Yesterday, Corporate Voices and Working Mother Media publicly recognized the 30 winners of this year’s Best of Congress Award. The Award recognizes Congressional excellence in improving the lives of working families through advancing national legislation, advocacy, and supporting family-friendly work policies in their own offices.
14 Members of Congress attended the awards breakfast, held at Charlie Palmer Steak in Washington, D.C. As each Member accepted their award and made brief remarks, it quickly became apparent that each had powerful personal stories of how they, their families, and those close to them have struggled to meet work/life challenges—creating a clear driver behind their strong commitment to advance the work/life agenda in Congress.
Below is a snapshot of some of the personal stories behind the working men and women, the fathers and mothers, and the public officials that represent America’s working families. They are truly the Best of Congress.
Mike Crapo: champion in the Senate for workplace flexibility and father of five
Mike Crapo: Republican Senator from Idaho, Crapo is a husband and father of five, and very dedicated to expanding flexibility in the workplace and promoting a better work-life balance for Americans, including his own staff of 41–9 of whom are working moms. He helped create and chaired the Senate Working Group on Workplace Flexibility and sponsored a resolution to create National Work and Family Month.
Russ Carnahan: Democratic Representative from Missouri, Carnahan knows what it means to have a family-friendly workplace. Before he was in public office, Carnahan was a partner in a law practice with his wife, and they balanced work and family life by creating a nursery for their newborn in their law office. At the awards breakfast, Carnahan said,
“Having work policies that support a healthy work-life balance is not only a smart business practice—it’s really personal.”
His office policies support work and family for his staff of 18, including 3 working moms.
Debbie Wasserman Schultz: young Congressional pioneer and mother of three
Debbie Wasserman-Schultz: Democratic Representative from Florida, Wasserman-Shultz is a wife and mother of two 11-year-old twins and a seven-year-old daughter. She was the youngest woman ever to be elected to the Florida legislature at the age of 26, and has been a champion for working families and children in Congress. Her supportive office policies enable her staff of 17, including 4 working moms, to succeed at both work and family life.
Linda Sanchez: Democratic Representative from California, Sanchez is the sixth of seven children, and made history in 2009 as the eighth Member of Congress to give birth while serving in office. She is a mother of four and currently juggles life as a Congressional leader and co-founder of the Labor and Working Families Caucus, and as a mother of a newborn infant. She believes that flexibility in the workplace is important to families, to communities, and also to the economy writ-large.
Dave Reichert: public official, former police officer, and father of three
Dave Reichert: Republican Representative from the state of Washington, Reichert is a former police officer and grew up with six brothers and sisters. He is the founder and co-chair of the Children’s Health Care Caucus. He believes that policies that support healthy and strong families have an important impact on communities.
“Each and every day across our country, working parents make remarkable contributions to our economy and our communities – all while balancing responsibilities at work and at home. I’ll continue doing all I can to make sure that they have the resources and support necessary to achieve their personal and professional goals,” Reichert said.
John Yarmuth: Democratic Representative from Kentucky and father of one, Yarmuth is passionate defender of programs that empower people to increase their own economic independence and strengthen their financial security. He supports his staff of 18, 5 of whom are working moms, with office policies that promote flexibility, professional development, and work-life balance. Yarmuth donates his entire Congressional salary to a variety of charities in Louisville, KY.
Rosa DeLauro: tireless advocate for children and families
Rosa DeLauro: Democratic Representative from Connecticut, DeLauro is a mother of three, a grandmother of four, and a champion for infants and children across the country. She co-founded the bipartisan Congressional Baby Caucus, and donates every pay raise she receives toward an educational scholarship fund she created in memory of her late father, Ted DeLauro. It has raised $478,000 to help nearly 500 students continue their education. DeLauro said,
“It is so great to see an organization that puts the resources, staff, and inspiration toward elevating the issue of working families… It’s time for public policy to catch up with the changing demographics of American families. Corporate Voices is helping to do that…through its advocacy and its leadership, Corporate Voices puts families front and center on the national agenda.”
Congratulations, Best of Congress winners!
Working Mother Media and Corporate Voices for Working Families are pleased to honor the winners of this year’s Best of Congress Award at an awards breakfast tomorrow, September 22, in Washington, D.C.
The Best of Congress Award recognizes Congressional excellence in improving the lives of working families through advancing legislation, advocacy, and supporting family-friendly work policies.
This year, Corporate Voices and Working Mother Media recognize 30 Members of Congress from both sides of the aisle and from both Houses of Congress for their leadership and their personal commitment to improving the quality of life for working families across the country.
