As Chair of Democratic Women's Caucus, Congresswoman Frankel is a supporter of the Women’s Economic Agenda, launched in 2013 by House Democrats. It aims to unleash the economic power of women by addressing pay, work and family balance, affordable quality child care, and retirement security.

Pay: Nearly two thirds of minimum wage workers are women and women make on average only 78 cents for every dollar earned by men, amounting to a yearly gap of $11,084 between full-time men and women. That $11,084 is equivalent to 89 weeks of food, more than 3,000 gallons of gas, or more than one year of rent. This current wage gap represents a loss of $430,000 over the course of a career of a woman working full time. Frankel supports raising the minimum wage and the Paycheck Fairness Act.

Work & Family Balance: When a child is sick, no parent should have to choose between losing a paycheck or taking their son or daughter to the doctor. That's why Frankel is a cosponsor of the Healthy Families Act that would allow workers to accrue paid sick days to care for themselves or their families. She also supports the Family and Medical Insurance Leave Act, which would ensure that workers can take time off after the birth of a child or for an extended medical issue. Currently, the United States has no mandatory paid family leave policy — making it one of just three countries in the world and the only industrialized country to not mandate paid maternity leave for new mothers.

Child Care: Frankel understands that child care is a critical component of a parent’s economic security and that many families struggle to find affordable quality child care. That is why she introduced the Working Families Child Care Act to increase access to affordable child care for working parents. This bill would increase the mandatory funding that serves families with infants and toddlers by $2 billion and provide $500 million each year through child care and development grants for states to improve the quality of child care.

Retirement Security: Frankel recognizes that when women earn less than men over their careers, and take time out of the workplace to care for children and family members, they are impacted twice—first with fewer resources to provide for their families and again later in life in reduced retirement benefits. For a woman working full time, the current wage gap represents a loss of $430,000 over the course of her career. She will continue to work to close the pay gap, help caregivers, and strengthen Social Security and Medicare.