The Biden-Harris Administration’s Results for Women: 10 Highlights by the Numbers
Since day one, President Biden and Vice President Harris have delivered results for women. The Biden-Harris Administration achieved the highest working-age women’s labor force participation on record, made historic investments in the care economy, lowered health care costs, invested in groundbreaking research and innovation to improve women’s health, protected reproductive health and rights, fought to end violence against women, and promoted the rights of women and girls in the United States and around the world.
Under this Administration, we—
1. Led a Historically Strong Labor Market Recovery—Including a Record High Labor Force Participation Rate for Women. The Administration’s economic plan led to a historic recovery in working-age women’s labor force participation in the United States, bringing it to the highest level since 1948. In 2021, the women’s unemployment rate dropped faster than in any calendar-year on record, and, in 2023, under the President’s leadership, the annual unemployment rate for women fell to its lowest annual rate in 70 years. Unemployment among Black women and Latinas fell dramatically; roughly 2.5 million more Hispanic women and more than 1 million Black women are employed now than at the start of the Administration.
The Administration also ensured that women have pathways to good-paying jobs. Women make up a growing share of apprentices across industries, including construction and educational services. The share of women among active apprentices rose from nearly 9% in 2015 to 14.5% in 2024, and the number of women in apprenticeships surpassed 100,000 for the first time ever.
2. Spurred Women’s Entrepreneurship—Doubling Investments in Women-Owned Businesses. The Administration invested in women-owned businesses and entrepreneurs, resulting in historic numbers of new business applications. In FY 2024, the Small Business Administration (SBA) backed 15,500 loans to businesses that are more-than 50% owned by women, for a total of $5.6 billion—doubling women-owned business participation in SBA lending from 2020 to 2024.
The Administration also invested nearly $100 million in the Women Business Centers (WBC) network and expanded it for the first time to all 50 states—increasing the number of grants by nearly 60% and the number of WBCs by nearly 45% and tripling the number of WBCs at Historically Black Colleges and Universities, Hispanic-Serving Institutions, and other minority-serving institutions.
Through the President’s American Rescue Plan, the Administration invested $10 billion to help states, territories, and Tribal governments leverage even more in matching public and private dollars to support small businesses across the United States, with a particular focus on historically underserved entrepreneurs, including women business owners. And women small business formation surged, substantially outpacing overall formation.
3. Invested in the Care Economy—Keeping Women-Owned Child Care Businesses Afloat. The American Rescue Plan Child Care Stabilization program delivered support to over 225,000 child care programs serving as many as 10 million children across the country. Over 90% of the child care programs that have received assistance are women-owned. The Council of Economic Advisers found that this stabilization funding supported savings for families with young children, raised the real wages of child care workers, and helped hundreds of thousands of women with young children enter or re-enter the workforce.
4. Supported Working Families—and Cut Child Poverty Nearly in Half. The Administration expanded the Child Tax Credit to give 40 million working families breathing room and helped cut child poverty nearly in half to its lowest level ever in 2021, leading to record low Black, Hispanic, white, Native American, and Asian American child poverty rates.
5. Lowered Health Care Costs for Women—Through Historic Provisions of the Inflation Reduction Act. The President’s prescription drug law, the Inflation Reduction Act, is directly benefiting women with Medicare, including nearly 30 million women enrolled in Medicare Part D. The Administration is delivering on the President’s promise to lower health care costs by capping seniors’ insulin costs at $35 for a month’s supply: all 3.4 million Medicare Part D enrollees who filled an insulin prescription in 2023 had their insulin costs capped at $35 per month, saving some seniors hundreds of dollars for a month’s supply and lowering costs for about 733,000 women enrolled in Part D and B. And the Administration implemented a $2,000 out-of-pocket cap for prescription drugs costs for Medicare Part D enrollees. In 2025, nearly 19 million seniors and other beneficiaries are expected to save $400 per year on prescription drugs.
