last decade. Given 
this penalty, most working mothers at the start of the pandemic 
were likely to be earning less than their partners, leading 
them to reduce labor supply.
    There are also large racial disparities in the employment 
impact of COVID-19. During the course of 2020 employment 
dropped by 5 to 10 percentage points for Asian, black, and 
Hispanic women than for white women. In 2021 Asian and white 
women showed similar employment recovery, but black and 
Hispanic women lagged behind, likely because they are over 
represented in those inflexible occupations that cannot be 
performed remotely. Communities of color were also 
disproportionately exposed to COVID-19, which reduced their 
ability to work due to illness or the need to care for sick 
family members.
    The decline in women's employment during the pandemic has 
raised concern that the setback for women may be long-lasting. 
In the aftermath of recent recessions, a switch to automation 
during the recovery, slowed the pick up in employment. This 
pattern may well repeat since more than 30 percent of jobs in 
the occupations most affected by the pandemic are highly 
susceptible to automation.
    When it comes to labor supply, women's labor force 
participation has stagnated in the United States since at least 
the mid 1990's, after several decades of rapid growth. In 1990, 
the United States ranked fifth out of 20 three comparable 
countries in women's participation. By 2019 our rank had 
dropped to 20 first. While there are maybe many factors that 
contributed to the United States falling behind, the economic 
research clearly points to family policies as the most 
important driver.
    Three policies in particular stand out. Entitlements to 
paid parental leave, entitlements to flexible work schedules, 
and publicly provided childcare. The expansion of women's labor 
force participation in the post war period boosted aggregate 
economic performance in the United States, increasing 
productivity and the standard of living for all. This important 
engine of economic growth has stagnated in the last 30 years. 
Fortunately, we have a number of policy levers that are 
available to support women's work.
    I welcome for the discussion of this important issues 
during today's hearing.
    Thank you.
    [The prepared statement of Stefania Albanesi follows:]
    [GRAPHICS NOT AVAILABLE IN TIFF FORMAT]
    
    Chairman Yarmuth. Thank you very much, Doctor, for your 
testimony.
    I now recognize Ms. Poo for five minutes. Unmute your 
microphone please and begin.

STATEMENT OF AI-JEN POO, EXECUTIVE DIRECTOR, NATIONAL DOMESTIC 
                        WORKERS ALLIANCE

    Ms. Poo. Chairman Yarmuth, Ranking Member Smith, and 
Members of the Committee, thank you so much for the opportunity 
to testify today.
    It has been two years since we began to experience the 
biggest disruption to the way we live, work, and care in 
America, the devastating unprecedented loss of life and 
livelihoods from COVID-19. And thanks to the extraordinary 
action and leadership on the part of Congress, we were able to 
prevent more catastrophe and stabilize our economy, rebuild a 
sense of hope for the future.
    So let me begin by thanking you for your extraordinary 
leadership.
    One of the reasons why we have hope is because COVID 
revealed both long standing inequities that we must address and 
how important the role of government is in enabling our 
success. From where I sit, the urgency of ongoing investments 
in our care infrastructure cannot be overstated. COVID revealed 
our crumbling care giving systems that have relied too heavily 
on the individual sacrifices of women and our families and a 
care work force of women and women of color were forced to live 
in poverty and precarity in order to stay in their jobs.
    One of our members from Houston, Kiana, worked as a home 
care worker for more than 20 years. She is also am other to a 
university graduate and two elementary school aged children. 
When her mother became ill, Kiana took on caring for her. 
During the pandemic Kiana lost consistent work and experienced 
homelessness with her two small children. Last summer she took 
on a job for $10 per hour as a cleaner because she couldn't 
afford childcare and she would be able to bring her children 
with her while she cleaned.
    Domestic workers like Kiana are overwhelmingly women and 
majority women of color. The typical domestic worker is paid 
about $12 per hour, which is 39.8 percent less than a typical 
non domestic worker. There is not paid family and medical 
leave, and 82 percent of domestic workers don't have a single 
paid sick day. In a survey of domestic workers from just last 
month, nearly seven in 10 respondents said they are caring for 
their own children and three in 10 are caring for sick, aging, 
or disabled family members, 79 percent told us that it had been 
difficult to find access to care, eight out of 10 reported 
having to reduce their work hours or leave a job because of 
care giving responsibilities.
    This is the reality for the work force that is at the heart 
of our care infrastructure. Meanwhile there are 50 million 
working family care givers who need home and community based 
services for their aging or disabled loved ones, many are in 
the sandwich generation who also need access to childcare in 
order to return to work. We are an aging nation. Every year, 4 
million of us will turn 65 and we are all living longer. We are 
also giving birth to 4 million babies per year.
    Due to the demand, care jobs are going to become a large 
share of the jobs of the future. They are also jobs that can't 
be outsourced or automated. They are job enabling jobs. Let us 
make them good jobs. By passing the Better Care Better Jobs 
Act, led by Congresswoman Debbie Dingell and Senator Bob Casey, 
we can meet the outsized demand for home care and create high 
quality jobs to address home care worker shortages. Renewal of 
policies from the American Rescue Plan, such as the child tax 
credit, childcare subsidies, and emergency paid leave, would 
help domestic workers better support their families. And in 
passing the National Domestic Workers Bill of Rights, led by 
Congresswoman Pramila Jayapal and Senators Kirsten Gillibrand 
and Ben Ray Lujan, we can establish long overdue rights and 
protections for this incredibly important essential work force.
    As Members of this Committee have often reminded us, 
budgets are a statement of values. In our country, we have 
never fully valued or supported the work of care. Now is the 
time. And when we do, we will all benefit, especially women and 
women of color.
    I am truly honored to be able to testify before this 
Committee today and look forward to your questions.
    Thank you so much.
    [The prepared statement of Ai-Jen Poo follows:]
    [GRAPHICS NOT AVAILABLE IN TIFF FORMAT]
    
    Chairman Yarmuth. Thank you very much, Ms. Poo, for your 
testimony.
    I now recognize Ms. Walker for five minutes. Unmute your 
microphone please and begin when you are ready.

              STATEMENT OF ROSA WALKER, MOTHER AND

                       MOMSRISING MEMBER

    Ms. Walker. Good morning, Chairman Yarmuth, Ranking Member 
Smith, and Members of the Committee.
    My name is Rosa Walker and I live in Oregon City. I am an 
occupational therapist working in special education and I am a 
mom of three incredible children, Matias, age 11, Tomas, age 8, 
and Gabriel Elan, age 4. I am also a proud member of 
MomsRising.
    Like so many families across the country, the pandemic has 
taken a terrible toll on my family's physical and mental health 
and on our financial security. We are struggling because our 
country hasn't invested in basic programs, such paid family and 
medical leave, home care and high quality affordable childcare
    I am here today to urge you to create a care infrastructure 
that can provide meaningful support to families to we can 
recover from the pandemic and move forward.
    Thanks for the chance to share my story.
    At the beginning of 2020, both my husband and I were 
working full-time, my husband as the foreman of a roofing 
company and I as a learning specialist in early education. All 
three of our children were thriving in school, our two eldest 
in third and first grade, and our youngest in a small local 
preschool, which he loved--we loved, even though the high cost 
strained our budget.
    When COVID hit, our lives changed overnight. Our preschool 
closed and our older children suddenly switched to remote 
learning, and like so many parents, my husband and I scrambled 
to teach and care for our kids at home, while also working 
enough to put food on the table and pay our mortgage.
    Then, despite efforts to stay safe, our entire family 
contracted COVID. While our boys recovered quickly, both my 
husband I took much longer. Today I am still experiencing long 
COVID. I use an inhaler now and I also have an autoimmune 
condition.
    Both my husband and I reduced our work schedule, often up 
to 50 percent, for more than a year. Not only did we need to 
care for and support our children in virtual learning, we also 
needed to recover from long COVID.
    Even with the lack of paid leave, we had to do what was 
best for our children and we couldn't afford to get even 
sicker. During this time my husband also fell and broke a rib 
while working, adding still more stress.
    Virtual learning was a struggle that first year of the 
pandemic, despite both our teachers' incredible efforts and 
those of our own. We also began to see our children struggle 
with their mental health for the first time, although we worked 
so hard to find safe ways for them to socialize. We were 
fortunate to find at least some counseling in the middle of 
this huge mental health crisis, but this vital care cost money 
too.
    With less money coming in, our debt mounted quickly. We 
went from living modestly on two incomes to putting basics like 
food and medical bills on credit cards. Today we have $11,000 
in credit card debt, which would have been unthinkable before 
COVID. Despite all of the financial pressures on our family 
prior to the pandemic, student loans, housing costs, we have 
always been able to pay our bills. When the child tax credit 
payments arrive in July 2021 we felt like our elected leaders 
were finally recognizing what families like ours were facing. 
That $800 per month was world changing. It helped us pay down 
debt, it helped us cope with the rising cost of groceries, and 
it helped us re-enroll our child in his beloved preschool. The 
cost is $300 higher a month and the hours were shorter. As so 
many other preschools, ours had to adjust. It felt the 
pressures of COVID and then larger situation. But that 
preschool was vital for our son and for our ability to work.
    And then in January, just as the new variant was surging, 
Congress failed to extend the child tax credit. That extra 
income was helping our family recover disappeared. The past two 
months have been a nightmare. Our youngest child's preschool 
closed twice due to COVID outbreaks. All three children became 
ill with COVID and our eldest, while steal weakened, contracted 
Epstein-Barr Virus. He has needed to stay home for many weeks 
to heal. And then our school bus driver caught COVID, and there 
are no substitute driver's right now.
    As my husband has no paid leave, and has never had any paid 
leave, and mine is limited, over the past two months I have had 
to juggle taking care of our kids, transporting them to and 
from school along with my work responsibilities as a specialist 
in early learning.
    I participate in work meetings while driving my kids to 
school. I work early in the morning and I stay and work late at 
night to make up for lost time during the day. My nonstop 15 
hour days mean that I cannot rest enough and my new autoimmune 
condition flares up.
    Two years into this pandemic and Congress still hasn't 
guaranteed workers paid family medical leave. Without this 
basic safety net, families can't catch up. It is only March and 
I have already drained my paid leave for the year. In fact, I 
am using my final hours to be here today to share with you, our 
elected leaders, the impossible tradeoffs that my family and so 
many other families are forced to make.
    And just to be clear, all of these issues predate the 
pandemic. The past two years have simply intensified the 
problems. Without adequate care infrastructure, we have to 
choose between working enough hours to pay our bills and taking 
care of our children and our health, between counseling and 
tutoring for our children, much needed to recover from the 
pandemic and paying down debt. That is not right.
    After two years of this pandemic we are at a crucial 
decision point. Will Congress fund the care infrastructure that 
children and families need to recover and to thrive? Or will 
you turn your back on children and allow families to slide from 
financial insecurity into financial disaster? As you discuss 
how to rebuild from this pandemic, please remember our family 
and all the other families. I hope that you will work to build 
a better America, one that works for all of us.
    Thank you.
    [The prepared statement of Rosa Walker follows:]
    [GRAPHICS NOT AVAILABLE IN TIFF FORMAT]
    
    Chairman Yarmuth. Thank you, Ms. Walker, for your 
testimony.
    I now recognize Mrs. Lukas, here in the hearing room. You 
are recognized for five minutes.

STATEMENT OF CARRIE LUKAS, PRESIDENT, INDEPENDENT WOMEN'S FORUM

    Mrs. Lukas. Thank you.
    Good morning, I am Carrie Lukas, president of Independent 
Women's Forum. Independent Women's Forum is a nonprofit 
organization dedicated to developing and advancing policies 
that aren't just well intended, but that actually enhance 
people's freedoms, opportunity, and well-being.
    IWF employees about 30 full-time employees and more than a 
dozen additional contractors and fellows. We have studied the 
issue of women's employment as a policy topic, but I also know 
about this first hand as an employer. I am a working mother of 
five children between ages seven and 16, so I know personally 
about balancing work and family life.
    Before we consider what policies will help women reenter 
the work force, we need to be clear about why women left in the 
first place. After all, women didn't leave the work force just 
because of a virus, but really because of society's response to 
COVID-19. Women had made record labor force gains during the 
Trump Administration, and unfortunately these gains were lost 
during the pandemic and the economic shutdowns that followed, 
and we have yet to fully recover.
    But these economic losses have not been uniform throughout 
the country. Rather, they have been most profound in states 
that most aggressively shut down schools and locked down their 
economies. In these states, which are disproportionately led by 
Democratic Governors and state legislatures, women are still 
suffering the worst economic effects and have the highest rates 
of unemployment. Reduced earnings and lower labor force 
participation will lead to lower earnings for women, not just 
today, but for years to come.
    So Congress should consider four lessons we have learned 
from this experience to inform policymaking decision moving 
forward. The first lesson that we learned is that our public K-
12 school system is fundamentally flawed and needs to be 
reformed. Like many working parents during COVID-19, I had to 
juggle my job along with managing my five kids' schooling 
online. Where I lived in Virginia private schools all opened at 
the start of 2020 with in-person learning, but our public 
schools fought to stay closed for as long as possible until 
mid-April 2021.
