If elected, I will be the youngest woman in the United States Congress. I am running because I think we need new ideas, new leadership, and new blood to empower women at home and abroad.

I believe we must:

As a young working woman, I believe we need more access to affordable child care, flexible work arrangements, and better maternity and paternity leave policies. We must pass paid family leave immediately – not just to support our overstretched working families, but to drive our economic recovery. In fact, companies with family leave benefits have seen their value grow over twice as much compared to companies that do not. We also need new policies to promote both affordable on-site child care, flexible work arrangements, and training for mothers seeking to rejoin the workforce.

 

 

Women are increasingly driving innovation, launching businesses, and creating jobs. Many of these women were my mentors in the workplace and we must translate their pioneering practices into policy. We need to encourage talented women to become entrepreneurs, especially in areas like clean-tech, bio-tech and high-tech that will be critical to our global competitiveness in the future. I propose new programs to promote science and technology education for women, particularly in low-income communities, while providing more scholarships for graduate business and science programs and training in business development.

 

When women lead, the economy benefits. Today, only 29 Fortune 1000 CEOs are women. I propose we set a national goal to stimulate a ten-fold increase the number of women who are Fortune 1000 CEOs by 2020. We need to tap “woman capital” and leverage it to promote growth and compete in the global economy.

 

As I’ve experienced first hand, women disproportionately enroll in health care in the more expensive individual market and traditionally have faced higher premiums. In fact, women are 13 percent more likely than men to defer care due to costs. While the recent health care reform ended gender-based discrimination, I believe we need to immediately provide support and subsidies for single mothers who are struggling with health care costs incurred prior to the establishment of exchange plans. I also fully and unequivocally support a woman's right to choose and understand the vigilance and action needed to protect and defend that right.

I am the product of a public school education that put me on a path for success. Sadly, of the 130 million out-of-school youth around the world, a shocking 70 percent of them are girls. I believe, and many experts agree, that investing in women is one of the most effective ways to break the cycle of poverty and create a better future for families. Statistics show that women reinvest 90 percent of their income back into their family, three times the rate for men. An extra year of secondary school alone can increase a woman’s lifetime wages by up to 25 percent. We need to promote more development and mentorship programs targeted to women.