For the first time in history, Medicare reached agreements on new, lower prices with the manufacturers of ten drugs selected for the first round of drug price negotiation. These drugs are used to treat many common diseases and conditions that affect women, including blood clots, diabetes, cardiovascular disease, heart failure, autoimmune conditions, and chronic kidney disease, and are taken by 9 million seniors, including 4.5 million women. When these lower prices go into effect, people on Medicare will save $1.5 billion in out-of-pocket costs for their prescription drugs, and Medicare will save $6 billion in the first year alone.
And millions of women are saving an average of $800 on health insurance premiums for Affordable Care Act Marketplace coverage, thanks to the Administration’s expansion of premium tax credits. This expansion helped drive health insurance coverage to a record high, while the Affordable Care Act continues to ensure that insurance companies cannot charge women more just because of their gender.
6. Bolstered Family Planning Services—Including by Supporting Title X Health Care Providers. The Administration rebuilt and grew the Title X Family Planning Program, which played a critical role in ensuring access to a broad range of high-quality family planning and preventive health services for more than 50 years. During the prior administration, more than 1,000 service sites left the Title X Family Planning Program, leading to a significant decline in people served. The Administration reversed changes that led to those departures, strengthening the Title X Family Planning Program and helping safeguard this critical part of the nation’s health safety net. In 2023, the Administration provided about $287 million to nearly 4,000 Title X providers across the country to provide free or low-cost voluntary planning and related preventive services for 2.8 million women and families—an 80% increase since 2020.
7. Advanced Women’s Health Research by Galvanizing Nearly $1 Billion. Launched by President Biden and Dr. Biden in November 2023, the White House Initiative on Women’s Health Research worked to fundamentally change how our country approaches and funds research on women’s health. The Initiative galvanized nearly $1 billion in funding to close gaps in research on women’s health. These investments will advance research to improve prevention, diagnosis, and treatment of diseases and conditions that affect women uniquely, disproportionately, and differently—from menopause to brain disorders to cardiovascular disease.
8. Fought to Prevent and End Gender-Based Violence—Including Through Record Funding to Reduce Violence and Support Survivors. Working to end gender-based violence has been a cornerstone of President Biden and Vice President Harris’ careers, and the Administration worked to prevent and end gender-based violence wherever it occurs—at home, at work, in the military, in schools, in communities, and online. President Biden strengthened the Violence Against Women Act (VAWA)—landmark bipartisan legislation that he wrote and championed as a U.S. Senator and worked across the aisle to strengthen ever since—by signing into law the VAWA Reauthorization Act of 2022. The President and Vice President also secured the highest-ever funding levels to implement VAWA and increased funding for VAWA programs by over 35% since 2021. These actions will help ensure continued progress in ending gender-based violence; between 1993 and 2022, annual domestic violence rates dropped by 67% and the rate of rapes and sexual assaults declined by 56%.
9. Supported Servicemembers Experiencing Sexual Violence. The Department of Defense implemented historic, bipartisan reforms to the military justice system, transferring key decision-making authorities from commanders to specialized, independent military prosecutors in cases of sexual assault, domestic violence, murder, and other serious offenses by amending the Uniform Code of Military Justice. Building on these reforms, the Department of Defense made record investments in sexual assault prevention and survivor support, more than doubling annual funding from $500 million to more than $1 billion in 2024 for these lifesaving services, with more than 1,000 integrated primary prevention personnel in place as of June 2024. This work is making a difference: for the first time in nearly a decade, rates of sexual assault and harassment within the active-duty force are down—with a nearly 19% drop in the number of service members who reported experiencing unwanted sexual contact since 2021.
10. Launched New Initiatives to Promote Rights and Opportunities for Women and Girls Around the World. The Administration advanced gender equality globally, launching initiatives to increase women’s economic security, address gender-based violence, promote women’s participation in peace and security processes, and support women’s leadership and human rights. The Administration mobilized over $4 billion in public and private resources to close gender gaps online, create jobs in the green and blue sectors, incentivize investment in childcare infrastructure in partnership with the World Bank, build the pipeline of women leaders, and provide support for survivor-led efforts to investigate and document conflict-related sexual violence.