    Public schools behaved this way because they don't see 
parents and students as their customers. And why would they? 
Their ability to pay the bills and keep their jobs depends on 
pleasing government officials and not serving families. We need 
to change this dynamic. We need to fundamentally transform our 
K-12 public education system so that schools see parents and 
students as valued customers and never again fail families and 
our country so spectacularly. Rather than funding systems, 
money should follow each student so that parents have leverage 
and schools know that if they fail to provide value, parents 
will take their business elsewhere.
    Second, and relatedly, do not embrace any policy that would 
make our daycare and preschool system function more like public 
K-12. At the height of the pandemic, about 60 percent of 
childcare centers closed, but by the end of 2020 an estimated 
73 percent of preschool, day care, and childcare programs had 
reopened. In contrast, at the end of 2020, only about a third 
of public K-12 schools were opening. Imagine how much worse 
women would have suffered if our day care system was run like 
our public schools and had refused to provide in-person 
service. Policy makers should find ways to may childcare more 
affordable, plentiful, and diverse, including eliminating 
unnecessary regulations that raise the cost of childcare, but 
they should reject plans like those contained in Build Back 
Better, which would have made government the funder of day care 
and reoriented providers toward pleasing regulators and 
policymakers instead of families and parents.
    Third, women need a diversity of work and employment 
opportunities. And we frequently hear that women need 
flexibility, but what does flexibility mean? True flexibility 
means having a range of employment options. This is why about 
23 million women work as independent contractors. They want 
more freedom and control. Of course, some women want full-time 
work and benefits, and that should be their choice, but 
measures to try to limit people's ability to work as 
independent contractors, such as contained in the Pro Act, will 
backfire on women and force millions of women to face a black 
and white choice of either accepting a nine to five style job 
or leaving the work force entirely. This policy approach should 
be rejected.
    Finally, everyone wants workers to have paid leave and 
policymakers should work to help people access financial 
support when they need to take leave. Yet the wrong approach 
would be to create a one size fits all federal paid leave 
entitlement program or mandate. One size fits all entitlement 
system leave workers worse off with less income and less true 
flexibility, and for many, reduced benefits. They take money 
from lower income workers in the form of payroll taxes and 
transfer that money to wealthier workers, as has been shown 
time and again. This approach also should be rejected.
    Today employers face tremendous headwinds, inflation, 
shortages, rising labor costs, and extraordinary uncertainty. 
And these are mostly driven by bad policy choices and 
government overspending. Policy makers need to embrace the 
concept of doing no harm, stop overspending, and intervening in 
the economy in ways that leave workers poorer and with less 
opportunity to find work relationships that allow them to 
pursue their own visions of happiness.
    Thank you.
    [The prepared statement of Carrie Lukas follows:]
    [GRAPHICS NOT AVAILABLE IN TIFF FORMAT]
    
    Chairman Yarmuth. Thank you for your testimony. I thank all 
the witnesses for their testimony.
    We will now begin our question and answer session. As a 
reminder, Members can submit questions to be answered later in 
writing. Those questions and responses will be made part of the 
formal hearing record. Any Members who wish to submit questions 
for the record may do so by sending them electronically to the 
email inbox we have established within seven days of the 
hearing.
    I will, as is my habit, defer my questioning to the end, so 
I now recognize the gentleman from New York, Mr. Higgins, for 
five minutes.
    Mr. Higgins. Thank you very much, Mr. Chairman.
    The expanded tax credit was initiated in July and extended 
through December. During that period of time about 3.7 million 
kids were pulled out of poverty and the reduction in poverty 
rates in America was about 30 percent. 10,000 kids in America 
are born every day and 10,000 people turn 65 every single day. 
An earlier program called Social Security provided income 
security for those 65 and older and pulled about 50 percent of 
the elderly population in America out of poverty. This expanded 
child tax credit was particularly effective over this 6-month 
period of time.
    And the whole idea here is if you have, you know, 100,000 
kids that are born every day--or 10,000 that are born every 
day, you are investing in the future productivity of young 
people by helping making them happier, healthier, and thus more 
productive. We should all, regardless of our political 
persuasion, want our people to be more economically independent 
and self-sufficient. And I think this is a program that is 
proven to be highly effective.
    Dr. Albanesi, you teach economics, correct?
    Dr. Albanesi. Yes, I do.
    Mr. Higgins. You teach economics at the University of 
Pennsylvania?
    Dr. Albanesi. At the University of Pittsburgh, yes.
    Mr. Higgins. Pittsburgh. I'm sorry, University of 
Pittsburgh. You focus in on macroeconomics and labor economics 
as it relates to women and families?
    Dr. Albanesi. That is correct, yes.
    Mr. Higgins. OK. Do you have any evidence of a cost benefit 
analysis to the expanded child tax credit as it relates to the 
amount of money we spend on the program compared to what the 
increased productivity is of young people that benefit from it 
to and through adulthood?
    Dr. Albanesi. Yes. Actually, there is quite a bit of 
economic research on the impact of, you know, additional 
spending, you know, on young children, both in terms of the 
educational opportunities, sort of being able to enroll 
children in better childcare and preschool options and so on. 
So that has been demonstrated to actually improve achievement 
of children later on life and actually have community level 
benefits, such as reducing crime rates and increasing income 
overall.
    There are also benefits for parents, you know in the--you 
know, of these children in terms of better ability to work. And 
there is also some benefits in the very long run. You may have 
read that one of the reasons why the millennial generation is 
postponing and reducing the number of kids that they want to 
have is that kids are very expensive. So that is really 
generating demographic stress on our society because there are, 
you know, fewer and fewer young people because of the declining 
fertility rates due to the high cost of raising children.
    So there would be long-term macro benefits from that, sort 
of in terms of possibly stimulating fertility as well.
    Mr. Higgins. Thank you, Doctor.
    So I guess here is what I am getting at here. You know, 
Brown University did a study concluding that over the past two 
decades America spent $6.2 trillion in three Middle East wars. 
Not one kid was lifted out of poverty, no one family was helped 
with affordable childcare, and not one kid benefited from 
universal pre-K. And, you know, the economics of war is 
terrible. It doesn't produce any economic benefit that is 
broadly felt.
    There are value investments and the child tax credit I 
believe is one of them. A fellow economist of your, Mark Zandi 
from Moody's Analytics, said that for every dollar that you 
spend in infrastructure in America you can produce $1.60 in 
economic activity. So the return on investment for that dollar 
that you spent is 60 percent. Conservative economist. He also 
did an analysis on the tax cut primarily for corporations and 
said for every dollar that you spent for that tax cut, $1.9 
trillion, you could expect to get a return of about $.33. so 
your loss in investment was 67 percent.
    So it would be helpful in advocating for expanded child tax 
credit, universal pre-K, and affordable quality childcare if we 
could associate, if it is achievable, a dollar amount spent to 
a dollar amount returned in terms of economic activity.
    And I see that my time has run out. I will yield back.
    Chairman Yarmuth. The gentleman's time has expired.
    I now yield 10 minutes to the Ranking Member.
    Mr. Smith. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
    Mrs. Lukas, since the start of COVID-19 over two years ago 
we have watched politicians and elected officials enact lock 
downs, mandates, and decrees on those they were entrusted to 
represent. More often than not these actions were not backed up 
by science, but more an assumption that Americans couldn't be 
trusted to make the best decisions for themselves.
    One of the most harmful of these policies was forced school 
closures and virtual classrooms. Kids suffered, parents 
suffered, and we are still playing catch up today. I have 
argued that this was harmful to students first and foremost, 
but also harmful to parents, particularly working mothers.
    Could you take a moment, based on your personal experience 
as a working mother of five school aged children, as well as 
what you have heard from parents in your community and 
elsewhere, to explain the impact of some of these pandemic 
responses, like school closures, on kids, families, and 
particularly on working mothers?
    Mrs. Lukas. Well, absolutely. You know, I do think that 
when you think about the mistakes that were made when we look 
back at the response to COVID-19, what happened in public 
schools in the K-12 schools is going to stand out as the worst 
policy that was enacted. And it did mean that many parents, 
especially those who did not have jobs that could be done 
remotely, that they were forced into impossible choices, 
leaving children behind to try to log on themselves, to 
essentially miss school during that time or to quit their jobs. 
When I think about this, I do think about this mostly from the 
children and as the--as Mr. Higgins was just referring to--when 
we think about the dollar numbers that are associated with 
this. Children lost on average six months of learning when it 
came to math, but this was not across the board. A fellow 
witness talked about systemic inequities, but it was minority 
children, it was African American children who were the most 
harmed by this. Their schools stayed closed the longest and 
they suffered the worst learning losses. And I do think this is 
something that should be eye opening to everyone. Democrats and 
Republicans should be asking why, why did our public schools 
not care and not prioritize our children.
    Mr. Smith. You know, under the economic policies of the 
Trump Administration, which included tax relief and regulatory 
relief, work force participation for mother's reached 72.4 
percent, the highest since 2000. Over 3.5 million jobs were 
created for women under Trump, securing 56 percent of the job 
gains and lifting women's employment to the highest level in 
history. Women's wages grew by 9.6 percent as well.
    But under President Biden earnings for women have gone down 
by 2.6 percent. In fact, the wage gap between women and men 
grew smaller under President Trump while the gap is now 
widening under President Biden.
    What policies should the government be pursuing right now 
to help close the work force participation gap between where it 
was under President Trump and his policies to where it is today 
under President Biden, as well as address the widening wage gap 
occurring under President Biden?
    Mrs. Lukas. You know, I think that one of the lessons for 
Congress is first, again, this idea of doing no harm. Because I 
do think when it looks at what is a cause of so many problems, 
it has been the forced closures, the regulations that have been 
put on business that has made it so hard for them to stay open. 
You look around cities like here in Washington, where so many 
of the local businesses are no longer open, the eateries that 
have closed because of the economic shutdowns. So I think, 
first, let us open up. America needs to open up and stay open 
for business so that there is some security. We need to be 
confident that our schools are not going to close again. For a 
lot of moms who have stepped out, they were worrying about 
school closures all this year. Some had their kids sent home 
again during omicron. That cannot be the default. We have to be 
able to have some security in knowing that we are going to be 
able to continue to participate.
    Mr. Smith. Mrs. Lukas, I would have to say, the people of 
Missouri would agree with your statements 100 percent.
    And in speaking of a lot of regulations, as of February 
2022 80 percent of the states with the lowest Black female 
unemployment rates have Republican Governors. Of the 20 states 
with the highest black female unemployment rates, 70 percent 
have Democrat Governors. President Obama's economist, Larry 
Summers, cites vaccine mandates as something which took upwards 
of 400,000 people out of the work force. Given the overall 
black vaccination rates are behind those of the overall 
population by 28 percentage points, can you speak to how 
policies that Democrat run states have pursued, especially 
things like vaccine mandates, would contribute to a 
disproportionate impact on black females and opportunities they 
would have to enter the work force?
    Mrs. Lukas. Well, absolutely. With this lower rate of 
vaccination among African American women, this is just locking 
people out of jobs. And I do think that, you know, we have 
had--this is--we think about the decisions that were being made 
two years ago when COVID was just coming into effect. We now 
know so much more, and especially when it comes to post 
omicron. We know that these types of mandates are no longer 
necessary. Your vaccine status does not affect my risks. So we 
should show some kindness, allow true diversity of allowing 
people to make choices that work for them so that they can work 
and we can all get on with our lives and respect people and not 
continue to create unnecessary barriers for people's 
participation.
    Mr. Smith. Thank you.
    Another idea our Democrat colleagues proposed is government 
mandated pre-K, which would give government more control over 
education decisions. Well, we have seen over the past few years 
what happens when overly emboldened school boards and local 
officials think they know best what kids should be learning.
    In November, the Independent Women's Forum published a 
piece noting that the use of critical race theory has emerged 
in a neighboring district to mine. To what extent do you see 
local officials, or even federal officials, with the type of 
government mandates Democrats have suggested, trying to dictate 
the type of curriculum, care, and teaching for American kids.
    Mrs. Lukas. I think this is so important. We have seen when 
it comes to K-12 public schools they have become such a flash 
point and it is because parents no longer feel confident that 
their public schools have their kids' best interest at heart. 
And this is true when it comes to curriculum, to masking 
policies, to health decisions, to gender. And I do worry. I 
think that parents out there should be warned that if the 
federal government takes over childcare and day care centers 
and preschools and begins to decide what is a qualified day 
care center and what can be open or subsidized, parents are 
going to be fighting these same battles over curriculum, CRT, 
gender ideology, are all going to come to your local 
preschools. And preschools are going to be in a terrible 
position. More than 50 percent of childcare are faith based and 
they are going to have a very hard time meeting with the 
demands of regulators. And I fear that they will be crowded 
out. That is why I absolutely reject the idea that federal 
government should take over our preschool programs.
    Mr. Smith. So, parents know best for their children, not 
the government.
    Thank you.
    My final question--and this is for all witnesses. This past 
Friday we marked the 1-year anniversary since congressional 
Democrats and President Biden pushed through a $2 trillion 
spending bill that they claimed was need to combat COVID-19. A 
year later, it is now obvious their spending has done little to 
combat COVID-19. In fact, less than 9 percent of the spending 
was even earmarked for such purposes. And they are already back 
asking for more COVID-19 money.
