The Shriver Report exists thanks to the generosity of our Lead Partners: The Ford Foundation, AARP, and Wells Fargo; our Premier Partners: JPMorgan Chase, Marvell Technology Group, California Endowment, Coca-Cola Company; and the generous support of Dawn Arnall, Shawn Byers, Marcy Carsey, Cisco, John and Ann Doerr, Eileen and John Donahoe, Kresge Foundation, Lean-In Foundation, Jillian Manus, Ronald Perelman, SAP, Sherwood Foundation, Verizon, and our many contributors. Without their belief in us, The Shriver Report would not be possible.
From Maria Shriver
There is an extraordinary team behind The Shriver Report led by the incomparable Karen Skelton. The truth is there wouldn’t even be a Shriver Report without her fearlessness, her intelligence, her perseverance, her dedication, her passion, and her leadership. She has been the heart and soul of this project since its inception and she has kept everyone on it motivated, on track, and focused. My name is on the cover but her hand is on every page. We have worked side by side for close to a decade. I respect her, I trust her, and I’m grateful to her for her leadership and her loyal friendship.
As we’ve worked together on all three Shriver reports, I have come to admire and respect Olivia Morgan’s immense talents and fierce commitment. She has singlehandedly raised the quality of our report as our managing editor, working with multiple authors on diverse subjects—questioning, digging, revising, reshaping—and all with grace as she looks forward, never behind. She leads us with her passionate commitment to women on the brink, savvy policy analysis, love of original research. Above all that, she’s got brick-solid integrity, and she truly represents the best of our woman’s nation.
If this were a sports team, Becky Beland would be its most valuable player. She nails every single assignment she’s given, from organizing high-profile and hard-to-reach essayists, to writing beautiful prose, to executing a sophisticated, multidimensional, modern national political outreach plan. I have depended on her more than she knows.
This report wouldn’t be what it is without Roberta Hollander, my mentor in work and in life, who worked her editorial magic for months on every essay in this report. She has an ear for the real story, and she’s brought to the report stories of women and men you cannot find anywhere else in the world. She is a brilliant writer, reporter, and editor and I rely on her honesty and commitment to maintain our standard of excellence. If I said anything more about her, she would be mad at me, but she is indispensable.
Matthew DiGirolamo has transformed the way we communicate about The Shriver Report. He built a team of national professional media experts from scratch and together they built a modern communications architecture that spanned all media channels and platforms. He is the brave (and maybe lucky!) man working with a strong team of women, including media strategists Marissa Moss and Taylor Royle, social media strategist Alli Maloney, and digital strategist Cara Lemieux, the managing editor of our extraordinary new website, ShriverReport.org.
Without Erin Stein, we would not have been funded, pure and simple. Erin’s sterling reputation and strong belief in the project translated into hundreds of relationships that have made us smarter and more able to expand our reach and impact. As the Executive Director of A Woman’s Nation, she is always thinking of new ways to bring this project to life. We have been friends for two decades. We have worked together for a decade. I trust her completely and I know she is always one step ahead of me and so many others. I am grateful for her steady hand, clear mind, and unwavering friendship.
Dixie Noonan, a young mother and wise attorney, led our efforts to deliver our Shriver Report Classroom Initiative and to create a first-ever Shriver Corps dedicated to connecting working families more efficiently with government resources. I’ll always be grateful for her multitasking skills and in awe of how she manages her family, work, and volunteer service. I would also like to thank O’Melveny & Myers LLP for lending Dixie to us and for taking The Shriver Report on as a pro bono project.
One of the project’s greatest assets is the Center for American Progress. I am honored to partner again with CAP and its leader Neera Tanden, and John Podesta before her. CAP’s contributions were many, beginning with Neera’s commitment and life story, which inspires all aspects of our work. Daniella Gibbs Léger stepped into the role of CAP’s lead with patience, strength, confidence, and style. Fierce when she needed to be, bending when that worked better, Daniella has been a masterful manager of a professional staff of artists, designers, academics, statisticians, editors, and lawyers. She is largely and almost singlehandedly responsible for our successful cross-country partnership. Our entire team has relied with profound gratitude on Lauren Vicary’s experience, professionalism, and commitment—at all hours of the day and night—to producing the best possible work. She is an excellent artist with a red pencil. Melissa Boteach, Katie Wright, John Halpin, and Debbie Fine all provided invaluable and exceptional contributions from the CAP team, for which I will always be grateful. And to the rest of the CAP teams—the economic and education policy shops, art, editorial, and legal—thank you for all your hard work, even through a government shutdown!
