
Jobs Are Open But People Of Color And Women Are Struggling To Return To Work
The NPR Politics Podcast
Barriers to Workforce Participation for Women and People of Color
This chapter examines the challenges faced by women and people of color in re-entering the workforce after the COVID-19 pandemic, emphasizing the decline in women's labor force participation. It also contrasts the inadequate support in the U.S. with better childcare policies in other countries, underscoring the need for systemic reform.
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Speaker 2
Ok, i think is there parallel, a lot of parallels, between samzel and munger, or munger and buffet? Like the way you described him seems kind of like early value investor mine sada in the real estate world. A hundred %. I mean, i would say samsell is very
Speaker 1
much like the a warn buffet of real estate, other than it's not a, you know, forever hold, never sell, type thing. But it's a lot of very logical, almost, take a simple idea and take it seriously. It's samsell to a t. Nothing he's teachings is hard to understand, but it times can feel so simple that you feel like the's a catch. Interesting.
Speaker 2
Yoka, there'll be a lotoike, first grade related er. First gratr level a questions related to real istakes. I'm such an outsider, and you're such a probe ad that islie kind of makes alum. So,
Speaker 3
like,
Speaker 2
let's start early with your story. And your dad's a great segway to that, cause i know e one of your most popular tweats of all time is about your dad and the career change that he made. That was like a huge kind of context for you growing up. And really, like, seems like an early domino for a lot of the rest of your life. It was. Isn't
Speaker 1
that crazy that that tweet got 260 thousand likes, or something like that? Oh, my go had it went as i reared and i literally had been at breakfast that morning. There's some tweets you put all this time into, or you think about a lot, and it gets like, no likes. I had just got down to breakfast talking about my dad, and just fired it off while i was in the car. And the next three days were one of my wildest times on the inner net. M it went, read it and everything else, but, um, a, yes, i was born in elpaso, texas. A and a, the tweet really was referencing what was the first kind of moment in my life that a, seemed kind of big and that i can really remember, and was a life pivoting moment. My dad, excuse me, he was a lawyer, 13 years escuse me, harvard educated, undergrad, harvard educated law and was a partner at a law firm. Am, and he came home when he was 37 years old. And this is maybe wy, it's something i'm talking about a lot more as i'm almost 37 in a couple of years, and now that i'm putting myself in his shoes, i just can't even imagine the decision that he made. He came home and he told my maam, i want to go to i want to become a doctor and a and so theres there's multiple things at play there. On a supportive wife, a, you know, you're living a great life. Ah, things are kind of coasting partner t o law firm, and then, boom, i mant to go back to u tep university, texts el passo, get my prerequisites, and then we're gong to move the family to lubbic and start medical school. And, you know, i had another kind of tweet that kind of got a lot of attention. And this was on the idea that i think it takes a long time to become a doctor, and i don sane away for a long time. It takes eight to ten years, minimum, four years medical school, four years residency, and then if you specialize. And it just seems to me like that could be stream lined. That's not where i'm going, but we live the next ten years of our lives. Am, you know, totally going through this becoming a doctor phase, which is four years of not making any money a and then another four to six of, you know, really, 30 to 35 thousand dollars a year. And soi, i wasn't paint, i'm not, my gull isn't to paint a picture. If i grew up, you don't, like, in poverty, but i did grow up with this weird um thing where we had kind of been here, if you were on the financial spectrum, then we made a decision to go to here. But we made the decision to go to here so that we could get back here, but be doing something like we were forever passionate about, because we only lived once, and that was like my dad's biggest thing. Um. And so the two lessons i've really drawn from that are, one, we really do only live one life. That's not to say everybody should go quit their career right now and just start something new. Everybody needs to figure where they're out. But when you have two kids a wife and you're really comfortable, um, it's just very hard to make that move. And the second am as if you had just made that decision based on a financial basisyou hav never made that is is adding into it that like, money's only going to make you so happy. Ah, and so there's a lot i kind of drew on that that set a foundation for i think, as we talk about my life progressing and what i'm doing to day, those values are so deep in me, i don't think i'll ever be able to shake em, nor do i want to.
Speaker 2
What?
The labor market shifted dramatically during the pandemic, and as employers once again begin to hire, many black and brown Americans are finding it difficult to return to work. Plus, women are participating less in the workforce than in the 1980s. We look at the reasons why.
This episode: White House correspondent Ayesha Rascoe and Labor and Workplace correspondent Andrea Hsu.
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This episode: White House correspondent Ayesha Rascoe and Labor and Workplace correspondent Andrea Hsu.
Connect:
Subscribe to the NPR Politics Podcast here.
Email the show at nprpolitics@npr.org
Join the NPR Politics Podcast Facebook Group.
Listen to our playlist The NPR Politics Daily Workout.
Subscribe to the NPR Politics Newsletter.
Find and support your local public radio station.
Learn more about sponsor message choices: podcastchoices.com/adchoices
NPR Privacy Policy