    Anyway, it is also obvious that unleashing this flood of 
spending sparked a massive spike in consumer prices that are 
crippling family budgets and undermining Americans' paychecks 
because of a 40 year high in inflation.
    How have these high prices and spending driven inflation 
affected you, your household budgets, and others in your 
community? And that is for all witnesses.
    Chairman Yarmuth. Does anyone want to take that question 
first? Since Mrs. Lukas has had the balance of the time, does 
anybody want to--you only have a minute left in the Ranking 
Member's time.
    Mr. Smith. Well, Mrs. Lukas can go first since it is taking 
so long.
    Let us hear from Mrs. Lukas first.
    Mrs. Lukas. Sure. You know, it is--we are talking about how 
many people needed support and we are talking about the 
important of a, you know, $300 a month check, but now we see as 
inflation--as you are seeing 10 percent increases in housing 
costs, the doubling of gas prices, you know, childcare costs 
going up. We are going to be--we are chasing this with--
inflation is eating up any support of those rising wages. And 
it has just been devastating. It is something that every mom 
sees every time she walks into the grocery store, every time 
she goes to buy her kids, you know, the birthday present and 
those things. It is incredibly harmful and threatening. A lot 
of insecurity right now as we look to what the future is going 
to be.
    Chairman Yarmuth. OK. You have succeeded in your 
filibuster, Mr. Smith, so----
    Mr. Smith. It is getting the facts for the American people 
to see what is going on.
    Thank you.
    Chairman Yarmuth. Your time has expired.
    I now recognize the gentleman from Texas, Mr. Doggett, for 
five minutes
    Mr. Doggett. Listening to the gentleman's diatribe, I think 
perhaps he lives in a parallel universe. I live in a state with 
a Republican Governor, perhaps the worst Governor Texas has 
ever had, and the cost being paid by Texas women, particularly 
women of color, poor women, is an immense cost of being left 
uninsured, without access to adequate childcare, often with 
interference in local public health decisions that have made 
this pandemic and its impact so much worse.
    But to focus in on the topic of the day and the apparent 
willingness of the Republican Members of our Committee to do 
nothing from the federal level to meet the challenge of 
inadequate childcare and lack of early educational 
opportunities that have enjoyed strong bipartisan support in 
the past.
    I want to pose a question to our excellent witnesses and 
just offer an occasional additional comment.
    If think if we are to build a better Texas and a better 
America, we have got to build a better future for women across 
the country. A stronger foundation is needed on which a woman's 
hard earned paycheck isn't eaten up by the very same care 
giving that enables her to leave home to go to work every day. 
We have talked to parents about the crushing burden of 
navigating childcare, of finding quality childcare, safe 
childcare, and parenting during this pandemic. Some Texans have 
been more than ready to return to work, but the lack of 
childcare prompted them to drop out of the work force--falling 
disproportionately on women. And parents who have found 
childcare in recent months have had no guarantees each morning 
when they drop off their child as to whether a call would come 
to quarantine because of COVID.
    Expanding affordable childcare is a key to unlocking more 
opportunity and economic security for parents and particularly 
for mothers. And it is important to all of us to reinvigorate 
our economy by getting these women back into the work force and 
having the support they need to do just that.
    High quality care is essential to early learning, essential 
to economic development, but years of insufficient funding and 
a devastating pandemic have sharpened the crisis for our 
providers, while costs have often been inaccessible--make care 
inaccessible for families. And quality childcare cost more than 
tuition at a 4-year college. And for an infant it is even more 
expensive. For years we have worked to try to ensure that we 
get the health care coverage gap closed, and I have been 
concerned in recent legislation that we ensure we don't open a 
second coverage gap in the event that the ideological 
commitment of some of theses Republican State Governors, like 
mine in Texas, refuses federal support for childcare. It is 
essential that our legislation provide that local governments 
can step forward, as they did when we had a failed President 
Trump and Governors that refused to lead and got us through the 
pandemic, that those local officials will be able to access any 
federal funds to protect our children's futures and our 
parents' progress.
    Of course, the child tax credit, continuing it is so 
important.
    But, Ms. Walker, I appreciate your testimony. Let me just 
ask you in the time remaining to comment further on the need 
for the critical provision of childcare, particularly for 
children from infancy on. Can you speak a little more about 
that and your family's experience and the need to do this for 
everyone, regardless of the zip code or the whim of some 
politician?
    Ms. Walker. Thank you for that question.
    And I am speaking as a mother but also as an early 
education specialist from more than a decade of experience 
partnering with providers in day cares and preschools.
    Research and common sense both show us that zero to five is 
a critical period for a child, a human's development. And our 
current system, from what I see in my work as I collaborate 
with providers in all sorts of different setting, it is not 
working. We are not able to pay a living wage to so many of our 
workers who do this incredibly valuable work. And it is not 
working for our families because it is an incredible cost.
    So what I time and time again--is that it is not working. 
There is a pivoted cost. There is not enough space in options. 
I hear from families who have incredibly long drives in rural 
areas, I hear from families that are 2.5 years on a wait list. 
Again, these are our children, these are our youngest citizens, 
and they deserve our best. And what I see is that across the 
board there is work to be done.
    Mr. Doggett. Thank you very much for your testimony and the 
contribution of all of our witnesses.
    And I yield back.
    Chairman Yarmuth. The gentleman's time is expired.
    I now recognize the gentleman from Mississippi, Mr. Kelly, 
for five minutes.
    Mr. Kelly. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
    And I just want to start, this is not just pandemic 
related. I go back to my wife of 31 years. She is the--when I 
mobilized in 2009 and 2010 to Iraq, she raised two pre-teen 
children, she carried a baby for nine months, she delivered 
that baby, she worked a job, and she took care of everything on 
the home front. So you want to talk about--I don't understand 
where she got the determination, the dexterity, all the things 
that are necessary. But here is the difference between my wife 
and I--and these are the things we need to address, but we are 
asking the wrong people. We get people up here with Ph.Ds who 
are Washington elitists or are elitists somewhere else, we 
don't ask the rural people of Mississippi who have a hard time, 
what can we do to make it better. But my wife has been allowed 
to have jobs. I have been allowed to have a career. That is the 
difference in earning power, is that I can sustain a career 
because of what she has sacrificed to her family.
    COVID hit, inflation from all the money that we spent--what 
does that mean? It doesn't mean all these big words, it means 
groceries are higher, it means gas costs too much to go, that 
we have intentionally inflated gas prices like we did under the 
first Obama Administration, it means that day care is not 
available, or if it is, it costs so much. We don't talk about 
rural broadband. So most of my people don't even have 
broadband. So they don't have a virtual option. They can't get 
healthcare, they can't get education, they can't do all those 
things.
    Mrs. Lukas, you seem to get it. Trust me, we are 
outnumbered one and half to one in my family. You are 
outnumbered two and a half to one, OK, so much greater. What 
policies, what three policies have hurt the most in the COVID 
pandemic that have hurt working mothers and their abilities to 
form careers, not jobs.
    Mrs. Lukas. You know, I want to talk a little bit about--
you know, I love the idea of this difference between career and 
jobs. But I want to say just one thing as a mom, is a lot of 
moms really want jobs. And I want to make sure that as we talk 
about the role of being a care giver, that we recognize that a 
lot of women make sacrifices and do--when we talk about what 
drives the wage gap--a lot of women have decided that they are 
going to take a step back and intentionally not make as much 
money, make a sacrifice, so that they can have the capacity to 
support their family and be present for their children. And I 
want that to be their right. And we shouldn't measure 
everything by money, the amount of money earned, although we of 
course want women to have income earning opportunities.
    But of course a lot of people did lose jobs and they 
didn't--it wasn't by choice, it was because of these economic 
closures, which made it impossible to work. Literally just 
drove businesses out of business. It was the school closures, 
which were so devastating to working families, but particularly 
working moms. And, you know, I think there are like a lot of 
other burdens, including the runaway spending, that have helped 
fuel this inflation, which is now hurting women as consumers, 
but also as business women and as workers.
    Mr. Kelly. Thank you.
    And, you know, I am just thinking, there is a--so I have 
served a long time in the military. My wife has gone through 
three deployments and it completely tears a family apart when 
you have to do those things.
    But that being said, I was always afforded the ability, as 
a military service member, when I was taken out of my civilian 
job, when I came back I got any pay raises, any promotions, any 
things that would have occurred positively to me, I came back 
in at least as good, and usually better position than I left. 
Is there something we can do for working mothers during that 
critical times when they have kids in school, when they have--
they are having--you know, having birth of their first child or 
second child and they are taken out of the work force, not by 
that, or they have to care for an aging parent, which in may 
cases falls on women, not men? Is there an opportunity to look 
at something as much like the Military Leave Act that could 
apply to mothers in the work force?
    Mrs. Lukas. You know, Independent Women's Forum has 
explored a lot how we can expand paid leave, especially for 
those with lower incomes. You know, the problem is that so 
often the well intended approaches on paid leave--and we have 
seen this in some states--let us see, it is like Rhode Island 
and California, where they do enact a paid leave program that 
taxes and gives a defined set of benefits. And that ends up 
usually backfiring, especially on those low-income workers. And 
we have seen reduced labor force participation and lower wages, 
which is exactly the opposite of what we want.
    Independent Women's Forum has looked at how to make the 
existing entitlement programs, things like Social Security, 
accessible to people--a woman who has just had a baby. So she 
would be able to receive some of that Social Security money 
early and then pay it back later. So it would be budget 
neutral.
    So those are--there are ideas, innovative out of the box 
ideas worth exploring.
    Mr. Kelly. Final comments. We have just got to pay 
attention to the working class and rural populations who 
actually earn and things that work for them, not the elites.
    And I yield back.
    Chairman Yarmuth. The gentleman yields back.
    I now recognize the gentleman from North Carolina, Mr. 
Price, for five minutes.
    Mr. Price. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. And thanks to our panel 
for a very helpful discussion.
    I want to refer to the a couple of tables that maybe they 
can be entered in the record as the predicate for my question. 
They come from the Bureau of Labor Statistics and they were 
included in some of the preparatory material we had today. And 
ask maybe any of our witnesses who wish to comment on these, 
maybe starting with our economist and going on from there.
    One of the charts has to do with the return to the labor 
force of men and women, the comparison of the rates of return 
to the labor force. Something like 1.4 million job differential 
between the return the labor force of men and women, return to 
the 2020 level of employment. And then another table that 
indicates that while women's labor force participation rates 
have recovered modestly, they are still below historic highs. 
That does raise some additional question of why they declined 
after 1908 a couple of points. But, in any case, they are 
considerably short of the historic highs now in this period as 
the pandemic eases.
    There has been a lot of focus today--and you did a very 
good job of focusing on the care economy and the way the care 
economy, of course, especially affects women, and the gaps in 
the care economy that may account for a lot of this failure to 
return to the labor force. There has also been discussion 
though of the kind of discernment that workers, men and women, 
may be exercising in this period as they think about returning 
to the labor force. What they--and not everyone of course has 
the luxury of exercising that kind of discernment, some just 
have to get--do the best they can. But others may be reflecting 
on their low wages or their inadequate benefits. And in the 
case of women, of course, there is even more to reflect on in 
terms of wage discrimination and various kinds of challenges in 
the workplace that if they are able, they may just not want to 
put up with anymore. Or at least they want to bargain for a 
better deal.
    So that does raise the question, to what extent have they 
gotten a better deal. What can you tell us about the way that--
how widespread this is, first of all. The extent to which 
employers, wages, benefits, those kinds of things have 
responded to this and have helped draw people back to the labor 
force. And to what extent have they fallen short.
    You see where I am coming here? I am getting away from the 
care economy to some of these other factors that have to do 
with the attractiveness of the jobs that are available and 
whether people have an inclination, whether they have the 
discretion and the inclination to hold out for better 
conditions.
    So I would--there has been a lot of talk about this, and I 
would appreciate your helping us reflect on it.
    Dr. Albanesi. Yes, thank you. Thank you, representative.
    A couple of points there. So if we look at labor force 
participation, we need to distinguish, you know, women and men 
with a college education as opposed to women and men without a 
college education. So if we look at college graduates, their 
participation hasn't really declined, even for parents and 
mothers with children. They have been extremely stressed the 
fact that the--in addition to working remotely, they had to 
take care of their children, but their participation hasn't 
dropped very much. So most of the decline in participation is 
for women without a college degree. And those are the women 
that work in these inflexible occupations, so the care economy, 
production jobs, and so on.
    And also the decline in participation that we have seen is 
not coming from women who just quit their job, it is coming 
from women who became unemployed first. So the fact that 
certain services, you know, were hit by the fact that, you 
know, not just the mitigation measure. So what we have seen 
from foot traffic data coming from cell phones is well before 
mitigation measures were introduced. You know, people stopped 
going to restaurants, people stopped going to the gym, and so 
on. So the risk of infection affects behavior even before, you 
know, the government made a mandate that, you know, restaurants 
should only do takeout. And so that is an important observation 
because the women who were able to keep their job, they 
struggled immensely, but they kept it. And women who were laid 
off, you know, eventually, you know, left the work force. And 
that is a combination of this childcare, you know, and care 
needs in general, but also maybe the perspective of not being 
able to get another job, you know, in the same industry.