Special thanks to the Dewey Square Group, my go-to consults over the years. They have a team of savvy public affairs gurus, writers, and communications experts who seamlessly extended our capacity across every aspect of the project. I have relied greatly on the dedicated work of Karen Breslau, Tamara Torlakson, Angela Pontes, and the visionary Margaret Lyons.
When we got the idea for this Shriver Report, I immediately thought it could make a great documentary. I went to my friend Sheila Nevins at HBO, she agreed, and we are joining forces to executive produce a film that will be an important part of The Shriver Report. From the beginning, HBO has been a partner in bringing to life the story we tell in print. Many of the women we quote here are from Chattanooga, Tennessee, and send their children to the Chambliss Center, a 24-hours-a-day child care center. The Chambliss Center serves as a backdrop for the upcoming HBO documentary film by Emmy® Award-winning filmmakers Shari Cookson and Nick Doob. The documentary provides a deeply personal and moving journey through the daily life of Katrina Gilbert, a single mom and certified nursing assistant juggling work, child care, financial challenges and family responsibilities. Thank you to Nancy Abraham and Sascha Weiss as well for your patience and support. The film is scheduled to debut on HBO in 2014.
The Shriver Report is an initiative of A Woman’s Nation, a nonprofit we created to help women and men find a new way forward in our changing world. Special gratitude goes to the board: Erin Stein, Sandy Gleysteen, Donna Lucas, Nancy McFadden, Jan Miller, Nadine Schiff, Julia Paige, Sheryl Lowe, Shannon Marven, Holly Martinez, Babette Campbell; and to our professional staff and lawyers Sandra Lady, Steven Guise, Lawrence Rudolph, Gary Hecker, Maria Giammanco, and Scott Galer.
From the beginning, my friends and former colleagues have generously provided advice, criticism when needed, and steady support, including Karen Baker, Carl Bendix, Tina Frank, John Bridgeland, Matt James, Maya Harris, Yvonne Hunt and her team at Legacy Venture, Nancy LeaMond, Leslie Miller, Laura Nichols, Barbara O’Connor, Amy Rosenberg, Charlotte and George Shultz, and all of my new friends in Silicon Valley who came early on to discuss our report in a meaningful, inspiring evening co-hosted by Jillian Manus and Carl and Leslee Guardino at the home of Sheryl Sandberg and David Goldberg.
This report would not have come to life without the amazing award-winning photographers who traveled across the country to capture beautiful images of families living on the brink. A special thanks to my friend, the phenomenal Barbara Kinney, who brought together this unprecedented female photojournalism team: Melissa Farlow, Melissa Lyttle, Barbara Ries, Callie Shell, Jan Sonnenmair, and Ami Vitale.
Taking the pictures was one thing, and finding the subjects was another challenge altogether. I want to thank everyone who helped along the way to produce our groundbreaking photographs, including hardworking co-workers and classmates of La Cocina and Washington Women’s Employment and Education; Jennet Robinson Alterman and Gayle Goldin of the Women’s Fund of Rhode Island; Stephenie Lazarus of LIFT Chicago; Naomi Thornton and Jane Guest of Women’s Opportunity and Resource Development, Inc.; Janie Allen of Washington Women’s Employment and Education; Michele Q. Margittai of Veterans Leadership Program of Western Pennsylvania, Inc.; Geetika Agrawal and Caleb Zigas of La Cocina; Thomas Cody of Leupp, Arizona; and Sean Maloney of Clermont, Florida.
I would also like to thank Phil Acord and Katie Harbison and the entire team at the Chambliss Center for Children in Chattanooga, Tennessee, for their generous assistance in organizing a facility tour and roundtable discussion with working moms and staff that strengthened our thinking and commitment on this project.
We thank our contributing institutional partners for the academic rigor and resources they brought to the project: Ascend at the Aspen Institute; Families and Work Institute; Institute for Women’s Policy Research; Next Generation; Michelle R. Clayman Institute for Gender Research at Stanford University; Graduate School of Management and Center for Poverty Research at the University of California at Davis; and the Center on Education and the Workforce at Georgetown University.