“As our nation continues to face a number of economic and other issues involving working families, these Members of Congress deserve to be congratulated and recognized nationally for their leadership, advocacy and support of best-practice family-friendly workforce policies,” said Donna Klein, CEO and Executive Chair of Corporate Voices for Working Families.
The recipients of this year’s award have been featured in the August/September 2010 issue of Working Mother Magazine. Tomorrow, we will have the opportunity to personally congratulate and acknowledge them at the highly-awaited awards ceremony, and to hear their acceptance remarks.
It is heartening to see that in this tough economic climate, with this ceremony taking place on the heels of the U.S. Census Bureau’s newly released poverty figures, Congressional leaders are placing the spotlight on policies to help working families.
The winners of the 2010 Best of Congress Award are:
U.S. Senate
* Sherrod Brown (D-Ohio)
* Robert Casey (D-Pennsylvania)
* Mike Crapo (R-Idaho)
* Christopher Dodd (D-Connecticut)
* Kirsten Gillibrand (D-New York)
* Kay Bailey Hutchison (R-Texas)
* Johnny Isakson (R-Georgia)
* Herb Kohl (D-Wisconsin)
* Patty Murray (D-Washington)
* Arlen Specter (D-Pennsylvania)
U.S. House of Representatives
Tammy Baldwin (D-Wisconsin)
Russ Carnahan (D-Missouri)
Susan Davis (D-California)
Rosa DeLauro (D-Connecticut)
Mary Fallin (R-Oklahoma)
Chaka Fattah (D-Pennsylvania)
Raul Grijalva (D-Arizona)
John Lewis (D-Georgia)
Carolyn Maloney (D-New York)
Carolyn McCarthy (D-New York)
Cathy McMorris Rodgers (R-Washington)
Erik Paulsen (R-Minnesota)
Dave Reichert (R-Washington)
Peter Roskam (R-Illinois)
C.A. “Dutch” Ruppersberger (D-Maryland)
Linda Sanchez (D-California)
Allyson Schwartz (D-Pennsylvania)
Debbie Wasserman Schultz (D-Florida)
Lynn Woolsey (D-California)
John Yarmuth (D-Kentucky)
After the ceremony, we will report back on what the main themes of winners’ remarks are. So stay tuned!
Yesterday, the U.S. Census Bureau released data collected from the 2009 census, and the findings are grim. Nearly 44 million Americans are living below the poverty line, which is the highest recorded number of Americans living in poverty since the census began tracking this data 51 years ago. This represents an increase in the nation’s official poverty rate to 14.3 percent, up from 13.2 percent in 2008.
As the November elections near, these findings throw into stark relief a country in the midst of labor market turmoil, economic instability, and uncertainty and hardship for many working families.
From yesterday’s Washington Post:
Since 2007, the year before the recession kicked into gear, the country has almost 4 million fewer wage-earners. There are more children growing up poor. And for the first time since the government began tracking health insurance in 1987, the number of people who have health coverage declined, as people lost jobs with health benefits or employers stopped offering it.
While the new data reflect increased poverty due to joblessness and unemployment, they also reflect a growing demographic of the “working poor.” The “working poor” are those Americans who, despite working hard and often holding multiple jobs, struggle simply to survive. The increase in the poverty rate added 3.8 million people to the class of the “working poor,”who live so close to poverty’s edge that any minor disruption– a family illness, job layoff, or car breakdown–can start a domino effect leading towards more dire poverty and, even eventual destitution.
Scholars and practitioners have suggested various policies to help the working poor, including adjusting wage structures, increasing investment in education and workforce readiness training, and improving the social safety net and the health care system.
Corporate Voices believes, however, that businesses, especially those with large hourly workforces, have an important role to play in helping the working poor by educating their employees about the existing resources that are available to them, such as the many family-friendly tax credits expanded by the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act (2009). These tax credits put hard-earned money back into the pockets of people who need the extra financial help to feed, clothe, house, and educate their families.
These tax credits include:
The Administration is in favor of maintaining and extending these tax credits for middle and low-income families. There are also resources and toolkits, like Corporate Voices’ 2009 Employer Guide, which provide businesses with practical step-by-step pointers and fliers to help them communicate the tax credits and other social benefits that are available to their employees. The Employer Guide includes (in English and Spanish):
Corporate Voices invites businesses to download this Employer Guide, free of charge, to use in helping improve the economic stability of their workforce. Doing so would be one step in the right direction in improving the lives of their working families, and the working poor across the country.
Yesterday, Corporate Voices and Working Mother Media publicly recognized the 30 winners of this year’s Best of Congress Award. The Award recognizes Congressional excellence in improving the lives of working families through advancing national legislation, advocacy, and supporting family-friendly work policies in their own offices.