    So we know that, you know, one of the reasons why leisure 
and hospitality jobs haven't recovered is not necessarily, you 
know, government mandated closures--at this point there are 
none in the United States. But, for example, you know, business 
travel has dropped dramatically. You know, people do Zooms now, 
they don't, you know, fly to another city for a meeting. And so 
the leisure and hospitality services are experiencing what we 
refer to as the reallocation shock. So jobs in that sector are 
going to be permanently lower.
    So if you were working in that sector and you lost your 
job, you might, you know, not have a job to go back to, and so 
you don't even look, particularly if you are also saddled with 
childcare needs.
    So the issue is quite complex and, you know, there is 
always a demand side. You know, demand for certain jobs has 
permanently declined as a function of the pandemic. And then 
there is also the supply side, you know, all these sort of 
childcare challenges that we have been discussing. And it is 
useful to sort of look at both to better understand what is 
going on.
    Mr. Price. Thank you very much.
    My time has expired, but I would invite any of the other 
witnesses who want to supply some helpful information on this 
to do so for the record.
    Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
    Chairman Yarmuth. Mr. Price, is there a specific request 
you have for submitting information for the record?
    Mr. Price. No, just--we didn't get to the other witnesses 
and if they have a response to the question I posed, the kind 
of explanation that Dr. Albanesi gave, I would appreciate them 
supplementing the record.
    Chairman Yarmuth. I will ask for unanimous that if you have 
material that you submit for the record that--Mr. Price, that 
it be approved.
    Without objection, so ordered.
    And now your time is expired.
    I now recognize the gentleman from Pennsylvania, Mr. 
Smucker, for five minutes.
    Mr. Smucker. Thank you, Mr. Chairman, ranking member, for 
scheduling this important hearing. We, I think, all share a 
concern of the impact that COVID had on women and their 
families and of the impact that government policies relative to 
COVID, in response to COVID has had on women.
    And so I think it is a good time to evaluate our policies 
and I think everyone watching can know that we all share the 
desire to help women and their families achieve their own 
American dream. And we are--we hear that some of the issues 
that you all are faced with, and particularly Ms. Walker. We 
thank you for sharing your story, which is similar to many 
other stories of other families. So it is a good time to look 
at the impact of policies and what is affecting American 
families.
    And I can tell you the No. 1 issue, maybe second to Ukraine 
and security, is inflation today. And I think Democrat policies 
that have been put forth directly resulted, or at least had a 
significant impact on inflation and the impact of that has been 
felt by women and their families.
    I received over 1,000 inputs from constituents in my 
district with regard to how inflation is impacting them. I 
think about Connie who is 70 years old from the town of New 
Holland in my district. She recently picked up a part-time job 
to make ends meet because of the price increased caused by 
inflation. Tanya from Lancaster had trouble keeping her home at 
a comfortable temperature this winter due to high energy costs. 
And Sherri from Columbia, Pennsylvania tells me that inflation 
restricts--and I quote--''what she eats and where she goes''. 
Not only does she feel the pinch at the grocery store and at 
the pump, but she also recognizes that inflation undermines all 
her buying power.
    So, Mr. Chairman, if we are scheduling hearings on impacts 
and what our constituents are feeling, I would certainly 
suggest that we do a hearing specifically looking at the impact 
of inflation, what is causing that, and what we can--we can 
prevent it. I think it would be a great topic.
    We knew--one of the moments that I am proud of here is when 
we came together in a bipartisan way and passed the CARES Act, 
brought together the drug industry through Operation Warp 
Speed. We were together to combat the impacts of COVID. But we 
couldn't have disagreed more on the need or the impact of the 
$1.9 trillion Rescue Plan. I can tell you that economists were 
telling us that it would result in years of inflation like we 
hadn't seen in a long, long time. The Democrats were warned 
about that when we passed it. Larry Summers has already been 
mentioned here. I quote--of course he was the treasury 
secretary under Clinton. He said, and I quote, ``I think this 
is the least responsible macroeconomic policy that we've had in 
the last 40 years.'' He also wrote in the Washington Post that 
the proposed $1.9 trillion stimulus could ignite inflationary 
pressures of a kind that we have not seen in a generation. That 
turned out to be true. We now have 40-year highs in inflation 
and it is a direct result of misguided policies putting 
trillions of dollars into the economy that did, frankly, more 
harm than good. And not much of that bill went directly to 
combat inflation anyway.
    And so I agree we should be looking at this, but we should 
be clear eyed about what is happening, what has caused that, 
and what we can do to fix it.
    Mrs.--and I am sorry--Lukas--didn't have your name--can you 
just react to that? I would like to hear your response.
    And I am going to say one other thing. You know, it was 
brought up that women's income, real income, because of 
inflation has declined 2.6 percent compared to in the previous 
Administration had grown by 9.6 percent. But could you talk 
just a little about whether you agree, how you feel about the 
impact of inflation on women?
    Mrs. Lukas. Yes. And, you know, I would like to talk. I 
have heard a lot of calls for additional spending, and that 
worries me. And I think another thing we really need to explore 
is all the unspent money. You look at this, the calls for 
increased funding of day care. Well, right now there are 20 
states that have not spent even 50 percent of the money that 
was allocated as a part of these COVID relief packages. Public 
schools have over $150 billion left in COVID money. What are 
they doing with it? I mean why--can't we give this to parents? 
I hear the stories of people having to pay for tutoring. Why 
are they paying that? Don't let the public schools keep that 
money, give it to people like my fellow witness who are paying 
for tutoring to make up for the job that their public schools 
didn't do.
    Before we spend more money, let us make sure we actually 
track what has happened with those that you guys have already 
allocated.
    Mr. Smucker. Thank you. And I am out of time.
    Chairman Yarmuth. The gentleman's time is expired.
    I now recognize the gentlewoman from Illinois, Ms. 
Schakowsky, for five minutes.
    Ms. Schakowsky. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
    I first want to enter into the record a letter and report 
from the Chicago Foundation for Women, an organization that for 
the last 30 years has really focused on lifting up women and 
girls. And in their report, among other things, they say--they 
discuss how ``care giving responsibility has landed squarely on 
women throughout the pandemic''. So if I could have unanimous--
--
    Chairman Yarmuth. Without objection.
    Ms. Schakowsky. OK.
    [Letter and report submitted for the record follows:]
    [GRAPHICS NOT AVAILABLE IN TIFF FORMAT]
    
    I would like to devote the rest of my time to Ai-Jen Poo. 
She is, as you know, the executive director of the National 
Domestic Workers Alliance and Caring Across Generations, which 
has done so much I think to raise the important issues of what 
the needs are right now in our economy for so many people.
    So if you would focus especially on workers. You know, we 
call them the heroes of the pandemic and yet they are in such 
great need. If you could talk for a while--five minutes is so 
short that you had before. Take the rest of my time.
    Ms. Poo. Thank you so much, Congresswoman.
    I do want to take a moment to just name that among the 
fastest growing job categories in our entire economy, not just 
for women but in our entire economy, are personal care aids and 
home healthcare workers. And these are workers who earn on 
average $18,200 per year. Because of the growing aging 
population in this country, we know that the demand for this 
work force is only going to continue to grow. A Congressman 
mentioned earlier rural communities. There are massive home 
care deserts throughout rural communities all over this country 
because we have labor shortages. Workers cannot survive on the 
income that they earn and pay for gas to get to work on the 
incomes that they earn. They don't have access to healthcare or 
a safety net or paid time off. The quality of these jobs is so 
poor that we cannot sustain the current work force we have, let 
alone the huge demand that we need going into the future as an 
aging nation. We have the opportunity to make these jobs good 
jobs for the 21st century, just like we did for manufacturing 
jobs in the 1930's, where one generation could do better than 
the next. If we invest in care jobs becoming living wage jobs 
with real economic security and access to a safety net, we will 
create a pathway to the middle class for literally millions of 
working class and working poor women and their families.
    It is a huge--it is a win-win-win investment and the cost 
of elder care to states right now is extraordinary because of 
our over reliance on nursing homes and nursing home care. When 
we invest in a home care work force and home and community 
based services--which is a big part of the plan in the build 
back better agenda--when we invest in a home and community base 
services, we are investing in cost savings on the part of 
states and the federal government long-term because the cost of 
home and community based care is a third of what it costs 
states to pay for nursing home care for people who need it.
    So it is a win-win-win. Lower costs for states and the 
federal government, better jobs for a group of workers who have 
been forced to live in working poverty, and their families, 
support for working family care-givers who need the support of 
a strong work force and access to these programs in order to 
participate in the economy, and a dignified quality of life for 
our growing aging population in this country and people with 
disabilities who need these services and prefer to live and age 
in the home and community. What could be a better investment of 
our public dollars?
    And investing in this work force, these are job enabling 
jobs. There are supporting all of us working class families who 
need this care to be able to do and contribute what we want to 
on our terms across all sectors of the economy.
    So I do want to say the care economy investments are in my 
mind the highest return on investment, both from a job 
standpoint and from a long-term economic sustainability for 
working class families standpoint.
    Ms. Schakowsky. Thank you so much. Appreciate these 
additional words. Appreciate it.
    Chairman Yarmuth. The gentlewoman's time is expired.
    I now recognize the gentleman from Texas, Dr. Burgess, for 
five minutes.
    Dr. Burgess. And thank you, Chairman.
    And, first off, let me just start with the fact that I 
disagree with my colleague from Texas. I think Governor Greg 
Abbott has been one of the best Governors this state has had. 
And I only say one of the best because Rick Perry and George W. 
Bush were his immediate predecessors and I certainly don't want 
to slight their service either, because they have all been 
important.
    Look, a year ago at the Rules Committee, I introduced the 
very same opinion pieces that Mr. Smucker just talked about the 
former chairman Larry Summers has written because as it turns 
out he was a regular Nostradamus with his ability to predict 
what was going to happen. We had the chairman of the Fed at 
that time saying inflation not a worry. But look, those of us 
who are old enough to remember what it was like going through 
the inflationary spiral of the 1970's and early 1980's also 
remember how painful it was to unwind that inflationary spiral. 
And, look, let us be honest, people at upper income levels were 
inconvenienced, people at the lower income levels were 
devastated. And that is the price that is paid for those types 
of policies.
    I am so grateful Mrs. Lukas mentioned about the oversight 
of the spending that went into that $1.9 trillion bill because 
I think it is important. And, Mr. Chairman, I have just got to 
say, this is my first term on the Budget Committee, we haven't 
done a budget. And if you don't do a budget, then you don't 
plan, then how do you know where--if you get to where you 
thought you wanted to go?
    We also have not heard from the Congressional Budget 
Office. The Congressional Budget Office has not done the CBO 
baseline for this year. They say the problem is OMB. Fair 
enough. But people ought to get their acts together. And this 
is too important to just leave undone.
    Now, the Congressional Budget Office did come in and visit 
with me and they went through a list of 20--of the top 20 
agencies and institutes that have unspent money from the 
American Rescue Plan. And it turns out just in the top 20 that 
is $340 billion. The aggregate of all the unspent money is over 
$400 billion. So, yes, actually, there is some money there that 
could go to help people.
    And here is another problem. A lot of that money went to 
the states before it gets doled out to municipalities and to 
individuals. We have not done any oversight of how the states 
have done with getting that money where we intended it to go. 
So it is very, very difficult to talk about new spending when 
we haven't done a good job with trying to keep track of what 
has already gone out the door.
    Now, look, just like everybody else, I have voted for the 
CARES Act in March 2020. I thought it was important. We didn't 
know what was ahead of us. It was uncertain times and we were 
in unchartered waters. But since that time we have not done--
and I am also on one of the authorizing committees, I am on 
Energy and Commerce--we have not sat down and done the work on 
what was actually needed. We had all the money dispensed in the 
CARES Act, but we never sat down and said what was actually 
needed, where did it go, could we have done more, should we 
have done less, were we in appropriate in some of our 
expenditures. So we get to the end of the year and do a big 
omnibus and we don't even know. We don't know because we have 
not asked the questions and we have not done the proper 
oversight.
    So I was opposed to the omnibus bill in December 2020, even 
though there was consensus around its passage. But then not two 
months later we are passing another $1.9 trillion bill. And we 
ask ourselves, well, why does it cost so much at the grocery 
store, at the gas station. Well, it was as plain as the nose on 
your face. And even the former secretary of the Treasury was 
able to recognize that.
    Mrs. Lukas, I do actually have a question for you. You have 
posed a very interesting concept that mandatory paid leave 
programs are wealth transfer, but it is counterintuitive. The 
people that you thought you were going to help, you hadn't 
helped, and you gave help to people that probably didn't need 
the help in the first place. Would you care to talk about that 
a little bit?
    Mrs. Lukas. Yes. I appreciate that. Because I do think a 
lot of people, you know, really want to help people and they 
see paid leave and everybody feels bad when somebody has to 
make a real sacrifice when they need time off from work. But 
these programs are simply not serving who they are supposed to 
serve. When you look in Rhode Island, you look at these income 
brackets and the places that are getting the most, the income 
cohort that is getting the largest payout, is the upper income. 
