Fifty years after President Lyndon B. Johnson called for a War on Poverty and enlisted Sargent Shriver to oversee it, the most important social issue of our day is once again the dire economic straits of millions of Americans. 1 in 3 Americans today live in poverty or teeter on the brink. 70 million are women and the children who depend on them. The fragile economic status of millions of American women is the shameful secret of the modern era-yet these women are also our greatest hope for change, and our nation's greatest undervalued asset.

The Shriver Report: A Woman's Nation Pushes Back from the Brink asks-and answers-big questions. Why are millions of women financially vulnerable when others have made such great progress? Why are millions of women struggling to make ends meet even though they are hard at work? What is it about our nation-government, business, family, and even women themselves-that drives women to the financial brink? And what is at stake?

To answer these questions, we examined in detail three major cultural and economic changes over the past 50 years:
- Women work more outside the home, but still earn less than men.
- Women lead more families on their own.
- Women today need higher education to enter the middle class.

To forge a path forward that recognizes this reality, The Shriver Report brought together a power packed roster of big thinkers and talented contributors, including Hillary Clinton, Anne-Marie Slaughter and Lebron James, and challenged them to collaborate with us to develop fresh thinking around practical solutions. This report's unique combination of academic research, personal reflections, authentic photojournalism, groundbreaking poll results, front line workers, and box office celebrities, is all focused on a single issue of national importance: women and the economy. In The Shriver Report, Davos meets Main Street.

Maria Shriver is a Peabody and Emmy-winning journalist and producer, a six-time New York Times best-selling author, and an NBC News Special Anchor reporting on the shifting roles, emerging power and evolving needs of women in modern life. Shriver served as California’s First Lady from 2003 to 2010. She published two previous reports in 2009 and 2010 which ignited national conversations about the changing status of women that continue on today.

Contents

Opening

A Photograph and life snapshot of Julie Kaas

Foreword

By Neera Tanden

Part I: How We Got Here 8

Power

Powerful and Powerless by Maria Shriver

When We Were 9, We Were Honest By Professor Carol Gilligan

A photograph and life snapshot of Nikki Brown

Gender Equality is a Myth! By Beyonce Knowles

Time to Wake Up: Stop Blaming Poverty on the Poor By Barbara Ehrenreich

The Workplace

A Woman’s Place is in the Middle Class by Heather Boushey

The Gender Wage Gap: A Civil Rights Issue for Our Time By Maya Harris

Making the Care Economy a Caring Economy By Ai-Jen Poo

Lesbian, Bisexual, Transgender and Broke By Danielle Moddie-Mills

The Changing Face of American Women By Angela Glover Blackwell

Empowering Latinas By Eva Longoria

The Family

Marriage, Motherhood, and Men by Ann O’Leary

What About the Fathers? By Kathryn Edin

To the Brink and Back By Catherine Emmanuelle

America’s Working Single Mothers: An Appreciation By LeBron James

A Call to Men: Ending Men’s Violence Against Women By Tony Porter

Women and Poverty: The Role of Lawyers and Family Law By John Bouman

Marriage and Children, Another View By Ron Haskins

Evolution of the Modern American Family By Stephanie Coontz

Education

Get Smart: A 21st Century Education by Dr. Anthony P. Carnevale and Nicole Smith

Turning Poverty Around: Training Parents to Help Their Kids By Jennifer Garner

Living the Head Start Dream By Almeta Keys

Preschool for All: The Path to America’s Middle-Class Promise By Sec. Arne Duncan and Sec. Kathleen Sebelius

Afterschool Programs: Investing in our Cities by Investing in our Kids By Mayor Betsy Price

Single Mother in College: Willpower and a Lot of Help By Cara Cortez

Higher Education: Interrupting the Cycle of Poverty By Eduardo Padron

Part II: Why We Must Push Back

The Consequences of Living on the Brink

The Chronic Stress of Poverty: Toxic to Children By Dr. Nadine Burke Harris

The Trap: Mental Illness and Women in Poverty By Dr. Ron Manderscheid

Human Trafficking and Slavery in the United States: ‘You Don’t See the Chains’

By Jada Pinkett Smith

Armed and Vulnerable: Women in the U.S. Military By Dr. Sonya Borrero

Part III: Solutions

Public Solutions

Putting Women At the Center of Policymaking: Public Solutions to Help Women Push Back From the Brink By Melissa Boteach and Shawn Fremstad

We Have Blown a Huge Hole in Our Safety Net By Peter Edelman

From VISTA Corps to Shriver Corps: Providing Solutions for 50 Years By Shirley Sagawa

A Hand Up, Not a Hand Out By Idaho Governor C.L. Otter

On the Brink with a Disabled Child By Katie Bentley

The Circle of Protection: Balancing the Budget Does Not Require Burdening the Poor By Leith Anderson

Private Solutions

Private Solutions: What If Employers Put Women at the Center of Their Workplace Policies? By Ellen Galinsky, James T. Bond, and Eve Tahmincioglu

Smart Business: Reviving the American Dream By Howard Schultz

A photograph and life snapshot of Jessica McGowan

Empower Women and You Recharge the World By Muhtar Kent

Microfinancing Women: Great Return on Investment By Tory Burch

Personal Solutions

Personal Action, Collective Impact By Anne Mosle

Are Women Devalued by Religions? By Sister Joan Chittister

When Working Women Thrive, Our Nation Thrives By Sheryl Sandberg

A photograph and life snapshot of Britani Hood-Mongar

When Women Achieve Their Full Potential, So Will America By Senator Kirsten Gillibrand

Part IV: Where Do We Go From Here

Where Do We Go From Here? By Olivia Morgan and Karen Skelton

Epilogue By Hillary Rodham Clinton

Appendix

Failure to Adapt to Changing Families Leaves Women Economically Vulnerable By Anna Greenberg, David Walker, Alex Lundry, and Alicia Downs

Acknowledgements

About the Contributors