WASHINGTON, DC – JULY 25: U.S. Commerce Secretary Gina Raimondo listens as U.S. President Joe Biden virtually participates in a meeting on the Creating Useful Semiconductor Production Incentives (CHIPS) Act for the ‘America, at the South Court Auditorium of the White House in July. 25, 2022 in Washington, DC.
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On Monday, while U.S. Commerce Secretary Gina Raimondo was in Texas to tour a new Samsung semiconductor plant being built with financial support from the CHIPS Act, the CEO of the South Korean conglomerate’s chip division took the Secretary of Commerce aside to show her where the building was. would be one that would house an on-campus daycare and an on-campus career training center. Recalling that meeting in an interview with CNBC’s Sara Eisen at CNBC’s first Changemakers Summit in New York on Thursday, Raimondo said the Samsung executive added: “This is what we do in Korea, and we know his work , and of course we will. here.”
The interaction had a story. The U.S. government has tied funding for the CHIPs Act, worth billions for businesses, to plans to provide employees with access to child care. This was not well received by all lawmakers.
“Some politicians on Capitol Hill didn’t like my position, but the people who run these companies, who know they need top talent, understand,” she said. “Anyone who thinks child care is social policy is deeply mistaken and doesn’t know how to run a business,” added Raimondo, who was named to CNBC’s inaugural Changemakers list earlier this year.
Raimondo, who was an attorney early in her career before becoming a general partner at a venture capital firm and finally governor of Rhode Island — and who now has two teenagers — said providing access to child care Affordable, high-quality childcare doesn’t mean the company has to provide it on-site, but it does mean that, just as companies provide health care and paid leave and invest in programs like continuing education, childcare should be an essential benefit.
“I wasn’t prescribing a way for them to do it. What we were saying is if you want taxpayer dollars, you have to prove to us that you will succeed,” Raimondo said, adding that the companies will not succeed without finding and retaining the best talent. “Childcare is essential to enable women to work,” she said.
This is also proven in economic terms, according to Jessica Chang, co-founder and CEO of child care provider Upwards, which provides access to benefits and child care services from Amazon, to the military American and other business and government customers. During a separate session at CNBC Changemakers, she highlighted a recent study from the Boston Consulting Group that measured the ROI of access to child care between 90% and 425%. The same study found that it was enough to prevent 1% of eligible employees from leaving their jobs – which she had to do when she became a mother – to pay for child care as a benefit. all employees.
“What they don’t tell you when you decide to start a family is that it should be the happiest day of your life, but for women, you have a choice: you can have a career or a “I was made this choice, and it wasn’t up to me to make this choice, it was up to society,” Chang said in the Changemakers interview with CNBC’s Julia Boorstin. She explained that if she had continued her career, her entire after-tax salary would have been spent on childcare and that every childcare provider in her area was on a waiting list. Even if she managed to find a place, “I could go back to work and not spend time with my child and also not expand my family (finances).”
“Enough is enough. We need to fix this now,” said Chang, who was named to CNBC’s inaugural Changemakers list earlier this year. Chang remembers that when she was raising money for her startup, she was in a final meeting with a whole group of partners, “and a male partner came in and said, ‘I don’t understand…is this a real problem?’ I haven’t really experienced that, so how many people really think child care is a problem And why do you call it a crisis… If I had to do it again, I would say I should have gotten out? of the room.”
There is also plenty of business-endorsed research showing that it’s not just women in the workforce, but also the early education of the next generation of workers that is at stake, including a 2019 study of the United States Chamber of Commerce, the largest business. trade group.
“The business community really needs to raise its voice and make it clear that this is not a social policy, it’s an economic policy,” said Raimondo, who is overseeing a Commerce Department budget that has grown from a historic average of $10 billion to $150 billion. “If you want a strong economy, women have to participate and for that to happen, we need strong child care,” she said. “Companies need to have more women in top positions and the only way to do that is to help them get there, and childcare is a key piece of the puzzle.”
Raimondo noted that half of Americans live in a “child care desert,” with an insufficient number of services available at an affordable cost.
“I’m trying to make the case that this is a trade issue, not just a women’s issue or a social issue,” said Raimondo, who will host a Commerce Department summit on guard of children in June.
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