We have been emboldened and humbled by the diverse men and women who agreed to advise us along the way. Their reputations and influence expand our impact, reach, and credibility. Thank you to our National Advisory Committee:
Madeleine Albright
Melody Barnes
John Bouman
Maria Cardona
Dr. Maria Carrillo
Majora Carter
Jean Chatzky
Sister Joan Chittister
Blair Christie
Kelly Coffey
Weili Dai
Geena Davis
Barbara Ehrenreich
Eve Ensler
Bill Frist
Andrea Gibson
Austan Goolsbee
Maya L. Harris
Heidi Hartmann
Ron Haskins
Mary Kay Henry
Jessica Herrin
Barbie Izquierdo
Patricia Kempthorne
Maj. Gen. (Ret.) Mary J. Kight
Billie Jean King
Wendy Kopp
Nancy LeaMond
Tiffany Dena Loftin
Eva Longoria
Monica C. Lozano
Frank Luntz
Jillian Manus
Todd McCracken
Brian McLaren
Pat Mitchell
Susan Molinari
Christiane Northrup
Ai-jen Poo
Tony Porter
Sheryl Sandberg
Anne-Marie Slaughter
Olympia J. Snowe
Hilda Solis
Lisa Stevens
Melanne Verveer
Laysha Ward
Kerry Washington
Sheryl WuDunn
Jacki Zehner
Finally, we are again grateful to our media partners NBC News and The Atlantic. They will bring this report to life in a brand new way. In so doing, they will expand the realm of this report. They will amplify the voices in it and they will pass it on.
From Editors Olivia Morgan and Karen Skelton
Producing the Shriver reports is a labor of love and learning, an opportunity and a challenge. We are profoundly grateful to have been part of this effort to bring the truth of modern women’s lives to the forefront of American discourse. We are fueled both by the extraordinary women we meet and work with along the way and the importance of the work itself, and we carry with us deep appreciation for the stories we hear as well as the responsibility for sharing them.
Our greatest inspiration comes from Maria Shriver. Maria has shaped every aspect of this project. She has rolled up her sleeves, hunkered down with the work, and committed her enormous brainpower to taming, trimming, and transforming our content into a manageable, understandable, meaningful project. She is simply masterful at communicating to a mass audience. She is a gifted convener of people, from the world’s top celebrities and elected officials to the nation’s most vulnerable workers and families. She demands innovation and creativity of her staff and leads by example. She generates literally hundreds of ideas, like ground balls hit from a prolific batter. The excellence of this project, and its impact on the nation, starts with Maria Shriver. We have been both honored and humbled to work with her.
The Center for American Progress has been generous to this report in every way. Neera Tanden embraced its vision from the beginning and allowed her personal story of growing up on the brink to be published for the first time. Daniella Gibbs Léger has led the effort with dedication, skill, humor, and friendship. Lauren Vicary dove in like the pro she is, with the focus, intelligence, clarity, organization, and grace that define an effective editor. She has been tireless in ensuring every sentence of this report says what it means to say. Partnering with CAP has allowed us to draw on a remarkable team of policy experts, including, in particular, Melissa Boteach, who showed us how to “do it all” with grace. We are enormously grateful as well to John Halpin, Debbie Fine, and the rest of the CAP team—especially Katie Wright, who has been an invaluable help and a delightful colleague, stepping into every breach without hesitation.
One of the joys of producing The Shriver Report is the great brains with which we interact. As editors, we are especially grateful for the tremendous authors in this report. All of them contributed more than their chapter content and surpassed the expectations of standard report contributors. Most excitingly, they were open- minded to new ways of presenting information, to developing new content, and to putting our ideas to work beyond the pages of The Shriver Report. Anne Mosle and Sarah Haight at the Aspen Institute trusted and grew our idea of developing a blueprint for Life Ed; Ellen Galinsky and her team of Eve Tahmincioglu, Terry Bond, and Ken Matos embraced our Thrive Index and incorporated it into their own work with employers; Nicole Smith and Tony Carnevale took up the idea of mapping education paths. Melissa Boteach and the encyclopedic-minded Shawn Fremstad were resources on every chapter in this report. Ann O’Leary and Heather Boushey continue to expertly guide Shriver reports, as we strive to meet the high bar they set as editors of the first report in 2009.
Our essayists breathe life into the portraits we paint through the chapters of The Shriver Report. Roberta Hollander works magic from her perch along the Pacific Ocean, where she extracts from an amazing array of writers “their story,” bringing brilliant illumination and authentic voices into these reports with integrity and lyricism. Stephanie Coontz worked and reworked her contribution to best lift the report as a whole and guided us beyond her own text. Ann Stevens, Shirley Sagawa, and Marianne Cooper each took a creative leap with our ideas and turned them into cutting-edge contributions, and we know their willingness to do so will add to their impact.
Becky Beland has long been at the heart of the Shriver reports, having worked on all three, and in the process has become our backbone. We are forever indebted to her for her competence, patience, willingness to keep coming back, great sense of humor, and ability to keep her finger on the pulse of American style, Millennial culture, and social trends. And thanks to Angela Pontes who assisted Becky and the rest of us with such professionalism and steadiness for her years. Patricia Kempthorne is consistently generous with her time and boundless energy and inspires us with her commitment to supporting working families. Marissa Astor’s cool head, wise ways, and unwavering professionalism kept us at our best. Alli Maloney’s vision and empathy shine through the ambitious and masterfully managed photography project. Tamara Torlakson was our first staffer and has gracefully managed our advisory committee throughout. Karen Breslau was a lifesaver and a brilliant editor to boot. Dixie Noonan is an all-around powerhouse, whose intellect is matched only by her determination—and ability—to develop worthy ideas into living programs. Her cheerful-while-unyielding commitment ensures the report will have an impact beyond these pages. The crew at A Woman’s Nation Foundation, especially Erin Mulcahy Stein and Matthew DiGirolamo (and the entirely inventive, fearless Cara Lemieux), are now life-long family that keep us grounded, protected, laughing, and supported beyond reasonable explanation and expectation.
Countless colleagues have guided us along the way. For their input throughout the phases of developing this report, we thank Karen Anderson from the Hamilton Project; Michele Jolin from the Center for American Progress; Ron Haskins at the Brookings Institution; Bob Greenstein and his team at the Center on Budget and Policy Priorities; Dr. David Gray at the New America Foundation; Donna Cooper; Shelley Waters Boots; Jodie Levin-Epstein at the Center for Law and Social Policy; Debbie Weinstein at the Coalition on Human Needs; Mark Clapham; George Sheldon, Acting Assistant Secretary for the Administration for Children and Families under the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services; AnnMaura Connolly of City Year; Suzy George at Albright Stonebridge Group; Anmarie Widener of Georgetown University; Kirsten Lodal and Molly Day at LIFT; Heidi Hartmann and the Institute for Women’s Policy Research; John Bridgeland of Civic Enterprises; Wendy Spencer and Mary Strasser at the Corporation for National and Community Service; Karen Baker at CaliforniaVolunteers; Walter Dellinger at O’Melveny & Myers LLP; Commissioners Chai Feldblum and Victoria Lipnic of the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission; Vin Weber, Adam Mendelsohn, and Alan Elias at Mercury Public Affairs; Betty Nordwind at the Harriett Buhai Center for Family Law; and Alix Burns of Bay Bridge Strategies.
Finally, we are grateful to our families. David Plouffe and Jeffrey Barbour have been sounding boards, supporters, and devil’s advocates. They have been patient and attentive fathers, carrying more than their share of the parenting load when we needed to spend weekends and evenings hunched over laptops or cellphones. Karen thanks her husband for lending this project his experience as an exceptionally gifted public defender of many people living on the brink and her daughters for forgiving occasional absences from soccer and water polo and for promising to share our work on their social media. Olivia thanks her 8-year-old son for telling his 4-year-old sister, “When you grow up, why don’t you be president of the United States? And I will be your chief of staff,” so that she could do this work confident that a reimagined nation is entirely within our grasp.
