Listen Live
Magic 95.5 Featured Video
CLOSE

Watch Michelle Obama at the White House Summit for Working Families talk about her toughest time as a mother above. 

While President Barack Obama supports flexibility for working families, single mothers and pregnant women in the workforce, Republicans, who always claim to promote family values, continue to push back on the President’s critical domestic initiatives. Republicans are hypocrites – and they aren’t even trying to hide it.

“Parents who work full time should earn enough to pay the bills,” Obama said in a recent speech during the White House Summit for Working Families. “Even if Republicans in Congress refuse to budge on this issue this year, everyone knows America deserves a raise.”

The summit was hosted by the White House to circumvent a mean-spirited Republican-controlled House. It was designed to help families’ better balance work and spend more time at home. Obama announced a package of both public and private sector efforts that will protect pregnant working women, increase investments for research to understand the economic benefits of paid leave, expand apprenticeships for women, and make child care more affordable for working families.

The White House said since Obama grew up as the son of a single mother, paid off his student loans, and is raising two young daughters in a household with two working parents, he understands the value of hard work and the many struggles that American families face today.

“Many women can’t even get a paid day off to give birth,” Obama said. “Now that’s a pretty low bar. “When women succeed, America succeeds, so there’s no such thing as a women’s issue. … There’s a family issue and an American issue.” “There is only one developed country that does not mandate paid maternity leave,” Obama said, “and that is us. And that is not the list you want to be on by your lonesome.”

Obama signed a Presidential memo this week directing the federal government to expand access to flexible time for workers. Labor Secretary Thomas Perez will head a $25 million initiative to help people who want to enroll in job-training programs but don’t have access to child care.

“I take this personally because I’m the husband of a brilliant woman who struggled to balance work and raising our girls when I was away,” Obama continued. “And most of all, I take it personally because I am the father of two unbelievable young ladies.”

COMMENTARY: Obama Wants Every Family To Have The Flexibility His Does [VIDEO]  was originally published on blackamericaweb.com

1 2Next page »