It is the lowest income bracket that is the least likely to be 
taking these benefits. It is incredibly regressive. And that 
is--clearly we need to go back to the drawing board and not 
commit that on a federal level.
    Dr. Burgess. Correct. And of course the taxes are collected 
in payroll taxes from those lowest income workers.
    Mrs. Lukas. Exactly.
    Dr. Burgess. They don't pay income tax, but they do pay----
    Mrs. Lukas. Payroll tax.
    Dr. Burgess [continuing]. employment taxes.
    Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I will yield back.
    Chairman Yarmuth. The gentleman's time has expired.
    I just note for the record that my Republican colleagues, 
who often criticize Ivy elites, are very free with their 
compliments of a Harvard guy today.
    I now yield five minutes to the gentleman from Nevada, Mr. 
Horsford.
    Mr. Horsford. Thank you very much, Mr. Chairman. I 
appreciate very much you holding this hearing and your interest 
in ensuring that women are able to fully participate in our 
changing economy. I also want to thank our witnesses for their 
tremendous insight, particularly as these issues have 
disproportionately affected women, especially women of color, 
and their involvement in the labor market.
    We are working hard to make sure--as we have seen 7.4 
million jobs created in the first 13 months of this new 
Administration. However, we know that there are still many who 
are struggling and there is more work that we have to do.
    So, first, I want to touch on the fact that the effects of 
the pandemic and the subsequent economic downturn were not felt 
equally across racial and socioeconomic groups. The job that 
disappeared were predominantly held by women and the were 
predominantly held by women of color. These were the essential 
workers who kept our country running during the darkest days of 
the pandemic and now they are being ``rewarded'' with reduced 
hours, little opportunity for remote work, and in may cases, no 
options for childcare. Our communities of color are being left 
behind. And while the COVID-19 pandemic laid bare their tenuous 
position, the vulnerabilities within our economy for workers of 
color existed long before 2020 and the pandemic.
    So Dr. Albanesi's testimony--I know you touched about the 
systemic makeup of our country's occupational distribution set 
up many women of color for failure. So will you briefly discuss 
the economic impact of decreased labor force participation by 
women of color and provide us with your thoughts on how we can 
help to train more women who are facing--low contact flexible 
jobs like you discussed earlier in your testimony?
    Dr. Albanesi. Yes. Thank you, representative.
    Yes, it is true. Particularly Black and Hispanic women are 
over represented in these inflexible high contact occupations, 
basically in the care economy, that, you know, Ms. Poo so 
unequivocally described for us. And wages in those occupations 
are low for two reasons. They are low because they are 
primarily female occupations. And as economists we have done a 
lot of work to understand gender wage gaps, and it turns out 
that when occupations are predominantly female, wages in those 
occupations are lower, even if those occupations require the 
same qualification as another occupation that is primarily 
male.
    But also, you know, historically in the care economy there 
have not been enough protections that are standard in other 
types of occupations. And this is really a heritage of the kind 
of structural barriers to advancement of people of color when 
these programs of employment protections were first introduced 
in the 1930's. So if we as a society value employment 
protection, we should be giving it to all our workers and not 
just giving it to some kinds of workers and not other kinds of 
workers. That is inefficient, it causes disallocation of funds 
and it causes a crisis where many families desperately need 
care for their elderly relatives or for their children and they 
can't find workers because workers in those occupations are 
underpaid.
    So how do we solve this problem? The problem--you know, I 
think Ms. Poo had, you know, several suggestions in her 
testimony. If we just equate the kind of protections that are 
given to other workers who are care workers, that would do a 
lot to even the playing field and attract more talent to those 
sectors.
    But I also want to recognize that, as I said before, as a 
result of the pandemic there has been some structural change in 
the economy. I mentioned, you know, sort of business travel is 
expected to be permanently lower. The fact that more people are 
working from home who can--you know, several surveys have been 
conducted, you know, by employers and by economists suggesting 
that going forward more people are going to be working from 
home if they can more days, which means all of those 
restaurants and cafeterias and other jobs that are connected to 
serving people who work in offices or other establishments, 
those jobs may not come back to the extent that we saw them in 
2019. So there is going to be a demand for certain types of 
jobs that were, you know, primarily employing, you know, women 
of color.
    So there is a need to offer retraining and other, you know, 
kinds of services to enable those women to enter other 
occupations and are, you know, growing in response to the 
pandemic and demographic change, such as the care occupations.
    Mr. Horsford. Thank you so much for your testimony.
    I know I am out of time, Mr. Chairman. I did want to just 
highlight Ms. Walker's testimony and her focus on the child tax 
credit. And I am really proud that your youngest son was able 
to go back to preschool based on that child tax credit. And 
that is why we are working to provide those benefits for so 
many families.
    Thank you, Mr. Chairman. And I yield back.
    Chairman Yarmuth. The gentleman's time has expired.
    I now recognize the gentleman from Virginia, Mr. Cline, for 
five minutes.
    Mr. Cline. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I appreciate you having 
this hearing.
    You know, from the start of this pandemic, the number of 
active small businesses have plummeted, with minority and 
female owned businesses disproportionately impacted. And that 
is because while lock downs and temporary business closures 
were intended to address the public health crisis, women and 
minority owned businesses were more likely to fall under the 
arbitrary designation of non-essential. These designations were 
put forward by aggressive administrations of Democrat led 
governments and therefore they were--these businesses were 
forced to close with very few resources to help them get by.
    Now, I look at the title of this hearing ``Ensuring Women 
Can Thrive in a Post-Pandemic Economy''. Having suffered 
through in Virginia the strict shutdown requirements of a 
Democratic Governor, I think the answer to ensuring women can 
thrive in a post-pandemic economy would be to stop electing 
Democratic Governors.
    But I would say that now we have the higher gas prices that 
are putting pressure on women, on families, and the Biden 
Administration and Washington Democrats are trying to put the 
blame on the Russian Federation's invasion of Ukraine that 
began just three weeks ago. Gas prices started rising 40 
percent year over year before Russia's invasion.
    And so I would ask our witness, who is here and I 
appreciate her being here in person, how do higher gas prices 
impact women and particularly mothers?
    Mrs. Lukas. Oh, absolutely. You know, it is such an 
obvious--sometimes we need to look at statistics and look at 
the data, but ask any mom and she knows every time she fills up 
the tank. Back when President Biden was elected it was about 
two bucks a gallon and I mean a couple of months ago it was $3 
and now it is well over $4. And this does impact every decision 
and it is pushing up, it is helping fuel what is happening in 
our grocery stores and across our economy.
    And it is interesting, because I do think that--don't want 
to go off field here, but when we look at energy policy, this 
was another big driver of this. When we look at what has 
happened and what is happening the world today, the decisions 
that were made to reduce energy production here in the United 
States is a big driver of that inflation and it is rippling 
through our economy and hurting women.
    Mr. Cline. And it absolutely it. Over the past year women's 
outwear prices and dresses are up over 11 percent, women's 
footwear and jewelry, each up over 6 percent, baby food up 
almost 8 percent, baby clothing up almost 9 percent. Over a 
year of rising prices and Democrats are continuing to dismiss 
and downplay the impact of inflation on everyday goods. And 
often falsely blaming it on car and gasoline prices.
    You mentioned in your testimony that back in December 2020 
more than 70 percent of childcare centers were open while only 
about a third of public K-12 schools were fully in person. If 
the Democrat proposed government controlled childcare policies 
in Build Back Better were in place two years ago, do you think 
government run childcare centers would have also shut down as 
public schools did?
    Mrs. Lukas. Absolutely. You know, and it is not just what 
happened with COVID. You know, we talked about some of the 
problems that predated this pandemic. Well, certainly we have 
seen across the country, most recently in the city of Chicago, 
where there was a decision to close the schools and push 
everybody back to virtual learning. And I believe they just 
shut the doors for a while. And this is what happens when you 
have a system that really doesn't care whether or not how they 
serve those families because it doesn't affect their budgets, 
it doesn't affect their livelihoods.
    Mr. Cline. And, as you said, the impact on women in the 
work force of that type of situation would have been enormous. 
And so I am glad that we avoided that. I do think we need to 
look at rolling back some of the red tape. It is largely going 
to have to be done in the states because the states are 
aggressively over regulating our childcare centers, causing 
prices to go up. Democrats love to create a problem and then 
create a solution to the problem using aggressive government. 
And so here we go again with Democrats responsible for the 
rising price of childcare and now trying to cap it or in some 
way subsidize is with even more government intervention.
    So the policies of the majority party are often the 
problem, not the solution. And I would urge us to take a step 
back from that.
    So I appreciate the witnesses for being here and, Mr. 
Chairman, I yield back.
    Chairman Yarmuth. The gentleman yields back.
    I now recognize the gentlewoman from Washington, Ms. 
Jayapal, for five minutes.
    Ms. Jayapal. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
    I just have to respond to that--to those last comments 
because I think it is also very clear that what we have going 
on right now is pandemic profiteering by the largest 
corporations. The reality is, yes, families are dealing with 
sticker shock and meantime, Mr. Chairman, profits for companies 
that put these goods on the shelves are skyrocketing. Data from 
the U.S. Commerce Department shows that corporate profit 
margins are the largest they have been in 70 years.
    And even if you talk about energy costs, the reality is the 
President--President Biden has called out that prices for 
unfinished gasoline were down by 5 percent where the prices at 
the gas station went up by 3 percent. So, in other words, 
companies are selling gas at the gas station--are increasing 
prices by more or not handing down price decreases that they 
enjoyed just a few months back in November.
    So, anyway, I just had to correct the record on exactly 
where these increases are coming from.
    Now, that said, I want to talk about the subject at hand, 
which is the disparities among women in job numbers and 
industries that overwhelmingly employ women like the domestic 
work force. Normally there are about 2.2 million domestic 
workers and 91 percent are women. During the pandemic domestic 
workers lost jobs even as their work became more essential for 
senior and others who needed to avoid care in congregate 
settings. And so I think it is absolutely essential that as we 
work to provide an inclusive and thriving economy, we have to 
ensure that domestic workers are included.
    Ms. Poo, thank you for your work. I have argued with you in 
the past that our immigration system is ``sexclusionary''--is 
what I call it--because it places value on work typically 
performed by men. Do you think that a similar systemic 
undervaluing of women's labor exists? And, if so, can you talk 
about how it is hindering efforts to ensure that women are 
included in recovery efforts?
    Ms. Poo. Thank you so much, Congresswoman, and thank you 
for your leadership.
    You know, I think the entire debate on infrastructure is a 
really good example of the ways in which the contributions of 
women to the economy and how fundamental and essential they are 
is devalued in a systematic way. The fact that--the definition 
of infrastructure is that which enables the economy and society 
to function. Bipartisan infrastructure bill was passed and most 
of the jobs that were created in the context of the 
infrastructure bill will go to jobs that are predominantly held 
by men. There is another part of investment in infrastructure 
that we have yet to make, which is that investment in our care-
giving systems and programs that will--an infrastructure where 
the jobs are largely held by women, as you just named, where we 
can actually turn these jobs into sustainable living wage jobs 
and ensure affordable high quality access to care for the 
millions upon millions of working class families and working 
women in particular who rely on those programs.
    And so investing in prioritizing, investing in our care-
giving infrastructure the way that we have invested in 
infrastructure--more traditional surface infrastructure is 
essential and fundamental. And the only reason why, that I can 
see we don't see it in those terms is because we devalue the 
work of women. And it is really time in the 21st century that 
we address that. And this is an opportunity.
    Ms. Jayapal. Let me followup on that and just say that, you 
know, we are trying to build back better. And I think investing 
and protecting domestic workers gets at two issues, women who 
need the support of domestic workers to be able to do their own 
work outside the home, as well as the women who are doing very 
tough and often thankless work without the necessary support or 
basic rights. And you sort of referred to this. Why is 
supporting the domestic work force crucial to ensuring that 
women can thrive in a post-pandemic economy?
    Ms. Poo. Domestic workers as a work force, more than 90 
percent women, majority women of color, were 
disproportionately--this is work that is by definition work 
that has to be done in person. It is not remote work. And we 
have seen over and over again about how essential it is. 
Domestic workers were an essential lifeline throughout the 
pandemic to some of the people who are most vulnerable to 
COVID-19, older people, people with disabilities, people with 
chronic illnesses. Enabling this work force to be secure, to 
have training, to have living wages, access to a safety net, 
rights and protections, like the ones that are included in the 
Domestic Workers Bill of Rights that you have championed, means 
that we have a secure--a set of jobs for a work force that is 
overwhelmingly women and those jobs will enable many, many 
other jobs throughout the economy. They will enable all kinds 
of essential workers, professionals throughout the economy to 
go to work knowing that they have access to care and the 
services they need inside their homes.
    Ms. Jayapal. The work that allows all other work to happen. 
And it is also why it is important that we keep those 
investments that we have proposed in Build Back Better for 
elder care, for childcare, for all of this kind of work.
    Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I yield back.