From Daniella Gibbs Léger and Lauren Vicary at the Center for American Progress
We would like to thank Maria Shriver and CAP President Neera Tanden for their leadership and vision on this project. We are fortunate to have such strong women leading this effort and our institution. Thank you also to CAP Founder John Podesta, who was Maria’s CAP partner in the first book and who continues to help guide us, and to Tom Perriello and Carmel Martin for their leadership and support in our endeavor. Large thanks also go to Maria’s entire team, led by Karen Skelton and Olivia Morgan, for their hard work and dedication to making this effort the best it can possibly be. Roberta Hollander, Dixie Noonan, Becky Beland, Matthew DiGirolamo, and the rest of their team have all been true professionals and a pleasure to work with.
We couldn’t have done this project without the assistance of the great people at CAP. Tremendous thanks must go to Melissa Boteach, our policy lead, and the Poverty to Prosperity Program at CAP. In addition to being a chapter co-author, Melissa has been a steady and calm presence throughout this entire process, from the very first meetings on content, through her maternity leave, and right to the very end. Right along with her, Katie Wright supplied valuable insight and knowledge and a willingness to jump in on any task. Thanks as well to Donna Cooper, who started off this journey with us, and to Shawn Fremstad, without whom we would not have been able to get across the finish line.
Thanks go to our Economic Policy team contributors, led by chapter author Heather Boushey, as well as Sarah Jane Glynn, Jane Farrell, and Olenka Mitukiewicz. And we would have been lost without the input and guidance of our fantastic Education teams. Our thanks to David Bergeron, Melissa Lazarín, Katie Hamm, Rob Hanna, Tiffany Miller, and Elizabeth Baylor for all of their help.
Of course, the book didn’t just manifest itself out of thin air. For that, major kudos must go to CAP’s fantastic Art and Editorial teams. Thanks to Art Director Pete Morelewicz and Senior Designer Chester Hawkins for their hard work and long hours pulling this together, Lauren Allen for her ongoing creative help, and Jan Diehm and Alissa Scheller for providing valuable direction early on. The entire process was aided daily by David Hudson’s editing skills and invaluable support, in conjunction with the rest of CAP’s outstanding Editorial team, including Carl Chancellor, Meghan Miller, Jason Mogavero, Anne Paisley, and Eliot Sasaki. Many thanks go to John Halpin for his tireless work on our poll. We are grateful for his expertise and his time.
Thanks also to Debbie Fine, Norma Espinosa, and Joe Smolskis for their time and effort spent keeping the project on track and to Bridget Petruczok and Winnie Stachelberg for advising us on and helping set up countless outreach meetings. And a big shout out to all the others at CAP who helped and assisted along the way, including—but not limited to—Joy Moses, Andrea Purse, Marlene Cooper Vasilic, Madeline Meth, Lindsay Hamilton, Sarah Baron, Sasha Post, Jocelyn Frye, Buffy Wicks, Sally Steenland, and Emily Baxter.
A special thanks to Jamal Hagler, and Sophia Kerby before him, for the very important support you provided to each and every one of us.
Daniella would like to thank Lauren for a list of things too long to mention. Her leadership and vision, not to mention her keen editing skills and friendship, made this project what it is, and for that she is grateful.
Lauren would also like to thank Daniella, not only for her knowledge and management that deftly guided us all, but also for her friendship, grace, sense of humor, and ridiculous ability to keep track of every last piece of the puzzle.
Finally, this would not have been possible without the support of our families, particularly our spouses, Matthew Léger and Nathan Wakefield. You endured long nights and weekends alone, as well as occasionally stressed, short-tempered, and harried versions of us. Your love and encouragement gets us through, always.
From individual chapter authors
Heather Boushey
The author would like to thank Daniella Gibbs Léger, Melissa Boteach, and Lauren Vicary for their tremendous legwork in guiding, editing, and shaping this chapter. Many thanks go to Jane Farrell and Alexandra Mitukiewicz for their invaluable research assistance. The author would also like to thank Donna Cooper, Shawn Fremstad, Sarah Jane Glynn, Jamal Hagler, Heidi Hartmann, David Hudson, Judith Warner, Katie Wright, and the rest of the CAP team for their support and assistance. Finally, the author thanks Maria Shriver and her team, particularly Olivia Morgan and Karen Skelton, for their hard work and dedication to this report and to improving the lives of America’s working women.
