Corporate Voices Newsletter - May 2009
The Next 100 Days: from Aspiration to Actuality
Workplace Flexibility Benefits Hourly Workers/Businesses
Welcome to the Corporate Voices Newsletter
DCFSA: Vehicle for More Affordable Child Care
Michelle Obama’s Talk At Corporate Voices Meeting Gains National Media Coverage
The Next 100 Days: From Aspiration to Actuality
The appearance of Michelle Obama highlighted our 8th Annual Partners Meeting, held May 7 and 8 at the Mayflower Hotel in Washington. Mrs. Obama’s visit gave us the opportunity to share with her our insights, perspective and accomplishments on the work and family issues that are priorities for her and for the Obama administration. 
And the meeting – sponsored by our partner companies Baxter International Inc. and Johnson & Johnson – was rich with other content and discussion as well. Brad Harrington and our friends and associates with the National Work & Family Roundtable joined us.
We gained considerable insight from Jared Bernstein about the administration’s key policy initiatives and agenda involving middle class and lower wage working families. Jared is Executive Director, White House Task Force on Middle Class Working Families and Chief Economist and Economic Policy Advisor for Vice President Joe Biden.
Following Jared’s remarks, we had an engaging and interactive session that allowed all the participants to share their concerns, accomplishments and best practices directly to the Middle Class Task Force convened by Vice President Biden.
Throughout the afternoon-long session we looked at how working families are struggling in today’s difficult economy to balance the often-conflicting demands and responsibilities at home and on the job. As part of this discussion, Chai Feldblum shared with us policy challenges and opportunities for workplace flexibility and the framework Georgetown 2010 has created for policy dialogue on flexibility.
The second day of the meeting focused on new and successful approaches to preparing our young people to succeed in school, on the job and throughout life.
One panel discussion examined the challenges and opportunities inherent in the Ready by 21 initiative.
Our closing panel featured executives from AOL, CVS and State Street Bank discussing their successful partnerships with Year Up to develop and retain skilled and diverse entry-level talent.
Workplace Flexibility Benefits Hourly Workers/Businesses
When Michelle Obama attended the Corporate Voices for Working Families Annual Meeting May 7, she talked about the importance of work-life programs to working families and to the competitiveness of American business.
The First Lady said:
Things are very different for working families than when many of us were growing up. I talked about this a lot on the campaign trail. When I look back on my childhood and the life that my parents provided, working-class folks with not a lot of money, my father was a blue-collar city worker who worked a shift job. But because he earned enough as a shift worker without a college degree, he could still support a family of four on that salary. And because he could, with that salary, support us — we rented a home, we didn’t live lavishly — my mother was able to stay at home. She could afford to make the choice not to go to work while we were growing up. That was how families balanced back then.
But things are very different today. One income really doesn’t always cut it anymore. And that’s in my lifetime. In most families, both parents have to work, and even if people want to make the choice to stay home. And again, there is no subjective analysis or — of what is better. But people can’t make the choice. It’s even harder for single parents, and there are millions of them all across this country who are trying to build a life for themselves and their children, and they find in an economy that’s tough that they’re not just holding down one but they need a couple of jobs just to make ends meet.
In conjunction with Mrs. Obama’s talk, Corporate Voices released a comprehensive study that looks at workplace flexibility options and programs involving hourly employees, Innovative Workplace Flexibility Options for Hourly Workers.
The study finds that workplace flexibility initiatives for hourly employees are as successful as those designed for professional staff. And it demonstrates that businesses offering hourly employees flexible work options benefit through enhanced recruitment, retention, engagement, cost control, productivity and financial performance.
Here’s a link to a news release that provides highlights of the research findings and another to an executive summary.
About Corporate Voices for Working Families, Mrs. Obama said:
So there are a lot of people counting on us to figure this out. And one of the reasons I was interested in joining you today is because the research that you do provides a solid foundation for the conversations that we need to have on these issues. Through your work, the private sector, government and other key stakeholders can have a real dialogue based on facts, find common ground and then develop innovative policies that can help employees manage their work and family obligations, without going crazy.
In promoting best practices – some of which I believe we’ll hear about today, and I’m really looking forward to hearing about how some companies are making it work, because that’s how we’re going to figure this out, looking at the best practices and figuring out how we can replicate that — employers here learn how to implement programs that are beneficial to the bottom line.
Innovative Workplace Flexibility Options for Hourly Workers was researched and written by WFD Consulting and supported by a grant from the Alfred P. Sloan Foundation.
Welcome to the Corporate Voices Newsletter
Welcome to this first issue of our e-newsletter. We view this as a forum that will enable us to periodically inform our many friends and associates about our research, business best practices, legislative work and other accomplishments.
We also plan to invite guest writers to share their views on the issues important to working families and to our nation’s economic prosperity. 
There are plenty. Corporate Voices and our partner companies embrace public and corporate policy issues that affect working families throughout their lives: beginning in early childhood and ending at retirement. The reality is that the interests of businesses, policy makers, working families and our communities intersect.
This first issue features our recent Annual Meeting and the visit and talk by the First Lady of the United States, Michelle Obama.
It is also an opportunity to introduce the newest member of the Corporate Voices team, Melissa Hough. Melissa will oversee our Ready by 21 project as we work with seven other national organizations to improve outcomes for young people across the country. She joins us from the Forum for Youth Investment where she was Director, National Partnerships & Development.
As always, we welcome your comments – and we appreciate your continuing interest in Corporate Voices for Working Families.
Donna Klein
President and Founder
DCFSA: Vehicle for More Affordable Child Care
Corporate Voices for Working Families (CVWF) and the American Business Collaboration (ABC) have been working on legislation that would increase the cap on dependent care flexible spending accounts (DCFSA).
We gained incredible momentum last week when four Members of the Ways & Means Committee introduced a committee-generated bipartisan DCFSA bill.
Representatives John Yarmuth (D-KY), Sam Johnson (R-TX), Linda Sanchez (D-CA) and Peter Roskam (R-IL) introduced H.R. 2298 to amend the Internal Revenue Code to increase dependent care flexible spending account (DCFSA) limits.
The legislation proposes an increase in the cap on DCFSA from the current maximum of $5,000 a year—a figure that has been unchanged since 1986—to $7,500 a year. In today’s dollars, this tax benefit is worth only $2,800, while the average cost of care for an infant ranges from $4,000 to $14,000 a year. The new legislation would also set the new cap of $7,500 to inflation.
“DCFSA is a powerful tool that benefits working families, but inflation has reduced its effectiveness,” Donna Klein, president and founder of Corporate Voices for Working Families, said. “Congress should raise contribution limits to ensure quality care for children, dependent elderly and the disabled.”
Michelle Obama’s Talk At Corporate Voices Meeting Gains National Media Coverage
Michelle Obama’s visit at our Annual Meeting May 7 generated substantial media coverage. Here’s a sample: