Caregiving Crisis: Data show economic inequality rises as women leave jobs ¯\_(ツ)_/¯
An ode to Mama Bear, and 'dust bunnies' of problems pile up as the White House signals it's paying attention
Hey everyone,
My idol in the pandemic has a house dress, matching bonnet and a take-no-crap attitude. We’ve been reading so much Berenstain Bears1 that I’ve started to idolize Mama Bear. When the family says they’re giving her a night off from cooking (yes “giving her a night off” - sigh) in “The Berenstain Bears Go Out to Eat,” there’s a wait at the Bear Country Grill. She’s thrilled to spend 30 minutes on a bench by herself while Papa Bear takes Brother, Sister and Honey out for a walk. (Does that not sound divine?) She bans TV for a week and the family develops hobbies like stargazing. She runs for mayor. She is a gifted gardener.
The most inspirational, though, is when she goes on strike. In “The Trouble With Chores,” Mama Bear has had it. Everyone has excuses. Nobody helps out. When Papa Bear suggests they stop doing chores altogether, she goes along with it.
Mama Bear goes back to her quilting club and prepares her flower show exhibit. The problems start to pile up: fruit flies hover over a sink stuffed with dishes, wet towels amass in the bathroom, a strange green mold appears on a shower curtain. An army of dust bunnies assembles under the sofa.
Eventually, the family realizes they don’t like the mess. And they clean it up. Mama Bear returns home from flower show preparations, sees the clean house and hugs her family. (Sidebar: How did she not say ‘I told you so?’ Mama Bear, you are so strong.)
A year into the pandemic, with Mama Bears everywhere on the brink, or fallen through it, the problems are piling up. Record unemployment for women. Black and Brown women disproportionately affected, just as they were making progress in the workforce. Economic inequality is rising.
We’re not purposefully teaching our family a lesson and dashing off to quilt. (No disrespect, Mama Bear.) We were forced to make tough decisions because of society’s shoddy support of caregivers. We simply can’t do it all. There are lessons to be learned from this crisis. Solutions that need to happen for women and to get the economy back on track. Others have to realize they need to step in and clean up, too. The army of dust bunnies is only getting bigger.
Many thanks to all who have subscribed in the past week. Welcome. (Read more on why I started this newsletter.) Glad to have you in the trenches with us. If you like what you read, please share Caregiving Crisis with your friends. This newsletter will always be free. The goal is power through knowledge to people who have no time to keep up with this crisis because we are in it. Message me with any and all feedback.
What To Know About the Caregiving Crisis This Week
OH LOOK, ECONOMIC INEQUALITY IS RISING — File this in the “we knew this but now we KNOW it” category: Americans collectively are now earning the same amount in wages and salaries as they did pre-pandemic, even with some 9 million fewer people working, the AP reports.
So, 9 million people no longer have jobs, but Americans as a whole still managed to earn $9.67 trillion in December. That’s on par with figures from January 2020, before we even got into this mess. The AP says this shows the extent of the jobs lost were more likely to be lower-wage, service jobs (hotels, restaurants, retail). And it estimates tens of millions of higher-income workers were able to work from home, keep their jobs or get new ones, and or get pay hikes. Economists were shocked by this development, which portends rising inequality.
“We’ve never seen anything like that before,” Federal Reserve Bank of New York senior economist Richard Deitz told the AP. “It’s a totally different kind of downturn than we’ve experienced before.”
UMMMMMM: Also “totally different” and likely accelerating this trend - women! leaving! the! workforce! I really dislike the “she-cession” terminology bandied about by the media, but this is it. (Sidebar: if men were out of work en masse would a cute moniker like “he-cession“ proliferate? No.) Reading between the lines, women are more likely to hold lower-wage jobs AND more likely to drop out of the workforce due to caregiving issues. And men are more likely to make more money and not be saddled with caregiving. With the female labor force participation rate back to where it was in the late 80s, you can only assume this inequality will keep rising. Women will fall further behind. And the U.S. already ranks as one of the most economically unequal developed nations in the world.
Bottom line: We’re starting to see these trends bubble up as this report implies to astute readers. But don’t expect the media to call it out. I love the AP, worked there for a decade, and I’m shaking my head that the notion of gender did not figure into this otherwise well-reported story.2
EXECUTIVE BRANCH PAYS ATTENTION — Two notable callouts from the new administration in the past week(ish).
