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Dear Women’s Bureau community,
It’s been my honor to serve as Director of the Women’s Bureau under President Biden and Acting Secretary Su. While my last day in this role is approaching, I know the positive change we’ve driven together will be long-lasting.
Looking back at the past four years, I am so proud of everything we’ve accomplished together.
We built pathways for women to enter high-paying, male-dominated fields and advocated for strategies to retain them.
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We awarded nearly $17.8 million in Women in Apprenticeship and Nontraditional Occupations (WANTO) funds to 26 community-based organizations working to prepare women for apprenticeship or pre-apprenticeship programs or train them for nontraditional occupations. Our 2024 WANTO class – nine organizations splitting $6 million – was the largest in history. As a result of our recent efforts to make WANTO even more impactful and inclusive, 87% of the women served since Fiscal Year 2020 have earned a credential or industry license, 92% achieved a measurable skills gain and 69% are from a historically underserved community.
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ensured that gender and racial equity were centered in the job creation that resulted from the Biden-Harris administration’s federal investments. Our Tradeswomen Building Infrastructure and efforts to train, hire and retain women on federally funded infrastructure, advanced manufacturing and clean energy projects. Through the Initiative, we provided technical assistance across and outside the federal government on best practices for recruiting and retaining women, including funding wraparound supportive services and respectful workplace trainings. Similarly, our publication "Tools for Building an Equitable Infrastructure Workforce" has helped employers, contractors, unions and local governments to make the intentional choice to build a diverse workforce.
We advocated for higher wages and better working conditions for care workers and women working in other low-paid, female-dominated fields.
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We supported efforts to raise wages and improve working conditions for wage earners in fields like domestic labor, healthcare and personal care, who are disproportionately women. This included publishing sample employment agreements for domestic workers, available in eight languages.
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Our research, technical assistance and grantmaking has driven progress on paid leave in states and at the federal level. After we provided technical assistance to five states using the Labor Department’s Worker PLUS microsimulation model, two states passed new paid family and medical leave programs. Our paid leave webpage contains a wealth of information, including a map of state-level paid leave programs available in English and Spanish. This June, we hosted the Paid Leave: Equity in Implementation conference, which convened state paid leave administrators, advocates, researchers and federal government to discuss equitable implementation practices. We also funded research by the Urban Institute that demonstrated that a national paid leave program would reduce poverty and increase equity.
We a go-to source for research on the gender pay and wealth gaps.
 released data, fact sheets and issue briefs related to subgroups of women including mothers; grandmothers and other older women; workers who are pregnant, give birth or pump breastmilk at work; and workers who are experiencing menstruation and menopause, which have been used by policymakers and employers to guide policy considerations and by workers to learn about their rights.
We maintained and regularly updated our unique data repository, which is used by thousands of people every month.
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Taking stock of all this work, I am prouder than ever of the Women’s Bureau team. I’ve often talked about our “superpowers” of research, grantmaking, and education and outreach, which are unmatched across the federal government. There is no other organization like the Women’s Bureau, and no team has this unique mix of quantitative researchers, issue experts, regional representatives and support staff.
Many things will be uncertain going forward, but I know I can count on each and every one of you to advocate for the critical work of this agency. It’s been my honor to work with you all.
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