    Chairman Yarmuth. The gentlewoman's time has expired.
    I now recognize the gentlewoman from the Virgin Islands, 
Ms. Plaskett, for five minutes. Please unmute, Ms. Plaskett.
    Ms. Plaskett. Yes. Thank you so much for that. I appreciate 
you holding this hearing.
    This is of course extremely important to me as a black 
woman and I am really very grateful to your leadership in 
recognizing that this is a topic that all women, particularly 
women of color, are specifically feeling the impact of.
    I wanted to ask Ms. Poo a question related to post-pandemic 
and market conditions workers. Has the labor market changed in 
ways that affect women's ability to succeed in their work since 
the post-pandemic or the late stages of the pandemic? And do we 
have quantifiable evidence related to that? For example, are 
women better able to negotiate pay, working conditions, and 
scheduling with their employers now? Have we seen a change?
    Ms. Poo. We are still early days in terms of collecting the 
data we need, Congresswoman. Thank you for the question.
    But what I do know anecdotally from our membership is that 
the lack of access to childcare, to paid family and medical 
leave, to paid sick days, and to healthcare is still a huge, 
huge issue for workers. And the wages for domestic workers have 
not increased to better enable workers to afford the care that 
they need for their own families. So we are still hovering at 
about a 22 percent unemployment rate among domestic workers 
because the quality of the jobs is not good enough for workers 
to be able to work and take care of the people that they love 
and keep themselves safe.
    So we will continue to collect data. I am not sure if Dr. 
Albanesi has more data as an economist, but from what I can 
tell, it is still a struggle. The American Rescue Plan 
investments did help, the child tax credit did help, and some 
of the emergency childcare subsidies and emergency paid leave 
did help, which is why I really advocate for extending those. 
And it is still a struggle and we need permanent investments in 
these jobs.
    Ms. Plaskett. Well, I want to thank you for that. You know, 
I recognize that statistically we are all aware that women of 
color of course, for the same jobs earn less pay, have 
additional difficulties in the workplace that other women do 
not. And thus there are long-term effects, even if they do find 
another job, that still impact them and their families. In 
general, do the effects of employment loss end when a worker 
finds a new job? Or do we know the statistics on what happens 
to those families--the incremental changes in and the 
incremental losses that that can happen to a family related to 
an initial job loss and that impact? And how can we in our 
budget and as Members of Congress cushion the American families 
or support them to rebound from this in the long-term?
    Ms. Poo. I think we have heard from Ms. Walker to day about 
what happens when workers don't have the right supports. And 
hes and her family are in debt as a result.
    Ms. Plaskett. Yes.
    Ms. Poo. And I think what we need to do is extend some of 
the investments that were made in the American Rescue Plan, an 
invest in affordable high-quality childcare so people like Ms. 
Walker and our members at the National Domestic Workers 
Alliance can have those supports as they consider reentering 
the work force.
    Ms. Plaskett. Well, Ms. Walker has shown herself to be 
incredibly brave and we are all grateful for her testimony.
    Dr. Albanesi, do you have anything that you wanted to add 
to that?
    Dr. Albanesi. Yes. Actually, I can add a couple of things.
    With respect to the programs that we have seen during the 
pandemic, including the child tax credit, one thing that 
economics teaches us is that for programs to change behavior or 
workers they have to be sort of long lived. So if the child 
credit is only in place for six months or 12 months, it may not 
be enough to change the behavior of a single mother who, you 
know, is sort of deciding whether to go back to the work force 
and invest in a childcare arrangement or not. Instead, if a 
program is expected to last, you know, for two or three years, 
that will actually change behavior.
    So, you know, the predictability of these kinds of benefits 
is really useful so that workers can count on them and actually 
make appropriate choices.
    Ms. Plaskett. Well, thank you so much for that information.
    And I yield back. Thank you, Mr. Chair, for this important 
hearing
    Chairman Yarmuth. Oh, sorry. Than you very much. The 
gentlewoman's time has expired.
    I now recognize the gentleman from Georgia, Mr. Carter, for 
five minutes.
    Mr. Carter. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. And thank all of the 
witnesses for being here today.
    I want to start with you, Mrs. Lukas. I want to talk about 
this government mandated childcare. And I want to--first of 
all, you know what, it is funny, it seems like the majority 
party is always fond of declaring almost anything that they 
want to see happen a right, to just justify becoming something 
the government most guarantee. I don't--I know that this didn't 
evolve overnight, but it just baffles me as to how we ever 
reached this point where everything is a right.
    But, anyway, now they have set their sights on government 
child and day care. And, look, I have got six grandchildren. 
The two youngest ones were born last year and I have got--this 
is an issue that is very important to me, but I want to ask 
you, Mrs. Lukas, what would happen if the majority party, the 
Democrats, got their way and mandated a government childcare 
program?
    Mrs. Lukas. Well, you know, I am concerned that it would 
change the dynamic where instead of day care and childcare 
providers being focused on providing for the family and serving 
the family, that they would be much more focused on serving 
regulators and public policy officials. So it would operate 
more like the K-12 public schools.
    And if I can, you know, there is just--i would have a 
moment of caution, because there is a lot of discussion about 
what an investment childcare is and how it leads to tremendous 
returns on investment. And yet nobody brings up Head Start. And 
that is the existing federal program which spends about $10,000 
per child and serves, you know, thousands of children. And 
there have been congressionally mandated studies to see is this 
investment paying off in terms of lasting school readiness, do 
you see gains. And any gains that these congressionally 
mandated studies that any benefits fade out over time. The 
programs that people point to to show this tremendous return on 
investment are small programs and that served extremely 
disadvantaged communities. In fact, there was just a study done 
of a program in Tennessee that they were hopeful that they were 
doing to see some real returns on this. And, in fact, they 
found again that not only did it not have positive effects, 
that it was actually associated with negative effects. And I 
will be sure to pass this on so that the information on that 
study is available to everyone here, because I think it is very 
telling and cautionary. Doesn't mean that the preschool can 
never be good or day care can never yield investment, but we 
should be rather humble about knowing that government programs 
are going to provide this return on investment.
    Mr. Carter. Well, thank you for that input. And we look 
forward to getting that information from you.
    You know, I have been going through this--I haven't been 
going through it, but my sons and their families have been 
going through the process of going to different day care 
centers and seeing the very diversity of them and making a 
decision based on, hey, we like this, we like that, and this is 
what we want to try to get. How do you think the curriculum 
would be change if we had government mandated day care centers, 
Mrs. Lukas? Could working parents maintain flexibilities do you 
think with private childcare centers?
    Mrs. Lukas. You know, I would be very concerned, that 
especially when it comes to right now, currently about 50 
percent of childcares are faith based. And I think those would 
have a lot of trouble with mandates made by state governments; 
that those would be kind of pushed out of the marketplace. And 
I do think we would see--a lot like K-12 schools, it would 
become much more cookie cutter. You know, we have seen over the 
past several decades a steep decline in at-home childcare, 
which is something that parents really want. There was almost 
at 50--I believe it was a 50 percent decline between 2005 and 
2016 in the number of at-home day care providers. We need to 
take a hard look at the regulations that are making it 
impossible for those small businesses to stay in business 
because there is a lot of regulatory overreach. And we would 
have a greater diversity if we were able to remove that red 
tape.
    Mr. Carter. So you would agree that it is important a have 
a diversity of institutions to serve parents and their kids?
    You know, I mean I am so relieved to hear you say this, 
because this is such a big decision for parents. My daughter-
in-law is Catholic, my son Methodist and Protestant. And, you 
know, they are interviewing all these different day care 
centers, including such thought and so much time into making 
these kind of decisions. And it is really such a fascinating 
thing to watch in this. And my fear that that is going to go 
away and that we are just going to have cookie cutter childcare 
centers anymore.
    Any comment on that, Mrs. Lukas?
    Mrs. Lukas. I do worry about that. And I will just have one 
more, really quick--I know that the time is almost up. But you 
should look at the mask policies. Because I think one of the 
things that is a tremendous tragedy is how we have kept our 
youngest children masked. Everybody here has the freedom to 
take off their masks, yet the kids sitting in Head Start are 
still forced to wear masks even though it is impeding their 
learning development, impeding their speech. I think it is 
terrible and I have been terribly concerned about that being 
the wave of the future if the Build Back Better childcare 
program went into effect.
    Mr. Carter. Thank you, Mrs. Lukas.
    Thank you, Mr. Chairman. And I yield back.
    Chairman Yarmuth. The gentleman's time is expired.
    Next in line is Ms. Jackson Lee, but her camera is not on. 
If you are there, Ms. Jackson Lee--OK, you are there. The 
gentlewoman----
    Ms. Jackson Lee. I am here.
    Chairman Yarmuth. The gentlewoman from Texas is recognized 
for five minutes.
    Ms. Jackson Lee. Thank you very much, Mr. Chairman. This is 
a crucial meeting. Obviously there is much going on.
    Let me ask--also the doctor, but let me make this point as 
I--I appreciate the witness who indicated that there would be a 
problem with trying to provide a 7 percent top of how much 
families, women, would pay for childcare. And because women's 
salaries--sometimes heads of households--are lower than men, if 
you will, even as heads of households, I am stunned that this 
would not be a positive. Clearly, good childcare would not be 
spending their time focusing on government regulations. They 
would be spending their time being grateful of the quality of 
childcare that would generate by securing federal funding. And 
the amount of people maximized beyond Head Start--Head Start is 
a governmental program, childcare is not a governmental 
program. Childcare is giving people access to childcare 
wherever they are.
    So, Ms. Poo, let me ask you this question, what kind of 
seismic change would come about, for example, if you invested 
through, say, the Build Back Better Act in lowering childcare 
costs so that women could re-imagine their lives through new 
training, education, longer hour jobs? How would that improve 
the economic condition of children and women? And then, 
additionally could you find anything negative to having 
provisions that would increase the opportunity for childcare 
and lower the course? My third question is, you may not be a 
Head Start expert, but I am not really seeing those numbers. I 
guess I will have to explore that to say that their impact 
fades out. Well, you want the impact to be as a lead Head Start 
in going to elementary school and they are left in the hands of 
the teachers and hopefully they will move on with that 
foundation.
    But, Ms. Poo, can you answer my first question please? 
Thank you.
    Ms. Poo. Thank you so much for the questions, 
Congresswoman.
    I think that making childcare more affordable would be 
nothing short of transformative in the lives of women. And 
right now women are spending between 9 and 40 percent of their 
income on childcare. And so not having to spend more than 7 
percent of their income means that there is more income to pay 
for food, to pay for--save for a rainy day, to pay off the 
debts, like the ones that Ms. Walker's family accumulated. It 
would be nothing short of transformative for women and their 
entire families and for the ability to transfer generational 
wealth to create economic mobility so that one generation can 
do better than the last. I think there are so many ripple 
effects that we will see, beginning from having less pressure 
on your pocketbook, which is absolutely essential in the short-
term to achieve.
    The cost of childcare is one of the most significant fixed 
costs for families right now. If we want to lower costs for 
families, making childcare affordable is the way to do it. And 
I have never heard any data that the impact of Head Start fades 
over time. In fact, I have heard the opposite. And I have 
encountered so many people across professions who have 
benefited from the Head Start program, that has allowed them to 
actually have an equal footing as they enter public school.
    Ms. Jackson Lee. Well, thank you for that.
    Let me conclude my remarks. First of all, Mr. Chairman, 
this was a long overdue and very vital hearing to focus on 
women. There are several elements of the Build Back Better Act. 
We contributed to its construction. I think the Budget 
Committee did an excellent job. But make the care economy real, 
women who care for people, make it a profession, increase the 
salaries of the women who had to stay out of the workplace, but 
they could come back to the workplace with a professional 
skilled industry of care workers. I believe that that 
combination, childcare, will put women on a sure footing, no 
matter what their educational level is and what level of job 
that they have. There are many women bosses who need childcare 
as well and there are many women who work day to day, hour to 
hour, that need childcare.
    And so I hope we can move this forward. Thank you very 
much, Ms. Poo. Thank you for your testimony. And also for the 
witnesses.
    I yield back.
    Chairman Yarmuth. The gentlewoman yields back.
    I now recognize the gentleman from Iowa, Mr. Feenstra, for 
five minutes.
    Mr. Feenstra. Thank you, Chairman Yarmuth, and Ranking 
Member Smith. I want to thank you for all of our witnesses for 
their testimony today. And I share your concerns that we need 
our kids to have a great education and our economy recovery 
cannot exclude women who are trying to find work.
    You know, of the toughest problems facing my constituents 
in Iowa is the lack of childcare. And we just talked about 
this. And here question after question about childcare. So it 
is great that we are talking about this topic.
    There is a lot of work being done in this space with our 
Iowa Governor working to find solutions to ensure that moms 
aren't forced to stay home. However, one of the key drivers of 
this problem in my state is a lack of work force. And that 
hasn't been talked about a lot today, right. We have a lack of 
work force. We have a lack of staff for our childcare. Our 
unemployment in Iowa is at 3.7 percent and for women it is 2.8. 
that is because Iowans avoided some of the pitfalls that a lot 
of other states had when they recovered from this pandemic. You 
know what, for Iowa we kept our schools open to ensure that our 
kids are getting a great education. And our parents weren't 
forced to struggle between feeding their family and keeping 
their kids on track, right. Our schools were open.
