This Valentine’s Day, Congresswoman Lois Frankel is highlighting what women need this Valentine’s Day: the Women’s Economic Agenda.

“What women want this Valentine’s Day is equal pay, a minimum wage increase, and access to quality, affordable child care,” Frankel said. “When women succeed, America succeeds.”

Frankel and her colleagues launched an economic agenda that will enable women to achieve greater economic security, raise wages for women and their families, and allow working parents to support and care for their families

In Florida, on average women are paid 83 cents for every dollar men make, according to the National Partnership for Women & Families. The study also found women who are employed full time in the Miami metro area lose over $4.8 billion each year because of the wage gap. If the pay disparity were eliminated in the Miami metro area, a working woman would have enough money for 51 more weeks of food (about one year’s worth); three more months of mortgage and utilities payments; or five more months of rent.

Across the nation, nearly two-thirds of minimum wage workers are women.  Because the minimum wage has not kept up with inflation, millions of Americans work full-time and still live in poverty. Currently, a single mother with two children, who works full-time and earns the minimum wage, lives in poverty, with an income $4,000 below the poverty level, the National Women’s Law Center reported.

Quality, affordable child care is also critical for a working mother to earn a paycheck and improve her family’s economic security. For too many families, quality child care is either unavailable or out of reach financially. According to Child Care Aware of America, in 35 states, including Florida, a year’s worth of care for an infant costs more than a year’s worth of in-state tuition at a four-year public college.

###