Obama to focus on America’s women, working families in West Orlando speech

President Barack Obama’s visit to Orlando later today, kicks off an initial series of 5 regional forums during which he will discuss his plan to expand economic opportunities for women and working families, so as to make sure the workforce in the United States remains competitive.

Mr. Obama will first hold a roundtable discussion at Valencia College in West Orlando where he will lay out his efforts to expand access to higher education for women, as well as ensure that when women enter the workforce they have access to the skills they need to succeed. Fair and equal pay for women will also be discussed.

According to the White House, Mr. Obama will use the occasion to highlight key investments his administration has made to support higher education access for women and girls. They include, creating the $2,500 American Opportunity Tax Credit (AOTC), increasing the maximum Pell grant award by $1,000 and keeping student loan interest rates low.

These investments, the president will note, have helped support large increases in the number of women pursuing a college degree. Data shows that enrollments of women in 4 year schools are up over 20 percent since 2000, and there has been an increase by 50 percent in community colleges.

As regards ensuring that women have access to the skills they need to succeed in the workforce, while data shows young women outpacing men in obtaining college degrees, women continue to be underrepresented in STEM and related fields – areas that are projected to grow at faster rates than other job sectors and present significant economic opportunities. So as to ensure that women and girls have every opportunity to be successful, Mr. Obama is expected to highlight initiatives underway such as, increasing opportunities for STEM mentorship, providing real world job experience to high schoolers and emphasizing job-driven training.

Mr. Obama will again reiterate that earning a college degree remains one of the surest pathways into the middle class. Statistics have shown that women with an associate’s degree earn 26 percent more than those with a high school degree and, with a bachelor’s degree, women earn more than 80 percent more.

The president is also expected to call, yet again, for an increase in the minimum wage, a critical tool for ensuring that hard work is rewarded with fair pay. He recently signed an Executive Order to raise the minimum wage to $10.10 per hour for new federal contract workers and has been urging Congress to pass legislation to do the same. Mr. Obama will point out that, in real terms the minimum wage is worth less today than it was at the beginning of 1950.

Nationwide, some 28 million workers will benefit if the minimum wage is raised to $10.10 per hour. In Florida alone, 1.7 million workers will benefit from a minimum wage of $10.10, according to data released by the White House.

In addition to Orlando, Mr. Obama will hold forums in Denver, Chicago, San Francisco, Boston and New York City, in the lead up to the Working Families Summit which he will keynote in Washington, D.C. on June 23.