    Studies agree with this and the Federal Reserve Bank in 
Minneapolis found that nearly 70 percent of mothers in states 
that shuttered schools were forced out of work compared to 
mothers living in states that kept schools open. Isn't that 
amazing? You know, the states that shuttered also had this 
massive problem, but the states that didn't don't have this 
problem.
    Second, Iowa didn't double or triple down on its harmful 
lock down policies after medicines became available. You know, 
we went mask free. We just hear earlier how important that was 
for kids.
    The rising crisis that is starting to crush moms across 
this country is inflation. Just yesterday it was announced that 
the wholesale inflation rose by 10 percent over last year, gas 
up 40 percent, heating you homes up 15 percent. Expense after 
expense on that bottom line for families.
    Flooding the country with trillions of spending is making 
Americans' lives worse. In Budget Committee we showed--actively 
accounting for the trillions we have printed to recommend 
recessions of unspent funds. And this is just again another 
hidden tax, this inflationary cost because of all this money we 
dumped in the system.
    Mrs. Lukas, you have talked a lot about this already, and I 
appreciate all your comments, but do you have any thoughts or 
ideas when it comes to childcare and work force and how we can 
help the work force out? To me, the bottom line for us in Iowa 
is the childcare industry just simply needs work force.
    What is your thoughts on that?
    Mrs. Lukas. You know, I appreciate--I do think that it is 
important to talk about kind of those supply side effects when 
it comes to labor. And there is an interesting study. I think 
there Heritage Foundation's Rachel Greszler wrote a piece that 
looked at some of this and she notes that states that ended the 
unemployment insurance bonuses in July 2021 or earlier 
experienced a significantly greater pace of employment recovery 
in July and August than the states that hadn't. And she 
estimates that if the economy of all the states had ended those 
unemployment bonuses earlier we would have had 800,000 more 
jobs gained in July and August.
    I do think it is important--we have talked a lot about the 
need. Everybody supports helping people. We want there to be a 
robust safety net. We need to make sure that that safety net is 
a safety net, not one that impedes people from returning to 
work. Because some of my fellow witnesses have talked about, we 
need people in the childcare industry, that it is these jobs 
create jobs and we need to make sure that the incentives are 
right so that we are not discouraging labor force participation 
permanently.
    Mr. Feenstra. Yes, thanks, Mrs. Lukas. I greatly appreciate 
those comments. And you said something very valuable. You know, 
and this very seldom gets talked about, but if you are a family 
like me, I have a family of four, I have got four children, 
when you are doing your monthly budget and all these items are 
drastically going up, it really limits what you can do and it 
really pinches day care, because you just don't have the 
dollars to do it.
    Now, you can throw more dollars in, that is very, very 
temporary. And obviously what we have seen is that created more 
inflation, it creates higher call for product. So it is just to 
me it--being in economics, this is not the way we do things. I 
mean it is just wrong on so many levels.
    So, with that, I yield back. And thank you again for each 
one of your testimoneys.
    Chairman Yarmuth. The gentleman yields back.
    I now recognize the gentleman from Virginia, Mr. Good, for 
five minutes.
    Mr. Good. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
    This hearing really should be called how recent government 
policies have hurt Americans, women included, because it has 
hurt women just as much as every other American to have our 
most basic freedoms that we couldn't have imagined being under 
assault and under attack even just two or three years ago, from 
what we have seen the last couple of years, but our most basic 
freedoms like our freedom of movement, our freedom to travel--
even today we don't have true freedom to travel without wearing 
a mask--our freedom of assembly, getting together. Heck, even 
in this room we don't have everybody in the hearing room, they 
are doing it by Zoom. This Congress votes by proxy. We continue 
to use the China virus as an excuse to have these emergency 
provisions, which we know are not necessary. Our most basic 
freedom just to earn a living, to operate our business, to go 
to work, to keep our job, our freedom to worship, and our 
freedom to educate our children, to have our children go to 
school and to be there in person. These have been trampled upon 
and harmed our children, harmed our families, harmed mothers, 
harmed women in general.
    History will judge us harshly by how we have sacrificed our 
children on the alter of politics over these last two years. 
You touched on it just a few moments ago, but the fact that we 
would close schools for children who are at almost no risk--
almost no risk to the virus. For two years kids are at home or 
trying to learn remotely when they were at almost no risk to 
the virus. We have treated everybody the same. We have treated 
children like senior citizens, we treated college students like 
those with multiple comorbidity factors. Children--how do we 
ever make up for these mother's, these women's children, how do 
we ever make up the lost learning for two years?
    So they graduate--what? With just two years less of school. 
Not to mention the developmental delay, the social delay, the 
emotional issues that have come in there. In my home county we 
lifted the mask mandate thankfully, finally. It should have 
never been in place. It is child abuse to put a child in a mask 
all day long when we know masks don't make any difference. That 
is why no one who has been enforcing it all this time ever 
wears it when no one is looking. It is virtue signaling. That 
is even--I saw a doctor on CNN say, hey, it just shows what 
team you are on, it is virtue signaling, it just sends a 
message that you care when you wear your mask. But do to that 
to children all day long when they are almost no risk for the 
virus. And also, we know from studies that masks don't make any 
difference.
    But in my home county of Campbell County outside Lynchburg 
in the fifth district of Virginia, half the kids are still 
wearing masks when they don't have to. Why? Because we have 
told them they are going to die from the virus. And they have 
gotten comfortable with this thing on their face.
    In the meantime, for women across this country these 
policies that have made them less secure with the border 
invasion that we have not just allowed to happen, we have 
caused to happen by this government's policies, our weakness on 
the national stage, where we look across the ocean to Ukraine, 
what is happening there, or the threat of China, the threat of 
North Korea, the threat of Iran, and the American weakness that 
has been projected, the massive spending that is robbing women, 
Americans, and families of their purchasing power, costing them 
thousands of dollars a year more now than it did previously 
last year just to buy the essentials. Grocery prices through 
the roof, gas prices through the roof as we have declared war 
on American energy. These policies are harmful to women.
    The crime explosion in this country, putting--undermining 
our police. Not to mention we have fired women for not getting 
vaccines. Not allowed them to keep their job as essential 
healthcare workers, not allowed them to stay in the military, 
not allowed them to stay in law enforcement, not allowed them 
to provide for their family because we have taken away their 
right, again, trampled on their right to their most basic 
freedom of their own health decisions, and then we fired them 
if they didn't do what their government wanted them to do.
    So I know you are chomping at the bit to respond, Mrs. 
Lukas. I will let you just respond any additional thoughts you 
might have.
    Mrs. Lukas. I mean, no, I appreciate that. And I do think 
when we look at the decisions we have made about our children, 
it contrasts very much with the rest of the world. When you 
look at--we have talked a little bit about European systems and 
what they do to support families. But one thing they didn't do 
was to put little kids in masks. Even the WHO had said that 
masking children under age five was not recommended, was bad, 
was not just not recommended but was harmful. And through most 
of Europe they have long had something where--a policy that 
children under the age of 11 or 12 do not wear masks. I do 
think that we are going to see tremendous mental health impacts 
from this. We see now there was a 51 percent in teenage girls 
attempted suicides during these last two years. And this is 
something we are going to be living with. Damaging effects for 
a really long time.
    Mr. Good. And we are not telling the truth about the risks 
of the virus, which I heard Dr. Ben Carson say was the most 
dangerous virus in the--the most dangerous--we are not telling 
the truth about the risks of the vaccine, which I heard Dr. Ben 
Carson say is the most dangerous vaccine in history, and we are 
forcing it upon children, who are at almost no risk for the 
virus.
    Thank you.
    Chairman Yarmuth. The gentleman's time expired.
    I now recognize the gentleman from Wisconsin, Mr. Grothman, 
for five minutes.
    Mr. Grothman. Well, first of all, Mrs. Lukas, I would like 
to thank you for being here. You know, I know most of the 
people back home in Wisconsin where I am from, they go to work 
in the day and they make it do. And I am sure it would have 
been easier for you to just call it in and do this from your 
kitchen table. But I think, you know, you really can tell a lot 
more or learn about a lot more when somebody is here and in 
person. So I would like to thank you for understanding that and 
being here.
    So a couple of comments here. During this pandemic a lot of 
people were mandated vaccine wise. And I certainly got calls 
from many nurses and I have such a high opinion of nurses. I 
thought it was so offensive and unAmerican to force them to get 
the vaccine. I know a lot of nurses who quit, particularly if 
they were concerned it might have an effect on a pregnancy down 
the line. I met with a doctor earlier today, he was concerned 
about that. And I could just envision a bunch of guys sitting 
around at NIH or CDC or whatever saying, well, everybody can 
have the vaccine.
    Do you think the fear of a negative effect on the vaccine 
is something that--particularly because so many of them work in 
the healthcare field--disproportionately hurt women?
    Mrs. Lukas. Well, certainly when it comes to fertility 
issues, that was something that I know a lot of women 
personally were very concerned with because this is--you can be 
somebody who supports a concept of vaccine and wants people to 
get vaccinated, but when it comes to our kids and our 
fertility, there is a lot of questions. And so we need to let 
free people make their decisions.
    Mr. Grothman. Right. And when I go through a hospital, I 
certainly see more women working there than men overall.
    Mrs. Lukas. Sure.
    Mr. Grothman. And I wondered if there wasn't a little bit 
of tacit sexism going on there when they cracked down and told 
everybody who works in a hospital, but women in particular, 
that they would have to lose their jobs if they didn't get a 
vaccine. I was kind of--was very offended. But I just wondered 
if you had any other comments on that.
    Mrs. Lukas. Well, you know, I think that--again, we have 
learned a lot during the course of this pandemic and one of the 
things we really learned in the last several months in the wake 
of Omicron is that the vaccine's protection is for your 
personally and it has not been preventing the spread of the 
disease, which makes it all the more, I think, inappropriate to 
force people to not have the opportunity to work and support 
themselves merely because they make a different health choice 
and weigh their own risks differently than the government does.
    Mr. Grothman. We have all sorts of statistics before us 
today, do you have any general statistics as far as percentage 
wise women and percentage of men who want to stay out of the 
work force and take care of their kids?
    Mrs. Lukas. You know, I think that--it is actually--I am 
glad you asked that question, because I think we have talked a 
little bit and heard some about the wage gap. And it was 
actually a holiday the other day called Equal Pay Day, that is 
often used as a proxy to talk about how much women are 
underpaid systemically. And the truth is that a lot of women, a 
lot of that is not discrimination, but it is because women 
often do decide to prioritize things other than earning and 
want to stay home with their kids. And we should respect that. 
That is why I think it is important for any support that is 
given to families, people with young kids, isn't make 
conditional on using--hiring somebody else to care for your 
kids. We should be providing support and recognizing the value 
of people who choose to stay home.
    Mr. Grothman. Why do you think some people dislike--I mean 
I think it is fine. When I grew up my own mom was at home more 
often than not. Why do you think there is this dislike for 
women who are staying at home with their kids?
    Mrs. Lukas. You know, it is funny. I think that sometimes 
there is this almost like I think a myth of the mommy wars. But 
I think when you talk to actual women that, you know, I am a 
working mom and I know some stay at home moms and they are my--
are fully staying at home moms and they are the people who bail 
me out when I can't get there to pick up my kids and they are 
the ones who help so much in the classrooms. And I think there 
is a lot more respect.
    I fear from a public policy standpoint that sometimes there 
is a lack of respect. But I do think it comes from elites, that 
it is not on the ground moms. Because I think on the ground 
moms respect the decisions that other women make.
    Mr. Grothman. And if a stay-at-home mom, say she decides to 
work part-time or not work overtime or whatever, that winds up 
statistically to look like that there is something wrong with 
our society, right. I mean if you--you know, some woman is 
taking the professional track and some woman, professional, but 
maybe working 20 hours a week, that they--when you--when that 
runs through the statistics, they claim that there is something 
wrong with our society for allowing women to stay at home or 
allowing women to work part-time. Do you think that means there 
is something wrong with our society?
    Mrs. Lukas. No. You know, I think that--and my old women's 
studies classes, they would have talked about this conversation 
as having a really male lens, just judging everyone by how much 
money they earn, where a lot of women focus on other things and 
including--they value the time they get to spend with their 
kids.
    Mr. Grothman. Yes. I think people who just look solely at 
money are shallow. And I have always felt that way.
    OK. Well, again, thank you for being here today. It was 
very nice of you to come on down and talk to us in person.
    Chairman Yarmuth. The gentleman's time is expired.
    I now recognize the gentleman from Florida, Mr. Donalds, 
for five minutes.
    Mr. Donalds. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. It is good to be 
back. I love how Congress schedules all committee hearings all 
at the same time. Such a use of efficiency in the Nation's 
Capitol. I am quite sure everybody watching C-Span right now 
hears all my sarcasm.
    I just want to jump into it. Obviously we have a limited 
amount of time.
