Ask the Presidential Candidates Support Our Mama's Agenda!

Dear Presidential Candidates:

We are writing to call on all presidential candidates to support Mothering Justice’s Mama’s Agenda. Mothering Justice is a non-profit organization dedicated to returning decision making power to those affected by these decisions the most –- mothers. By empowering mothers to influence policy on behalf of themselves and their families through advocacy, leadership development, and voter empowerment, Mothering Justice aims to change the future of families in Michigan for the better. This organization empowers a well-organized group of mothers that can engage mothers and law makers around a variety of issues that affect working families.

By supporting the Mama’s Agenda, you are an advocate for:

Earned Paid Sick Time. 1 in 4 (25%) women are forced to return to work within 2 weeks of giving birth to support their families. More than 2 million Michigan workers are unable to take a paid sick day when they are ill. More than 3 in 4 food service and hotel workers (78%) do not have a single paid sick day. Women are more likely to have caregiving responsibilities in addition to their paid employment, including caring for elderly parents, children or ill spouses/partner. Without paid sick days, women are often left with no choice but to forego pay in order to meet their families’ health care needs. Workers in child care centers and nursing homes also overwhelmingly lack paid sick days. For these families, each time they take needed time off, they risk their families’ economic security and jeopardize the public’s health.

Affordable Child Care. Mothers undergo a great deal of stress to find care for their children while at work. For middle income families, full-time childcare is unaffordable. Child care can exceed the annual cost of rent, averaging $9800, and access for children of all ages is particularly difficult, especially for Mothers who work outside of a 9-5 workday. The National Association of Child Care Resource and Referral Agencies has noted that even families living at twice the federally designated poverty level struggle to afford child care, and single parents face an especially immense challenge.

Women’s Health. Mothering Justice seeks to address two significant issues: Infant & Maternal Mortality and Maternal Incarceration. Approximately 80 women die each year in just Michigan due to pregnancy, and Black women in Michigan die at a rate more than 4.5 times higher than Non-Hispanic White women. Black infants are now more than twice as likely to die as white infants (adds up to approximately 4,000 lost black babies). This tragedy of black infant mortality is intimately intertwined with the crisis of death and near death in Black mothers themselves. The treatment of incarcerated women’s reproduction is an indicator of how society values the human rights of its most vulnerable members. In many states, women are shackled while they labor and give birth. Infants born to incarcerated mothers are usually taken away within 24 hours. An estimated 1 in 25 female inmates in the United States is pregnant. Despite the fact that children are born in prison, there is currently no national policy in the United States that says what should happen to these infants and their mothers.

Safety Net. The largest areas under attack within the Safety Net are Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP) and Medicare/Medicaid. We are not only advocating to prevent cuts for these programs, but also to eliminate harsh forms of eligibility, for instance, work requirements and/or arduous monthly reporting. 1.3 million people participate in SNAP, making it the most effective anti-hunger program, with most SNAP participants being children, seniors, or people with disabilities. Medicaid provides health coverage to 37 million children, along with the nearly 9 million kids covered under the Children’s Health Insurance Program (CHIP). Medicaid also pays for nearly half of all U.S. births, which impacts mothers tremendously. Expansions of Medicaid coverage for low-income pregnant women during the 1980s and early 1990s led to an 8.5% reduction in infant mortality.

When mothers are unable to advocate for solutions to the problems that affect them, a vital voice is missing from the discussion. For far too long, mothers have been left out of the conversation. Moms across the country have signed onto this letter, supporting presidential candidates’ adoption of this agenda. With your support for the Mama’s agenda, together, we can ensure that mothers are not being excluded from these conversations, but instead, are being empowered to lead them.

Sincerely,
Mothering Justice

248-677-4828
MotheringJustice.org
777 Livernois Ave.
Ferndale, MI 48220