-Vice President Kamala Harris says the “mass exodus” of women from the workforce is a “national emergency” that demands a national solution. She pens an op-ed for the Washington Post (love the simple force of the headline below) and convenes a video call with key lawmakers and several advocacy groups. These efforts attracted coverage from the New York Times, Reuters, Huffington Post and Jezebel. It’s troubling that financial outlets like the Wall Street Journal are still clearly seeing this as a ‘women’s issue’ and not covering it. (Funny though, because the WSJ says they want more women readers. Elevating this crisis to a national economic one would be a good step in that direction.)
The messaging in Harris’ op-ed and call have strong overlap, laying out the cause of the crisis and the need to pass the stimulus. She talks about trends we know all too well. But she mixes in some new angles, including a personal one:
She describes a "perfect storm for women workers" - job loss, small business closings and lack of child care. The small business angle is an important one that hasn’t gotten much attention. In February 2020, she says around 5 million women were business owners. Just two months later, one in four had closed their doors. Small businesses are vital for communities and they're also important for women, giving them the flexibility they need to work and care for families.
Harris says this situation is unacceptable and also personal. She describes how she and her sister found a second mother in a neighbor who watched them while their mother, a breast cancer scientist, worked every day and often on weekends.
The 2.5 million women who have lost jobs or dropped out of the workforce in the pandemic is enough to fill 40 football stadiums. (Not Covid friendly. Please no.)
The main thrust of her argument is setting the stage for the need to pass the $1.9 trillion stimulus, which includes direct payments to parents of $250 a month regardless of income. (See more details in last week’s Caregiving Crisis.) The bill also includes, per Reuters, an investment of $40 billion in childcare, paid family leave for 100 million additional workers and an investment of $130 billion to help re-open K-12 schools safely.
-Pres. Joe Biden announces creation of the White House Gender Policy Council. Yes we’ve seen councils before. But this is a Big Deal. Check out the New York Times headline about it: “The White House Is Taking Women’s Issues Seriously. Really.” What’s different? Prior councils had no full-time leaders. This one has two chairwomen. And the council reports directly to Biden. Jennifer Klein, co-chair of the new Gender Policy Council says, “This is not just a council. It’s a plan to take a government-wide approach to gender equity.” The former senior advisor to a then-first lady Hillary Clinton, along with co-lead Julissa Reynoso, former ambassador to Uruguay, will “directly collaborate” with every government agency on issues affecting all Americans, but specifically women.
The Clinton administration created the country’s first-ever presidential body focused on gender issues, called the Interagency Council on Women, with the then-first lady as honorary chair. She told the NYT the latest council is a critical first step.
"It sends a very clear message to the rest of government that there is going to be constant attention paid to how important it is to integrate the concerns that women are facing, especially post-pandemic, in every walk of life, and that the administration is expecting to highlight a governmentwide focus on uplifting the rights of girls and women, not only in our country but across the globe.” — Hillary Clinton on the formation of the White House Gender Policy Council
Bottom line: It’s exciting to see the new administration take ownership of these issues so quickly. The stimulus bill will be up for its first vote next Friday and the goal is to get it passed by March 14. We hope this momentum brings forth more ideas and action. Stimulus will be great, but we’ll need all the help we can get.
Signing off
Thanks, as always, for reading. I was going to try to write something witty here but it’s been a week. (Locals in New Jersey, you know what I’m talking about times two.) I know you all know the feeling. Stay safe and sane. Message me here. See you next week.
Did you read it as Berenstein Bears? You’re not alone. You may just be remembering a parallel universe from our past. If you know, you know. If you don’t, here’s a wonderful Internet rabbit (bear?) hole.
I messaged the AP reporter (a FB friend) about the issue of women leaving the workforce affecting rising inequality but not getting mentioned in the story. He responded: “That has been a part of it though job losses among men and women have equalized a bit recently - the big remaining difference, if I am reading the data right, is that women are more likely to quit and not look for work or if they lose jobs, not look for new ones, usually because of childcare issues. Either way the hope is as the pandemic gets under control and more schools reopen more women can return to work, which will be necessary to get the economy back on its feet.” Yes, that would be the hope.