Facing stubbornly high unemployment numbers and dismal economic forecasts, President Barack Obama again this week stressed the importance of education in securing America’s financial future.
Speaking to some of the country’s most successful women at Fortune’s Most Powerful Women Summit Tuesday night, the president spoke about the need to properly train young people to compete in a global economy.
“Our businesses, our institutions, our economy cannot compete unless our workforce can compete,” he said.
“We cannot sustain high-tech, high-wage jobs here in America when our young people are lagging far behind competitors around the world.”
Obama also addressed the unique challenges that women face in the workforce, as he focused on glass ceilings, pay-gaps and the lack of access-to-capital needed when starting a small business.
“Women high-tech entrepreneurs raised nearly 70 percent less capital when starting their firms than men,” he said, pointing to a recent study conducted by the Kaufman Institute.
A report released last week by the Government Accountability Office showed that gender pay discrepancies continue across every industry.
According to the GAO report, women continued to face lower wages and fewer managerial opportunities than men. Additionally, the report stated that for every $1 earned by male managers in 2007, female managers earned 81 cents.
Congress has attempted to fix these discrepancies in the past. The Paycheck Fairness Act was introduced in 2007. It would lift the cap on damages in pay-discrimination suits as well as restrict how employers are able to fight such complaints.
The bill was passed by the House in January 2009, but never made it through the Senate.
Opponents of this bill say that it would do more to help labor lawyers rather than women.
“It would spawn a tidal wave of lawsuits and enmesh employers in endless litigation,” Diana Furchtgott-Roth, senior fellow at the Hudson Institute, a conservative research organization, said during her testimony before the Joint Economic Committee.
“When you account for age, experience, motherhood and time in the workforce, the pay gap basically disappears according to many studies.”
She added that if this legislation were passed it would “slow the progress of both men and women.”
Others agree that government intervention is not the right approach to bridging the gender pay gap.
Theresa Alfaro Daytner started a construction company in 2003 with money she borrowed by re-mortgaging her home. She said women need to do more to bridge the gap themselves.
“I think a lot of it is up to us……….We need to more highly value ourselves and to educate ourselves on what those values are.”
The Daytner Construction Group has brought in more than $16 million in revenue so far this year. She credits her success with surrounding herself with smart people, but said that women need to do a better job of working together and mentoring each other.
“It has to be women coming together educating each other and moving from the bottom up,” she said. “There needs to be a groundswell from the bottom up.”
While better collaboration would help, Obama said the structure of the American workplace makes it difficult for women to have both a family and a fulfilling career.
He said improving the flexibility of workplaces would not only benefit mothers but it would improve overall efficiency.
“We know that companies with flexible work-arrangements can actually have lower turnover and absenteeism and higher productivity.”
Fortune’s Most Successful Women Summit concludes Wednesday with a keynote address from Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton.