Ann O’Leary
The author would like to thank Maria Shriver for her continued work on behalf of women—particularly those who have limited time, resources, or power to act on their own behalf—and for always enthusiastically including her on the team. Thank you to Olivia Morgan, Dixie Noonan, and Karen Skelton for their patience and good graces in shepherding this chapter to the end. The author also thanks Dixie, Rey Fuentes, Sarah Jo Szambelan, and Hong Van Pham for critical research support in development of this chapter. Finally, the author thanks Sarah Jane Glynn for reaching out to offer her research support and final edits as the author worked to balance her own work-family demands in order to complete this project.
Anthony Carnevale and Nicole Smith
The authors would like to express their gratitude to the individuals and organizations that have made this chapter possible. First, the authors thank the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation, Lumina Foundation, and the Joyce Foundation for their support of our research over the past few years. In particular, they are grateful for the support of Daniel Greenstein and Elise Miller from the Gates Foundation; Jamie Merisotis and Holly Zanville from Lumina Foundation; and Matthew Muench and Whitney Smith from the Joyce Foundation. The authors are honored to be partners in their mission of promoting postsecondary access and completion for all Americans. The authors would also like to thank Artem Gulish for providing superb research assistance; our in-house designer, Ana Castanon; and the editor, Karen Breslau, for their patience and hard work in completing this report. Special thanks to our colleagues at the Center for American Progress, for their strategic guidance throughout the process. Specifically, we would like to thank David Bergeron, Katie Hamm, Elizabeth Baylor, Melissa Lazarin, Rob Hanna, Tiffany Miller, Katie Wright, Melissa Boteach, and Becky Beland.
Melissa Boteach and Shawn Fremstad
The authors would like to thank Katie Wright for her in-depth research assistance and keen analysis; The Kresge Foundation for their support; Heather Boushey, Sarah Glynn, and Jane Farrell for their guidance and expertise; the Shriver Team for their collaboration; the Center for American Progress’s economic and education policy teams for their feedback; Daniella Gibbs Léger for her mentorship and management throughout the process; and Lauren Vicary for making all of us look better through great editing.
Ellen Galinsky
The authors would like to thank Eve Tahmincioglu for conducting insightful interviews for this chapter and for reviewing and revising the Sloan Award winner case studies; Kelly Sakai O’Neill for reviewing hundreds of Sloan Award winners and selecting the profiles for inclusion in this chapter; Ken Matos for his wise statistic advice; Lauren Vicary and Alissa Scheller for their keen editing and design work; and finally, Olivia Morgan for her leadership every step of the way in framing this chapter and helping us turn this vision into a chapter that we all hope will improve business solutions that benefit low-income women and their families.
Anne Mosle
The author would like to thank Celinda Lake, Jonathan Voss, and Alysia Snell of Lake Partners Research and Bob Carpenter of Chesapeake Beach Consulting for their research expertise and commitment to lifting the voices of low-income mothers and children; Sarah Haight and Andrea Camp for their invaluable assistance with research and editing and for their passion for building women’s economic security; and Olivia Morgan for her feedback and guidance.
Essayists for THE SHRIVER REPORT: A WOMAN’S NATION PUSHES BACK FROM THE BRINK
We would also like to thank the awe-inspiring essayists who contributed authentic stories from their personal experiences in life. Their essays distinguish this report from any other of its kind. We are grateful and humbled by their words both in print and online:
Leith Anderson
Sunshine Maria Anderson
Katie Bentley
Gordon Berlin
Sonya Borrero
John Bouman
Tory Burch
Nadine Burke Harris
Sister Joan Chittister
Hillary Clinton
Stephanie Coontz
Marianne Cooper
Cara Cortez
Arne Duncan
Peter Edelman
Kathryn Edin
Barbara Ehrenreich
Catherine Emmanuelle
Jennifer Garner
Kirsten Gillibrand
Carol Gilligan
Angela Glover Blackwell
Maya Harris
Ron Haskins
LeBron James
Muhtar Kent
Almeta Keys
Beyoncé Knowles-Carter
Eva Longoria
Ron Manderscheid
Danielle Moodie-Mills
C.L. “Butch” Otter
Eduardo Padrón
Gloria Perez
Jada Pinkett Smith
Wendy Pollack
Ai-jen Poo
Tony Porter
Betsy Price
Selena Rezvani
Shirley Sagawa
Sheryl Sandberg
Howard Schultz
Kathleen Sebelius
Anne-Marie Slaughter
Lidia Soto-Harmon