    First of all, look, the American Rescue Plan, when it was 
written so fast after the President was inaugurated, it was an 
excuse in my view to essentially unleash long held policy 
ideals from people on the political left that they wanted to 
accomplish for quite some time. And so the pandemic was the 
crisis not being let go to waste. It was pretty clear from 
economists all across the spectrum that if we actually passed 
that piece of legislation--and we talked about it here in the 
Budget Committee--that if we passed that piece of legislation 
it would lead to inflationary pressures in the United States. 
Obviously, Larry Summers' comments have been proven to be very 
accurate. His comments today about a potential Federal Reserve 
interest rate hike is that if the Federal Reserve does not do 
this quickly and in an appropriate manner, we are going to 
enter a period of stagflation in the United States.
    And so the point I want to really bring home for the 
witnesses here, and I am going to ask you guys about this 
stuff, is, you know, Ms. Poo--I want to make sure I pronounce 
your last name correctly--but I know that, you know, you and 
your organization have advocated for I am assuming permanency 
in the child tax credit. But my question for you is even if you 
have permanency in the child tax credit, but the United States 
enters a period of stagflation where inflationary pressures 
continue to be high, don't these families that receive this 
advancement of a tax credit--isn't the purchasing power of the 
dollars they receive already doing to be eroded from higher 
inflation rates in the United States, which come from passage 
of this policy to begin with? And many others, by the way.
    Ms. Poo. I think actually, Dr. Albanesi is probably in a 
better position to answer questions about how inflation works 
long-term, but what I will say is that we are paying for care, 
specifically which is my area of expertise, in incredibly 
costly, inefficient, and ineffective ways. Both----
    Mr. Donalds. Well, and I--and I will--because I only got 
two minutes and we are going to have to plug and play here. And 
I apologize. I wish we did this differently where we weren't 
tied to five minute segments, but I don't set the rules.
    My point is that, listen, I get it. Listen, I have three 
kids, I pay childcare, I know what it is. It is a car payment, 
sometimes it is a Mercedes payment depending on where you live 
and what you are doing. Been there, done it. You know, I got 
the checks. I have written the checks, I know what I am talking 
about. I know you do as well.
    My point is, is that when you interject with massive 
amounts of governmental spending, specifically to childcare, 
and you are chasing childcare, what actually ends up happening 
is the cost of childcare will actually increase as a result of 
additional federal stimulus. Look no further than the 
university system in the United States. We essentially 
subsidize federal student loans because we think it is in the 
best interest of students, but what it also does, it allows 
universities and colleges to raise their tuition rates because 
they know that there is essentially a pot of unlimited dollars 
chasing university slots and being able to pay tuition, which, 
you know, the good doctor obviously through her work sees on a 
day to day basis. And that has also spiraled us through the 
loan crisis.
    I guess, look, at the end of the day--and Dr. Albanesi--
that is correct?
    Dr. Albanesi. Albanesi, yes.
    Mr. Donalds. Albanesi. You said earlier that with respect 
to people coming out of the work force, it was really a 
differentiation between college graduates and non-college 
graduates. In your studies, was it college versus no college? 
And amongst the college segment, was there a differentiation 
between men and women? Because you didn't say that in that 
answer. I just want to expand upon that. Is the differentiation 
between--in the non-college graduates, men versus women versus 
college graduates, men and women? Or really is there no 
differentiation at all with respect to academic attainment?
    Dr. Albanesi. No, there is some differentiation. So most of 
the decline in participation of women is coming from women 
without a college degree. But there was a slight decline also 
for women with a college degree. But it was temporary and very 
short lived.
    And as I mentioned earlier in response to another question, 
where we saw the decline in participation was not, again, women 
quitting their job, but women becoming unemployed and then 
deciding that, you know, they weren't going to search for a new 
job, perhaps because of childcare challenges or other issues, 
including not having sufficient protection from infection in a 
care job where you work.
    Mr. Donalds. I appreciate your answer, I really, really do. 
I am already out of time. I am abusing the chairman's time 
right now.
    The only thing I would add to your point is, yes, it goes 
without question that there are many people who are out of the 
work force because we literally shut down the economy in the 
United States. And I would argue, especially if you are the 
woman in the household and you are in an industry that Ms. Poo 
represents, you were first on the chopping block because you 
are service oriented. And if people are basically locked in 
their houses, then those service jobs are no longer needed. So 
I don't really think that it is appropriate to say that it is 
about men versus women, that it is much more appropriate to say 
that it is about governmental policy and how you shut down an 
economy. And it actually had the most impacts on women as a 
result of the policy decisions that were made in shutting down 
an economy, which is why we shouldn't be shutting down 
economies.
    But I digress. And I yield back.
    Chairman Yarmuth. OK. The gentleman's time has expired. And 
I will remind the gentleman that he has the right to ask--
submit any questions to the witnesses that he didn't get to for 
the record. And you submit them within a week when we do it.
    I now yield myself 10 minutes. And I love going last 
because I get to push back against a lot of things, but also I 
am going to start in an uncharacteristic way and I am going to 
agree with my Republican colleagues on two things.
    One is we do need to provide much better oversight over 
everything the government does. That has been one of my biggest 
complaints since I have been here. And now that I am on my way 
out, I will repeat it. We don't spend nearly enough time 
dealing with the impact and the effectiveness of the actions we 
take. Been true before the American Rescue Plan. And I will 
remind everyone that the American Rescue Plan really has not 
been in effect for a year yet, so the question is when do you 
make that--when do you conduct that oversight? I am not sure we 
are actually ready to do that because a lot of decisions are 
still being made as to how that money is spent.
    The second thing I will agree with, some of the comments of 
my colleagues has been the question of the supply side aspect 
of things like childcare. I stressed this over and over with 
the Administration as we were developing the American Rescue 
Plan that we have to focus as much on building capacity as we 
do on helping our citizens afford service, because if we don't 
create capacity--and that is true of early childhood education, 
it is true of senior care, regardless of what it is, that all 
we are doing is providing much more money to chase and not an 
increased number of opportunities, and that will necessarily 
lead to inflation.
    So that said, I am finished agreeing with my Republican 
colleagues and I want to push back on a few things. One is I 
know that the ranking member talks a lot about only 9 percent 
of the American Rescue Plan was spent on actual COVID treatment 
and combatting COVID, but virtually all of the American Rescue 
Plan was designed to deal with the impact of COVID. And for 
instance, $122 billion to help schools reopen, which we all 
want to do, which is a high priority of Republicans and 
Democrats--$122 billion to make sure that schools can reopen 
safely and effectively. And part of that $122 billion was for 
remedial education, which many of the schools are trying to 
figure out how to do. So, you know, the biggest complaint I get 
now from some of my citizens is they are trying to get one 
program or another financed through the American Rescue Plan 
and the government is telling them, not, that is not COVID 
related. So I would take issue with the characterization, 
although the way you have expressed it, you are technically 
correct.
    Now, I want to talk about inflation and gas prices. You 
know, everybody wants to--everybody has an idea of what causes 
inflation and the American Rescue Plan is an easy target, 
although on the one hand you say so much of the American Rescue 
Plan hasn't been spent yet and then you blame it for creating 
inflation. You have got to have it one way or the other. And I 
know--I love the way Mr. Donalds said economics across the 
spectrum believe this. The only economist who has been 
mentioned today taking issue with the American Rescue Plan and 
inflation has been Lawrence Summers. And so I am--I would look 
to cite some other economists like Moody's Analytics, which 
said--and this is a few weeks ago, this is prior to what has 
happened to gas prices--I will qualify that--but as of a few 
weeks ago Moody's Analytics said that the American Rescue Plan 
was responsible for less than 1 percent of the inflation we are 
experiencing. Something like .6 percent. And the Fed in San 
Francisco did a similar study and came up with the same answer. 
So Mr. Smucker wanted to have a hearing on the causes of 
inflation, I think it would be very instructive to do that 
because I think you would find a lot of different answers and a 
lot of different opinions as to what is responsible for how 
much of the inflation.
    Again, we have talked a lot about Republican Governors and 
Democratic Governors. And Mr. Doggett talked about his opinion 
of the Texas Governor. I have a great Governor. He is a 
Democratic Governor, the state legislature is 75 percent 
Republican. So, you know, it is kind of hard to call Kentucky a 
red state--I mean a blue state by any stretch of the 
imagination, although our Kentucky Governor has done a great 
job. And when you contrast it, not with some of the metrics 
that have been mentioned here today, but with the issue of 
number of cases per capita, number of cases over all, percent 
of hospitalizations, number of deaths, I think you would find 
that the states that have done the worst in terms of preventing 
damage, health consequences to their citizens, they have been 
Republican led states and not Democratic led states.
    Finally, I want to talk about gas prices. You talked about 
gas prices and suggested, Mrs. Lukas, some of the things we 
ought to do. Do you know how many gallons--how many barrels of 
oil the United States is producing today?
    Mrs. Lukas. I don't.
    Chairman Yarmuth. OK. It is is over 12 million barrels a 
day. Do you know where that ranks among all the countries in 
the world?
    Mrs. Lukas. No, sir.
    Chairman Yarmuth. No. 1. We produce more oil on a daily 
basis right now than Russia and Saudi Arabia and every other 
country. And so to say that somehow the policies that 
apparently Joe Biden has put in place over the last 13 \1/2\ 
months that he has been in office have done damage to our 
production of energy is not born out by the facts. And in fact 
we are producing more oil now than we ever did under Donald 
Trump, than we ever have done under any other president, 
Republican or Democrat. And in addition, there are 9 million 
acres of licensed drilling opportunities in the United States 
right now. And I don't think that any Republican or Mrs. Lukas 
would want us to have a Gazprom, a government sponsored oil 
company doing the drilling. We have private enterprise in this 
country and they make the decisions as to when to drill, when 
it is their economic interest to drill and to produce oil. They 
are doing that right now.
    So, you know, I don't necessarily blame--I think--you know, 
there has been a current spike that has actually receded 
because of the invasion of Ukraine, but I don't think it--I 
don't call it Putin's inflation of oil prices. That is an 
international market which we don't control, but we are doing 
our best to accommodate.
    I want to thank Ms. Walker for her very compelling story. 
And I know that that is a story that is true of many, many 
women throughout the country. And I do want to make one 
comment, and that is--because it is important that everybody 
realizes this, you may or may not know, but the child tax 
credit expansion is not ended. The monthly checks have ended. 
There are six months more of child tax credit expansion this 
year. You have to file a tax return to get it. But the same 
criteria. You don't have to make money, you just have to--you 
don't have to have an income or taxable income, you just have 
to file the return.
    And speaking to the CBO director last week, there was a 
very encouraging sign that he said only about 6 percent he 
thought right now is the estimate of those who are eligible 
have not taken advantage of that. So I want to make sure that 
people if they haven't do take advantage of it.
    In the remaining time I do want to ask a question of Dr. 
Albanesi. You mentioned the child penalty that is up to 40 
percent. Could you explain a little bit about how that--what is 
in that 40 percent?
    Dr. Albanesi. Yes.
    Chairman Yarmuth. Or how did you get to that 40 percent?
    Dr. Albanesi. Basically it is how much, you know, women's 
wages drop three years or more after having their first child, 
as a result of having become mothers. And it is 40 percent, as 
I said, and it contributes to the largest fraction of the 
gender wage gap overall. And it is a combination of both career 
choices, labor supply, and, you know, also forced career 
choices that women make, as well as, you know, outright 
discrimination in some types of occupations. But it is why, you 
know, in most, you know, households, you know, mothers tend to 
be the less earning, you know, member of the household, you 
know, a two earner couple. And it is also why, you know, single 
mothers, you know, have more trouble making ends meet compared 
to maybe single fathers, because they are paid less.
    So it is, you know, a substantial--the United States is not 
the only country where this exists unfortunately. It is very 
common amongst comparable countries, though it varies quite a 
bit across countries depending on, you know, the wage structure 
and so on.
    Chairman Yarmuth. Great. Well, one final comment before I 
close, and that is my daughter-in-law is in a childcare 
business. She has a day care center with her mother and 
grandmother. They run it. And one of the things that Kentucky 
did with the ARP money was to set up a fund to help support 
childcare. And what that has enabled my daughter-in-law's 
business to do is actually compete on salary with other 
businesses. And she is now able to pay them a competitive wage. 
She is having a much easier time, although not--I wouldn't 
characterize it easy--she is having a less difficult time 
finding qualified personnel to work in the day care center. And 
so that has been a positive way that the American Rescue Plan 
has helped support childcare, again, going through Kentucky 
government.
    So, with that, I only went 17 seconds over my time and I 
was very lenient with the other side and I am not going to--I 
am going to let everybody go and get lunch.
    But I want to once again thank all of our witnesses.
    I will take issue with the one comment that we learn more 
from a witness. Mr. Grothman said we learn more from a witness 
in the room than we do from--virtually. I wouldn't say that is 
necessarily true. It would be nice to have all the witnesses in 
the room. I agree it does create a better dialog. But I think 
we have learned a lot from our virtual witnesses as well.
    So with no--if there is no further business, I thank the 
witnesses for their testimony and responses and this meeting, 
without objection, is adjourned.
    [Whereupon, at 1:35 p.m., the Committee was adjourned.]
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