Caregiving Crisis: 'Future storming' for the world we want
Employers could get strong ROI if they help working parents, and solutions must include caregivers of adults
Hey everyone,
It’s hard to think about the future. For humans, it can be exhausting and even near impossible. I did a training this week at work called "Future Storming" — where we thought through the trajectory of current trends and how they'd mash up in the future. The goal is to envision a future state — and pain points and opportunities to be had, and obstacles along the way.
Of course my mind went to our current Caregiving Crisis1. What happens if things stay as they are, and what happens if solutions come to pass and the future gets better?
The trajectory we’re on is rough. Millions of women out of work, by choice or not. Some caregivers are still working, somehow, but spinning so many plates every day. We’re all losing it. The economy is suffering and, frankly, held back because of all this.
But “Future Storming” says to jump ahead. Imagine going from the existing state of child care (expensive, burden on individuals, ahem women) to universal childcare (subsidized and organized by the government, equitable access for all children.) And from the current state of caregiving (mostly women, unpaid, exhausting AF) to a more equitable distribution of this work (society and employers provide more resources, women supported so they can go out and do what they need to do.)
This sounds like the better future, right?
The future can be so much better if we change our trajectory. If we plot out the roadblocks and clear the path. The pandemic has exposed the problems. Now we build. Are solutions coming? Maybe? We unpack the latest below.
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What To Know About the Caregiving Crisis This Week
SOLUTION WATCH: WEEKLY ROUNDUP — Keeping tabs on legislation, regulation and conversation this week:
Today the $1.9 trillion stimulus bill is expected to cross an important marker by coming to a vote in the House. A new and more equitable form of direct payments to parents may be coming. The goal is final passage by March 14, which would be one year since most of us went into lockdown.
Federal Reserve Chair Jay Powell tells Congress in a regular economic update that to get to full employment, the U.S. must solve caregiving. He tells lawmakers that enabling better options for affordable childcare is an "area worth looking at." (That’s like a mic drop for him and that audience.) Read the deeply reported New York Times story. No other media outlet picked up on the caregiving economic angle. Et tu, WSJ?
Allies join the conversation. A group of 50 male celebrities including Steph Curry and Colin Farrell took out a full-page ad in the Washington Post asking Congress to support the “Marshall Plan for Moms.” (This follows moves by 50 female celebrities in the New York Times in January.) CBS News featured a good recap of the proposal, which calls for payments to women, spearheaded by the Girls Who Code founder Reshma Saujani.
Bottom line: The stimulus debate is likely to ignite more conversation about caregiving and relief. Will the media — other than the New York Times — start to connect the dots between the economy and getting women working? All eyes will be on the February unemployment report out next Friday.
EMPLOYERS: DON’T YOU FORGET ABOUT ME — We’re coming up on one year into the pandemic and although many working parents are still in it, employers seem to have moved on. Has all this been normalized? Is it ‘out-of-sight out-of-mind’ as we’re all just faces on a Zoom? I’ve been thinking about this after getting a text from reader NC after the first newsletter: “It’s gone on too long and now everyone’s forgotten that we’re all struggling over here.”
So true. Sadly. With the one-year anniversary of lockdown coming up, you can expect the media to take stock of what, if anything, companies did or are still doing. The New York Times’ Claire Cain Miller, who writes about gender, families and the future of work, focused on these themes in an interview on NPR’s “Fresh Air” (full audio, edited transcript). And it’s what NPR chose to highlight in its headline. (Sidebar: The mom of two kids, ages 4 and 8, had to conduct the interview in a ‘pop-up office’ in her neighbor’s backyard. We’ve all been there.2)
Cain Miller talked about a survey the NYT did that included how companies support(ed) caregiving employees as part of its big The Primal Scream series. She told Terry Gross that over 75% of working parents reported that help from their employers amounted to having only flexible hours. No extra days off, money for care, nothing. And of course, this help largely skews(-ed) toward higher-earning, college-educated workers, further exacerbating inequities. She said she was surprised companies weren’t doing more, considering they’ll reap the benefits of an engaged workforce in their bottom line.
