Thread by @19thnews

Fifteen women leaders joined @VP Kamala Harris on Thursday to lay out a plan to ensure that the administration's $1.9 trillion COVID relief package moving through Capitol Hill retains the elements that would most help women.

From @ChabeliH and @emarvelous:bit.ly/37ngBaD

The nation's first women's recession has seen about 2.5 million women leaving the labor force — many of them forced out due to caregiving needs.

Small businesses have also closed — 1 in 4 owned by women closed between February and April 2020. bit.ly/37ngBaD

And for many of the women who have kept working, they are juggling an impossible child care burden.

Half of the 400,000 jobs lost in the child care sector at the start of the pandemic have yet to return. bit.ly/37ngBaD

For Harris, the meeting was about building consensus. For those who attended, it was about pitching what they felt needed to remain in the $1.9 trillion COVID relief package proposed by the Biden-Harris administration. bit.ly/37ngBaD

Many of the women leaders advocated for a $15 minimum wage — a provision that has received the most pushback in the COVID relief bill. bit.ly/37ngBaD

The @USCBO has estimated that the provision would lift 900,000 people out of poverty and raise wages for 17 million people.

But, it estimates, the wage increase would also lead to the loss of 1.4 million jobs. bit.ly/37ngBaD

Advocates and legislators said they left the meeting with a game plan for action in the coming days that puts pressure on lawmakers to make good on their promises to women and communities of color. bit.ly/37ngBaD

“This may be what the New Deal was almost a century ago, to really transform what our workplaces look like, and how we are invested in women as an American economy,” said @TinaTchen, president and CEO of @TIMESUPNOW. bit.ly/37ngBaD

“I know that this is personal for me; this is personal for everyone here,” @VP Harris said to the group.

The economy cannot return, she said, if women can’t participate fully. bit.ly/37ngBaD