CNN "CNN Newsroom" - Transcript: Interview with Rep. Katherine Clark

Interview

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REP. KATHERINE CLARK (D-MA): Help the families and our issues that I've been fighting for and women in Congress have been bringing to the leadership table. And it's going to be exciting to see that visual and what it represents because, to me, it shows that this administration is seeing the American people and seeing the role of women that they have in providing for our families and elevating that to the important recognition that their work is critical to our economic infrastructure.

POPPY HARLOW, CNN ANCHOR: In fact, you and Senator Elizabeth Warren are asking the administration to go beyond what they're going to lay out tonight. You sent this letter to President Biden on Friday calling for him to triple the amount in child care spending to $700 billion.

Has the White House responded? Are they open to that?

CLARK: You know, I think what we are seeing tonight is that the White House sees those issues, like child care. You know, we're going to see the first time a president putting funding in for universal pre-k. So, yes, Elizabeth Warren and I are saying, let's make sure that we act boldly and with the urgency that is required around child care.

But tonight is a starting point and we are celebrating the fact that child care is finally being recognized as the critical part of getting people back to work and making sure that it is equitable because not only does the president's plan provide for more child care that can save a typical American family $13,000 a year, it is also working on the primarily female workforce that makes up our early educators and making sure they are paid a living wage.

HARLOW: I'm sure you saw this yesterday, but "The Washington Post" has a stunning poll. And it shows that one in four women in America now say they are worse off financially than before the pandemic. More women lost their job, many more -- millions more than men during the pandemic. Many of them because they had to make the impossible choice of do I, you know, choose my job or choose my kids? Do I stay home and take care of my kids who aren't in school?

I wonder, and I understand all you've laid out, but I wonder if you think the administration has a specific enough plan to help those women get back to work beyond the child care and universal pre-k, which matters. It does. But a lot of these women's jobs have been either eliminated or given other to people. What do we do for them?

CLARK: You know, I think that work has begun already. And you're absolutely right, Poppy, women have taken the brunt of the economic fallout from this pandemic. And we're seeing that we are at a 33-year low in women's participation in the economy. And we are not going to leave them behind.

And it started with the American Rescue Plan, making sure that we were getting stimulus checks out. Those survivor checks to families. That we were having PPP loans. My virtual guest tonight is a small business owner and a child care provider in my district. The CARES Act enabled her to reopen her business and the American Families Plan and the American Rescue Plan are going to enable her to grow it and build back stronger.

And so that is the story of women in this economy and one of the lessons we have to take is making these investments. Whether it's in meeting the immediate needs through expanded unemployment, rent stabilization, making sure we are feeding the 12 million children that go to bed hungry every night in this country, to making those longer term investments we see in the jobs plan and the families plan, to make sure that women are -- whether they are working in our essential jobs, through the c (ph) suite, that they are able to participate fully and provide for their families. And that's why I'm so excited about this care agenda. It is fundamental to supporting women in our workforce.

HARLOW: Well, it's an American tragedy that the labor force participation rate shows that women have lost a generation of progress in just over a year. I pray that those numbers turn around.

Congresswoman Katherine Clark, we're out of time, but we'll have you back soon.

Thanks very much.

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