“There are only so many months that you can wake up at dawn or work after bedtime in order to get it all done. It's just not sustainable.” — Claire Cain Miller
So what can companies do? Her ideas:
Offer part-time schedules or unpaid leaves. She said PricewaterhouseCoopers has among the most generous programs: take a six-month sabbatical at 20% pay. Get paid and have a job to go back to. (Though 20%, for many families, isn’t enough.)
Pay for child care. Give families money to pay for care, tutoring or to support an unpaid leave.
Take into account caregiving when doing employee evaluations. Our brains are mush.
Adopt hybrid schedules post-pandemic, allowing employees to work at home and in the office. Give caregivers flexibility and more control.
My favorite: Use empty offices as remote-learning spaces for kids. Hire tutors and other help to monitor the kids’ learning in the office while parents work at home.
Bottom line: Companies were quick to trumpet their support a year ago. What are they doing now? Solutions must come from the private sector, not just government. Employers would be smart to recognize the value caregiving workers bring. This will be especially important as competition for talent heightens in a remote work environment, where geography matters less and less. What ideas do you have for how companies can help? What is your company doing? Message me.
SOLUTIONS MUST INCLUDE CAREGIVERS OF ADULTS — Pressure is building for the new administration to make good on promises to tackle the crisis for those who care for the sick or elderly, writes journalist Kate Washington in an eye-opening column in the New York Times: “50 Million Americans Are Unpaid Caregivers. We Need Help.”
Washington has first-hand knowledge and it’s terrifying. She writes about calling a suicide hotline to hear a calming voice after bringing home her husband, who was recovering from a stem-cell transplant following aggressive lymphoma. She’s overwhelmed by his round-the-clock care (dozens of medications, intravenous nutrition, while he was blind and too weak to walk), on top of parenting her two kids. Insurance doesn’t cover help and it’s a burden to ask family and friends.
She sees hope in Biden’s campaign promises to extend stimulus payments to cover adult dependents, in addition to tax credits, and paid family and medical leave. Possibilities floated include a $5,000 tax credit for unpaid caregivers, Social Security credits for those who leave jobs to provide care and more access to long-term care and support services.
“Our system largely abandons those with less privilege than I have to struggle alone caring for those we love most. The result for many is burnout, bankruptcy and profound suffering.” — Washington writes.
She wrote about the experience in a book that comes out March 16. You can already smell that toast, can’t you?
Bottom line: This is a quieter crisis but pervasive. AARP estimates some one in five Americans are providing care to an adult or child with special needs. Sixty-one percent of these caregivers are also working. And more Americans are caring for more than one person, too. This will only get worse as Baby Boomers age and “sandwich” their own kids. The dynamic is already playing out as family caregivers are “routinely left off vaccine lists,” and left to worry how they’ll care for loved ones if they get sick, Kaiser Health News reports.
ROSIE THE RIVETER NEEDED CHILDCARE — I did one of those things where a series of nonsensical clicks on Instagram took me to a segment from The Daily Show earlier this month on the childcare crisis. Trevor Noah will have you nodding in agreement. And he brings up a good history lesson: in World War II, with so many men fighting overseas, the U.S. government subsidized childcare so women could work in factories. We did it before. Can we do it again?
Bottom line: Sad trombone.
Signing off
Thanks, as always, for reading. Please send feedback, articles, gifs, screaming mom memes. If you find value in this newsletter, please spread the word.
Caregiving Crisis is a newsletter written by Emily Fredrix Goodman. We aim to publish weekly but other things may get in the way.
Do I win an hour of free childcare for deftly slipping in the newsletter title into the newsletter?
Like the time I hid in a coat closet at my new job to take a phone call telling me I was having a boy. No one knew I was pregnant and wow did I have to keep a poker face.