Would. Out 1st ladies he paid nothing. There is clearly not equal pay in the white house but before i wanted to make sure we michelle get paid is much as she could. I want a big paycheck from michelle. That was in a womens issue. That made us able to pay the bills. While what i want my spouse her daughter is not paid . That does make any sense. We will keep on pushing into labeled goes on. I i would like to see some hands from people in the audience. Please stand up. Yeah. [inaudible conversations] i think we can hear you. Are you guys hearing about your . Why dont we work on that mike. Hold on a 2nd. It stretches. [laughter] i, mr. President. It is an hour to me you. My question my question is 1st of all, i believe that the key to Economic Growth and the key to any cycle of poverty i think what can the government do on a federal level to increase wages and teachers . Traditionally and stereotypically a female profession. My husband is a a Public School teacher. I am a blogger. Our business, we make significantly more money is on a blog that he makes is a Public School teacher. For three years for three years we were on government aid, and i am thankful he had that. There are teachers that are leaving the profession because they cannot afford to feed their families. I want the children are country never get education. Females, you know my husband is a male female so the females who are single women supporting themselves in a teacher salary. What can the federal government do to put pressure on the state is to increase teacher income . First of all, three daughters, two, four, six. You are busy. [laughter] two, two, four, six. Did you bring them hear . This is pretty nice. I love those days when melia and sasha were that age elected coming out. You can go you can go to all the movies like monsters incorporated. I love those movies. Great story and people didnt think you will be watching them. Too little kids. Your. About teachers is absolutely right. And you are also right that historically this has been a state issue. Schools are generally funded through the state and typically through property taxes. The federal government total education budget accounts for about 7 percent of total education spending. And one of the things that we think is really important is making sure that the federal government in providing assistance to School Districts encourages states to do their fair share as well. In fact, there was a debate taking place because House Republicans were talking about changing the formula were federal and state ages resided so that it will be okay to take federalaid in the reduce the amount of state dollars going to education. Paying for tax cuts for somebody else and teachers would be no better off. But ill be honest with you the primary way we can have an impact of the federal level is to. Out states that are doing better in states that are doing worse and to talk about the importance of teachers in our Economic Growth in our society my sister was a teacher. So i no how little she had paid. It is hard to support a family. A lot of young people who are really talented who want to go on to teach in places like korea and finland with the Education System is doing well. Teachers are paid at the level that doctors and engineers are paid. And respected as a profession. Frankly we have to put more pressure on states. There are not that many levers we have to encourage days to change the pay structure. I we will editorialize a little bit. This used to be a state in which the promise of education was understood at the State Government level and the reason North Carolina did better economically than many of the other Midatlantic States was because of the Research Triangle and the emphasis on education. My good friend the governor who used to play such a big emphasis on the funding now here in the state and teacher pay is ranking as low as it gets. And so part of it is just pointing that out. Hopefully understanding that this should not be a partisan issue. It should not matter whether your republican or democrat. You should want to make sure the schools are successful which require teachers that are motivated, have professional training also making an upward living so they can afford a a middleclass lifestyle. [applause] picking up on that, aaron mentioned you have two four, and six yearolds we surveyed 57 57 different moms here in australia greater area. Their primary concern was familyfriendly policies. They feel that they are particularly struggling with Early Childhood. The question online from somebody you said you know the us is behind other countries have been successful in developing paid Maternity Leave in some cases paternity leave. We. Were not investing in the 1st five years of childhood to the same tuna some of our International Economic competitors. What is the solution . The solution is for us to expand access to Early Childhood education. Here is what we know all we know that this is the smartest investment we can make as a society. Every dollar we put in in the high quality Early Childhood education we 7 back in reduce teen pregnancy, improve Graduation Rates to improve performance a school, reduced incarceration society as a whole is better and this is not just a problem for the poorest of the poor although that obviously is a very important factor busy have a lot of single moms out there. If we want to get them into the workforce they have to feel like there is reliable childcare. We also want to make that childcare high quality so that those kids now having letters opportunity that are available. But it is also