White House Summit on Working Families Opening Remarks – June 23, 2014

Jarrett provided these opening remarks at the first White House Summit on Working Families, which was hosted by the White House Council on Women and Girls, the Labor Department Women's Bureau, and the Center for America Progress.

Well, good morning! Good morning, everybody! Good morning! Let us hear from you! Wow. I can't believe you all showed up. Well, I am delighted to be here with my co-hosts Tom and Mira, who you will hear from shortly, to welcome you to the first ever White House Summit on Working Families. [Applause]

So the president's goals are simple. He wants to make sure that every hardworking American gets a chance to get ahead. And he also wants to make sure that our 21st century workplace reflects the needs of those 21st century families. And as we know, the demographics have changed over the decades. Now, we know that women make up nearly half of the work force. Yes, indeed. You can clap whenever you want. 40% of moms are either single breadmakers or the primary bread earner for the family. So, that's a major change in our demographics. The majority of our children live in families where both parents work. So we need to make sure our workplace changes both in policy and in culture to reflect those changes, isn't that right? [Applause]

And so over the course of the last couple of months, we have traveled around the country from the [2:12?] of Orlando, Florida, to San Francisco, to Seattle, to Boston, New York, my hometown of Chicago, Virginia. We have talked to workers and business leaders and union leaders and academics and deans and stakeholders from around the country, all helping us figure out what we do to change that paradigm. And rflected in this room and watching us online are all of you who contributed to the agenda for the day and also the announcements that we will be making. So thank you very much. [Applause]

We have listened to your stories, and everybody has stories. So, of course, since I have the podium, I’m going to tell you a couple of mine. I remember very vividly -- I’m not going to tell you exactly how many years ago -- well, maybe I will -- 28 years ago and some change -- I was sitting around a conference room table at 2 a.m., eight and a half months pregnant. And I kept trying to slip my swollen feet up onto a chair where nobody would notice. And for the women in the audience who have been pregnant, you know I couldn't actually sit there for more than about a half an hour without getting up and taking a little departure, but I was too embarrassed to tell anybody I had to go to the bathroom. So I made up all kinds of excuses for why I was leaving the room. I need to get some papers, I need to make a phone call, I needed to do this, I needed to do that. I needed to pee. And I felt like I was alone. And I was in a room full of men, and I didn't think anybody there was going through what I was going through, so one of our big messages today is that you are not alone. That's another thing that today is all about. [Applause]

Fast forward a few years later in a different job, and my daughter is a toddler, and I had a client who was extremely demanding. And I loved my client, and she was one of my first mentors. But I needed to get home because I would wake up in the morning trying to figure out how could I get home by bedtime. You know what that's like. I told her, I love to cook. Why don't you come over to my house for dinner and I'll make dinner. I don't actually love to cook. She would come over every night and I would make dinner and I would get a chance to say good night to my daughter. And now years later, I look back, and I’m not sure she actually thought I liked to cook, but she liked those meals and she was willing to accommodate to my schedule so that I could be home by bedtime. A terrific mentor and a great client.

And then the final story that I’ll share with you is one that I have told very, very often. And this is about employers who get it. I was sitting in a conference room working for Mayor Daly. A little intimidating character, for those of you who have ever met him. I had just been promoted. It was one of my first meetings, actually, in his office. I was sitting across the table from Susan Schure who used to be the first lady’s chief of staff. Susan and I both had children in second grade. We kept looking at each other and looking at each other and looking at each other, and finally the mayor realized that we weren't paying any attention. He said, where is that you need to go that's more important than here? So in a moment of complete, I don’t know, horror, terror, truth, I said to him, the Halloween parade starts in 20 minutes, and we are 25 minutes away. And he said -- and this is really important -- then what are you doing here? And I am telling you, from that moment he had my loyalty, he had my work. I worked twice as hard. I was determined to be worthy of that. [Applause]

And so as we have heard from all of you, what we have heard is for hardworking folks who are trying to make ends meet, we need to raise the minimum wage, point number 1. [Applause] We have heard that everybody should get to go to their Halloween parade, so workplace flexibility is important. [Applause] Paid leave is important. We're the only country that doesn't have paid leave. [Applause] Childcare is important. [Applause]

For a while now, we’ve talked about the glass ceiling. But you know what – it is that sticky floor that is the problem for so many minimum wage workers who can’t get that break to get ahead. [Applause]

These are the issues that we’ve heard from you. So if you are a single mom who sends her kids to school with a little bit of a fever because you don’t have childcare – I’ve done that. If you are the dad who would love to stay home with your children and your company has a policty that allows you to stay home but nobody in the culture of your company takes advantage of that policy. If you are parents who have never been able to attend a parent-teacher conference, let alone a concert or a play in your school because your employer has rigid hours. If you are a company who wants to do the right things by your employees but simply doesn’t know what to do. Well then let me tell you something – you’re not alone, and this day is for all of you! [Applause]

So we are excited to be here. We're going to learn, we're going to have announcements to make, we're going to have a conversation with one another, but the most important thing I also want you to remember is that this day is an important moment but it's not just a moment. It's a movement. It's a movement, and we are going forward from this day forward. [Applause]

So with that, I want you to welcome my partner in this without whom this conference would simply not have been possible, who is an advocate for workers around the country each and every single day. Please join me in welcoming secretary Tom Perez.

"White House Working Families Summit, Part 1." C-SPAN video. June 23, 2014. https://www.c-span.org/program/public-affairs-event/white-house-working-families-summit-part-1/352882