Obama visits female bloggers to talk fiscal matters

CHARLOTTE, N.C. — President Barack Obama traveled here Wednesday to speak with 50 female bloggers and several dozen other women about the economic issues they face in their everyday lives.

The intimate town hall, organized by the online lifestyle giant SheKnows Media and its subsidiary BlogHer, reflects the White House’s ongoing effort to reach targeted audiences through alternative social-media platforms. The president stood onstage with SheKnows Chief Community Officer Lisa Stone at ImaginOn, an educational library and theater arts center, as he took questions from BlogHer contributors and from online.

Surrounded by books in shiny plastic covers and Sesame Street dolls, Obama spoke of the discrimination his grandmother faced decades ago as a bank employee, where several men were promoted above her because of their gender. Even now, he argued, a problem persists where “women still hold some of the lowest-paying jobs.”

While there is an undeniable disparity between what women and men are paid on average, there is a debate about whether this gap stems from overt discrimination or the different lifestyle choices men and women make over which careers to pursue and whether to scale back on work to spend more time with their families.

The president said an equal-pay bill pending in Congress — backed by Democrats but which Republicans oppose — would only address inequities between people in comparable jobs.

“Understand that the whole point of equal pay is people doing the same job, and getting paid less,” he said. “There are some things that are conceptually complicated. There are other things that are pretty simple.”

The gathering of roughly 220 people also offered the president a chance to tout his proposals to expand paid leave and the federal child-care tax credit. At one point, a single mother described how Republicans in North Carolina had cut the state’s child-care vouchers, forcing her and other mothers to choose between after-school or before-school care.

“How can you help us?” she asked.

“Now, this is not a plant,” he replied, noting that he had proposed tripling the federal child-care credit to as much as $900. “At the federal level at least, this should be one of our top budget priorities.”

Referring to the questioner’s 8-year-old son, he said: “Your kid is important to me to. And that’s not out of charity. Your son, if he’s doing well, that means he’s paying taxes, he’s contributing to society, he’s staying out of trouble. That’s a good investment for me.”

Throughout the session, the president drew examples from his own life to describe the challenges women and working parents face. He suggested private firms need to make an effort to ensure women are being promoted within their ranks — “They’ve got to pay attention to it,” he said — and offered the White House as a possible model.

Although there is still a wage gap between women and men at the White House, Obama boasted that among his senior aides, women outnumber men 13 to 11.

“But that wasn’t always the case,” he said. “When I first came in, we had to say, ‘We have to do better.’ “

The White House approached Stone on Friday about the idea of organizing an event on the day federal taxes are due — when many Americans are focused on their finances — which also happens to be a day after Equal Pay Day, a commemoration aimed at highlighting the wage gap between women and men.

“We jumped all over it, because we knew it was so top of mind,” Stone said in an interview, adding that the attendees are well positioned to question Obama on these issues. “There is no one smarter than the community of bloggers and social media influencers who are dealing with these policies to make their monthly bills work out, pay college tuition bills, fill their refrigerators and fill their gas tanks.”

Obama has elevated workplace issues such as equal pay and paid leave on his domestic agenda during his second term. Earlier this month, Labor Secretary Thomas Perez and White House senior adviser Valerie Jarrett kicked off a paid leave “road show” in Seattle to highlight state and local initiatives on the subject.

SheKnows Media, which has 20,000 social-media contributors and also includes StyleCaster and Daily Makeover, focuses more on health, fashion, popular culture and parenting issues than hot-button political controversies. But BlogHer has writers from across the political spectrum and has featured interviews with possible GOP presidential candidate Carly Fiorina as well as the highest-ranking female House Republican, Cathy McMorris Rodgers of Washington.

“We’re nonpartisan, because our bloggers are so partisan,” Stone said.

Jennifer DeCurtins, a 31-year old writer, personal trainer and yoga instructor who attended the town hall, said her clientele is full of women “trying to juggle and find balance with being a mom and having a really successful career.”

DeCurtins, a Democrat who lives in Charlotte, said she supports the idea of “transparency” when it comes to salaries so that women can be sure they’re being compensated fairly.

But Lena Gott, a 34-year-old blogger based in Wake Forest who also participated in the town hall, said her experience working as an accountant has made her skeptical of calls for equal pay. Gott, who is now the stay-at-home mother of three children, said business owners may have to lower some workers’ salaries if they have to bring them in line with those of other employees.

“You can’t just come up with an extra, magical $20,000 for workers,” Gott said. “You have to make it fit within your budget.”

But both women said they were excited to participate in the event with the president. DeCurtins posted Tuesday night about the “surreal” experience of being invited and suddenly receiving a flurry of press calls as a result.

“Tomorrow I will have the incredible honor of spending an hour with the president as a voice for all of the INCREDIBLE and STRONG women that I have the honor of reaching every day through this blog, teaching yoga and personal training,” she wrote on her blog, Peanut Butter Runner.