this is a middleclass this is an american issue. When michelle and i when our dollars or five six we are one of the Biggest Challenges we had was finding good childcare and being able to afford it at a a time we were still paying off debt , trying to my house for the 1st time generally all those things command we were making a lot more money and a lot of people did. I no if it was hard for us i can only imagine what its like for someone making 40 50,000 a year less. And the good news is that at the state level we have actually seen some recognition. Im encouraged by the fact that is not just the traditional states you expect but also a lot of socalled red states where the governors have said this is important. Oklahoma has outstanding Early Childhood initiatives going. Excuse me. I was fighting on for a while. Georgia is doing some excellent work around Early Childhood. No we have been doing is providing Early Childhood education grants through the department of education to try to help put together publicprivate partnerships to get state and federal money so that we can develop funnels of outstanding Early Childhood education and show what a difference it can make, in the make commander can make a huge difference in terms of longterm performance. We know that a very poor child when they show up at kindergarten they are already behind millions of words. They just heard so much less that they are the gap that needs to be closed, but we also no there is a high quality Early ChildhoodEducation Program that even apparent shooting graduate my school is talking to the child and getting support a child is at a high quality Early Childhood level that gap can quickly. It may soak up like a sponge what we are were trying to do is put together coalitions of the state levels and city levels, and i hope is that by showing that this can work in a variety of places that eventually congress recognizes this is a competitive issue for us globally as well. France the Early Childhood programs are so good at everybody, the wealthiest as well as the poorest all send their kids to Early ChildhoodEducation Programs the the teachers there are just babysitters but professionally trained in Early Childhood development and it pays off. It it is a great way for us to make sure every child gets opportunity and to relieve some pressure from parents who have to work. Thank you. [applause] other questions . In the red. Lets get a mike next line. My name is colette barnes. Im a single parent. I used to receive the childcare voucher, so voucher, so i no how important it is. We lost it and the lot of sisters of the help made choices whether or not to pay for before school care of our afterschool care because we had to work and needed it. This was not a plan but it so happens that we are actually proposing is part of my budget package to triple the child credit which would translate to potentially an additional 900 per year per child command thats going to make a big difference. You know, so at the federal level at least this should be one of our top Budget Priorities and serve. Its in everyones interest to make sure that our kids nsa our because the one thing i really believe is that even if youre single single, even if your kids are going community if your kids are like mine on the way to college soon become boring and not want to hang out with me as much as they used to your kid is important to me to. And that is not out of charity. That is because your child son or daughter when eight yearold son. Your son, if he is doing well that means is paying taxes, contribute to society busting in trouble. That is a good investment for me. Want to make sure that those families who are working hard for doing the right thing, the vegas and actually. And the one thing i want to emphasize because sometimes only talk about things like Early Childhood people said say that will be nice but cant afford. Well, if we closed a few Corporate Tax loopholes that are not contribute to the economy right now and we can afford it without increasing the deficit. And i want to make this. Even though its a little offtopic but it often times the backdrop against which these debates take place a party to this irresponsible. Let me say this. The federal deficit has come down by two thirds. It has not gone up. Has come down by two thirds. So when bill clinton was president budget balanced and we had low deficits. Then somebody else can i inherited a user session that drove up the deficit even is really spending programs because part of what we didnt say lets did say lets make sure the tax code is fair to make sure were eliminating programs that dont work to help middleclass families. There are ways to afford my budget what needs to be done but it does require us making some choices which is why when i here puzzle to reduce what we call the trust fund and paul so that the top one 10th of 1 percent i getting a tax break by now the way it works is you dont even pay this tax until you have five and a half million dollars. We forgive those folks at tax break for 270 billion. All that money we could be spending they could provide tax credits for childcare work is when you go to college. You have to have some priorities. It turns out that a lot of people including a lot of rich people. Some of them are big supporters of mine. Warm buffet designated taxpayer. He really doesnt. He has too much money spent. He can spend so. Even with all the money is giving away his still gets medical. Why would we be giving him a taxpayer with our budget families who need help . And this is something that we really have to