Shriver Maria - The Shriver Report: A Woman’s Nation Pushes Back from the Brink

THE

SHRIVER

REPORT

A Womans Nation
Pushes Back from the Brink

A Study by Maria Shriver and the Center for American Progress

JANUARY 2014

Edited by Olivia Morgan and Karen Skelton
WITH ROBERTA HOLLANDER, DANIELLA GIBBS LEGER, AND LAUREN VICARY

BECKY BELAND, MELISSA BOTEACH, AND KATIE WRIGHT

The Shriver Report commissioned a team of award-winning photographers to crisscross the country, capturing a day in the life of women living on the brink. The team was led by photojournalist Barbara Kinney and included Melissa Farlow, Melissa Lyttle, Barbara Ries, Callie Shell, Jan Sonnenmair, and Ami Vitale.

Photo subjects include Katrina Gilbert of Chattanooga, Tennessee, who is the subject of an upcoming HBO Documentary from Emmy Award-winning filmmakers Shari Cookson and Nick Doob. The film is a component of The Shriver Report project and is scheduled for release in 2014.

Cover photo credits: Melissa Lyttle (top); Jan Sonnenmair, Barbara Kinney, Barbara Ries (bottom, left right)

JULIE KAAS Tacoma, Washington

Julie is a preschool teacher who is adjusting to life as a single mother of three teenage boys after her marriage of 25 years ended. Unprepared for her new role as the breadwinner, Julie turned to Washington Womens Employment and Education, or WWEE, for leadership training, dress for success courses, technology lessons, and community support. She graduated from the program during the summer of 2013. Julie depends on child support, but shes gaining skills and working toward a job that will give her the financial security and benefits she needs for herself and her sons.

I dream I will have a job where I can make people feel important and where I will be able to earn enough to keep my home and support myself, she said. I want to be independent.

By JULIE KAAS, a 48-year-old part-time preschool teacher and mother of three teenage boys.

In August 2012, my marriage ended suddenly after 25 years. It was a shock, but also a relief, because my husband had been angry for years. After he left, it was amazing how there was peace in our house again. But I was scared to death thinking I couldnt make adult decisions, that I wouldnt be able to handle my kids, and that I wouldnt be able to keep a roof over our heads.

Child support covers the payment on our trailer housebut not for too much longer, because my boys are 14, 16, and 18. I can barely pay all the bills. I make $15,000 to $20,000 a year teaching preschool. I know I have to go back to school and change careers. I dream I will get a job where I will be able to earn enough to keep my home and support myself. I want to be independent. My goal is to make $40,000 a year.

I looked up newly divorced and separated online and learned about Washington Womens Employment & Education, or WWEE, a nonprofit that helps low-income women learn how to be self-supporting. At first, I was overwhelmed and panicked and bawled the whole way home. But WWEE changed my life.

They taught me computer skills, how to dress professionally, how to interview, and how to write a rsum. They had us examine our strengths, weaknesses, and hang-ups. We looked at lies we had learned to tell ourselves. In my case, Id told myself I wasnt college material, that I wasnt smart enough, that I was a lovey-dovey nurturing person who would never make it in the workforce. By the end of the course, I had a portfolio, a rsum, and references, as well as the ability and confidence to go on an interview and nail it.

Now Im going to the WorkSource Center in Tacoma. Theyre helping me identify what I want to do, where to get training, and how to get financial aid. They treat you like a person, not a number. Im thinking of going into occupational therapy.

The boys are actually adjusting and doing amazingly well. Right now, my own feelings are pretty good, but in a week or two, Ill have a panic attack. Ive never managed my money before, and Ive made a few mistakes. But everythings slowly getting better. Im just getting to the point where Im confident Ill be finethat I can go to school, get a decent job, and make it.

I grew up in a suburb of Boston, the child of two immigrants who had come from India decades earlier. We lived in a house in Bedford, Massachusetts, a quintessential middle-class town. But when I was 5, my parents got divorced and my dad left. My mother was on her own. Having never held a job before, she faced the choice of going back to India or going on welfare to support her two young children. In India, we would have been stigmatized; no one got divorced there in the 1970s. She knew that the children of a divorced woman would have limited life opportunities in India.

So we stayed. We were on welfare. We were on food stamps. And we received Section 8 housing vouchers to help pay the rent. Thanks to a new law in Massachusetts, we were able to use those vouchers to move into an apartment in Bedford and remain in our towns good public schools. My mom eventually got a job as a travel agent and later became a contracts administrator for a defense company. By the time I was 11, she was able to buy her own house in Bedford.

Looking back, I know that whatever success Ive achieved in life is thanks to my mothers tenacity and her commitment to giving each of her children a better life. But I also know that she was able to do what she did because of a social safety net that allowed her to get back on her feet. She was lucky to live in a country that says just because youre down, it doesnt mean youre out.

Yet today, our countrys commitment to this basic creed is being put to the test. Its harder than ever for many Americans to move up into the middle class and achieve financial security. Too many Americans, particularly women, are struggling to balance their responsibilities at work and at home. And too many women toil away in jobs that dont pay a living wage and dont offer proper benefits. As a result, too many women are living on the brink, unable to achieve their full potential.

These issues are critical to women, but they arent just womens issues. By addressing them, we strengthen our families, our economy, and our entire country. Thats why as the President of the Center for American Progress, or CAP, I work every day to promote policies that will support women like my mother, and ensure that all women are able to give their children the same opportunities my mother gave me.

Its been nearly five years since CAP and The Shriver Report first collaborated on The Shriver Report: A Womans Nation Changes Everything , which examined how the rise of women in the workplace is changing the way we work and live. That first report helped spark a national discussion about this profound transformation in American society, and over the past few years, Ive been inspired by the growing wave of energy and interest in these issues. In the political sphere, a record number of women were elected to the Senate in 2012, and there is enormous excitement about the prospect of finally electing a woman president. In the media, theres been a vigorous public conversation about womens leadership in the workplace. And in the policy realm, there have been powerful calls for new investments in preschool and child care at the national level.