Monday, December 22, 2008

We asked. The Transition Team responded.

Transition Team Announces Appointment of Task Force on Working Families in line with Wider Opportunities for Women's Recommendation

After our remarks to the Obama Transition Team last week, we are delighted the incoming administration is committing to work toward economic security for families and elders.

Read the Washington Post article about the Task Force here.

For Immediate Release
Contact: Susan Rees
(202) 464-1596
srees@wowonline.org

December 22, 2008

Task Force Shows Commitment to Working Families’ Agenda

Washington, DC—Wider Opportunities for Women’s Executive Director, Joan Kuriansky, praised the new administration’s Task Force of Working Families and reiterated WOW’s support for this inter-agency task force.

The impact of measuring policies and programs designed to improve the quality of life for all working families to a ‘yardstick’ can make a profound difference in both the administration of public programming and in the lives of the people they touch. “For over 40 years WOW has worked across the nation and in its home community of Washington, DC to build pathways to economic security for America’s families. That the administration has produced a vision for a task force which is in line with our recommendation for a Task Force on Economic Security demonstrates their commitment to working families and to listening to the advocates who exist to serve those working families,” Kuriansky said.

“Now more than ever we need tools to rebuild our communities, our economy and the American Dream—the American Dream in which all men and women have access to quality jobs that enable them to pay their bills, give their children a good education and prepare for the day they can retire in dignity with financial security in their own communities. An interagency task force dedicated to using a tool, a ‘yardstick’, to measure how far our families have come in terms of income adequacy and economic security can move federal policies and programs in the right direction.

“We applaud the administration’s goals for this task force. Putting an administration-wide emphasis on expanding education and lifelong training opportunities, improving work and family balance, restoring labor standards, including workplace safety, helping to protect middle-class and working-family incomes, and protecting retirement security are key ingredients to economic security for all working families. WOW looks forward to working with the administration to achieve movement along the administration’s yardstick and for American families,” Kuriansky concluded.

Wider Opportunities for Women (WOW) is a national organization that has helped women and their families achieve economic independence and equality of opportunity for over 40 years. Through our national Family Economic Self-Sufficiency Project and Elder Economic Security Initiative, WOW works with over 2,500 allies and partners in 40states. For more than 40 years, WOW has helped women learn to earn, with programs emphasizing literacy, technical and nontraditional skills, the welfare-to-work transition, career development, and retirement security. Since 1964, WOW has trained more than 10,000 women for well-paid work in the DC area. WOW leads the National Women's Workforce Network, which is comprised of organizations committed to increasing women and girls' access to well-paid work, the Family Economic Self-Sufficiency Project, and the Elder Economic Security Initiative.
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