focus on. It should not even be a partisan issue. Its its just a matter of common sense of fairness. Mr. President , you were just talking about some of the nations wealthy and also a little bit of corporate responsibility. I i want to ask you about the private enterprise. Im visiting from Silicon Valley where for the past year unfortunately it seems the valley has become a poster child for the challenges women are having penetrating the leadership of some of our best technology companies. Women are lacking venturecapital firms for not running as Many Companies plan on the leadership pipeline is in fact we are getting as many stem related majors as we used to. So when i think about some of the responsibilities you are saying the government has i would ask you what is the economic risk in Silicon Valley or here in the entire American Economy competitive to having fuel women empowered in leadership positions at home and in corporate america. What are we giving up . Pilot benefits . Insight . Let me use a sports analogy. This is pretty good basketball. And perhaps some. It everyone catch that . You know you are not feel the team with half the players. You wouldnt go in the game the other side has 12 and you decided to step six. You you want all the team, the entire team to be available. The same is true for the country. He mentioned engineers. We have a shortage of engineers. We need more but the fact of the matter is that because of how we structure Stem Education way restructured often times girls get discouraged early going into this feels. And we no actually from experiments and data and what happens in the classroom the some of it is just making little changes in terms of how things are top that some of it is just making little changes in terms of how things are top. They have just as much talent. And that and that unfortunately is still through and a lot of our country. There are certain things that we dont encourage our dollars to do. They start making choices because they dont see representation of themselves in certain fields. Really interesting story chief Technology Officer who came over from google told me when csi came on the phone and i have to admit i dont watch a very often. No offense to csi. It seems like a popular show apparently there was a woman all women who were involved in forensics in the show. It shows up finding hair fibers or something. And was the show came on the number of young women going into the field skyrocketed because all it took was girl saying i didnt no i could be that. So we as a society have to do better. Public sector, private sector, we are putting emphasis emphasis on Stem Education specifically for girls. The same is true for underrepresented minority groups and that requires us collectively parents community, churches, others encouraging people because these are the fields will be going. The solid has to do with companies wanting to make it happen. They have to be intentional. And those companies that Pay Attention to end up succeeding in recruiting promoting more in this Companies End up being more successful. And i. And i am trying to set an example in the white house right now. Guys level guys level of advisor i have is assistant to the president. We have more women than men right now. But that wasnt always the case. When i 1st came in we had to say we have to do better. How do. Natalie make sure were promoting talent . And it is true that companies can make a big difference. I will give give two examples of how companies can make a difference. Slightly different issue but it shows the Power Companies have. We started this minimum Wage Campaign one of the places i went to was cosco is not only did they pay their workers matter wage they paid him a living wage and provided Health Care Benefits and work is the preferable. We want to show that could be done and you have other Companies Like announced that they were going to raise wages on their employees. Most recently walmart came in. You no somethings happening. So you can change attitudes and culture through a corporate example the issue of paid leave. There are 40 plus million americans who are working and dont have sick leave. They dont have sick leave. They get sick theres nothing they can do. They either go to work sick or lose her job. Family leader still unpaid. A a lot of women cant take advantage of it. Well, recently microsoft Just Announced that only does it make sure that it has a strong sick leave and paid leave but it is actually only going to do business with contractors and do the same thing. So big company like microsoft i can start influencing some other subcontractors and suppliers down the chain, that could end up having a big impact. For companies that are brand names and set the standard for them to show were doing more women to promote women to put them in positions of authority that sends a signal to our dollars and to the companies that we do. A a number of the women and men here are Small Business owners and it will be interesting to hear your thoughts and how we could encourage those businesses to get some of the support that doesnt exist. If there are federal policies from which we can benefit from showing good faith im assuming am right was Small BusinessAdministration Level programs are available in a Small Business when you dont have a safety net for dont have an Hr Department and dont have the ability to call on a our larger power. Its important. The examples i use time they didnt get a federal benefit they just they just thought it was my business sense. Lower turnover, higher productivity for greater Em