This issue is sponsored by CareForce: the driving force in reimagining how we care. Bringing together builders, storytellers, funders and leaders to create the infrastructure of care we all need for the 21st century. Learn more.
Hey everyone,
It happened again. And again. And again. And again. And again.
Twenty-one victims killed this week in Uvalde, Texas, 19 of them fourth-graders.1 On top of the hate-filled murders in Buffalo, and the senseless shooting in California in recent weeks.
Learning, shopping, worshipping.
These are the ways in which people in the U.S. are getting killed these days by hate and by guns.
By madness and by government failure.
This is a newsletter about caregiving. About the infrastructure our country and world needs so our people and economies can function and thrive. About how we can learn from society’s shortcomings, how we can put pressure on companies and our lawmakers to help us create a better world for all. Our TLDR is: when caregivers are supported, our society is supported.
But how can we care for others if we are not being cared for?
How can we work our jobs and go forward, when this cloud of violence and death hangs over us?
How can our children learn?
How can people buy groceries or worship? Or do anything without fear?
How can our governments continually look away from gun control when so the majority of Americans want it? How can we take power back from this minority rule?
I’m asking questions because there are few answers.
One thing is clear: Gun control is infrastructure.
It is how we keep our people safe, our future leaders learning. How our families thrive, how we shop for food, how we worship. How we put our children onto the school bus without sobbing.
How we stop all of this.
Just as we look at other countries as models of paid leave and supporting caregivers, so we must look at them now. The UK, Australia, New Zealand. Those are the countries that endured a fraction of a fraction of the shootings we have had. And they were moved to enact gun control swiftly and safely.
What does it take here?
Why do we value lives so little? (And yet also so much that we will take away a woman’s right to choose?)
Gun control is infrastructure.
Abortion rights are infrastructure.
Access to formula is infrastructure.
How do we rebuild our infrastructure?
How do we keep going?
This has been a hard few weeks. On top of many, many more. Thanks for being here. Please message with your thoughts for future issues. Our next monthly issue is June 24th. See you soon.
What To Know About the Caregiving Crisis This Week
NEWS WATCH: ROUNDUP — Keeping tabs on legislation, regulation and conversation:
YELLEN: ABORTION ACCESS IS ECONOMICS — Comments by U.S. Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen about the link between abortion rights, the economy and women "dominated" a Senate Banking Committee hearing, Reuters reports. The first woman to hold her position, who I call JYELL❣️, said reproductive rights allow women to plan "fulfilling and satisfying lives" and the likely overturning of Roe V. Wade will be "very damaging" to the U.S. economy and set women back decades by limiting their ability to get an education, their earning power and their labor force participation.
And these consequences will be felt more by low-income and women of color, she said.
"In many cases, abortions are of teenage women, particularly low-income and often Black, who aren't in a position to be able to care for children, have unexpected pregnancies, and it deprives them of the ability often to continue their education to later participate in the workforce," Yellen said.
But she hurt some senators' feelings. OH NO!!! 😱 Republican Sen. Tim Scott of South Carolina said her description of the economic links to abortion rights were "harsh" and, in Reuters' description "inappropriate for such a painful issue."
"I think people can disagree on the issue of being pro-life or pro abortion. But in the end, I think framing it in the context of labor force participation, it just feels callous to me," said Scott, adding that he was raised by a Black single mother in poverty.
Yellen is right in making the economic/abortion connection, writes Julianna Goldman (Careforce member!) in Bloomberg Opinion. One expert she spoke with estimates that upwards of 75,000 unplanned births could happen in the year following Roe's reversal. "You will see more affluent women travel to obtain and the poorest of poor women unable to obtain them," Middlebury College economics professor Caitlin Knowles Myers said of abortions.
GOVERNMENT LAUNCHES FORMULA INQUIRY — The U.S. government is looking into market conditions that have led to one of the biggest formula shortages in recent U.S. history — an issue that has tremendous impact on caregivers. The Federal Trade Commission has launched an inquiry into the shortage that begin with a product recall in February and closing of a manufacturing plant. The FTC wants to look into how the market got so concentrated that a recall and plant closing could cause such shortages. How concentrated is it? Unlike any other product out there…
The baby formula shortage reveals an amazing secret oligopoly: - 3 American companies control over 90% of the mkt - hugely restrictive regulations (thanks to big $ lobbying) prohibit foreign formulas Name another industry/sector/product like thisMore on how this is affecting caregivers below.
CARE ECONOMY STARTUPS — A new venture capital fund focused on caregiving seeks to tap into a "massive, massive market" that hits across the entire population, Forbes writes in a profile of Magnify Ventures. The fund, anchored by Melinda Gates' Pivotal Ventures, just closed on $52 million for its debut fund. It's focused on four sectors: parenting and family life, future of work, household optimization, and aging and longevity. Co-founder Julie Wroblewski says the pandemic has inspired many entrepreneurs to seek solutions and the result is a "robust pipeline of seed deals."
Bottom line: Brace for more talk — and more male lawmakers’ feelings to be hurt —about Roe v. Wade as its likely overturning happens at the end of SCOTUS’ term in June.
FORMULA SHORTAGE AKA THE LATEST SHAMESPLAINING — Because caregivers have nothing to do, now those of them with young babies who use formula can stay busy with new hobbies: frantically worrying about how to feed their kids, desperately stalking grocery stores and pharmacies, setting up elaborate networks with the latest formula intel and being shamesplained2 about breastfeeding by people like Bette Midler. No, Bette Meddler (amirite?), the solution to the formula shortage is not breastfeeding. It is not always easy and it is not free. And it is always personal.
The formula crisis that emerged in recent weeks is getting so many headlines.
It’s also giving moms a chance to do what they do best: devise their own systems to deal with society’s failures.
The shortage is also yet another example of how women — and their time — are so poorly valued in our country. Motherhood is venerated but not supported, points out an opinion piece in the New York Times with the headline "Imagine a World Where Men Had to Breastfeed Their Babies."
Now we've got the government shipping in half a million bottles of formula -- that's enough for 9,000 babies and 18,000 toddlers for a week. (A week!) And the Biden Administration invoked the Defense Production Act, something reserved for wartime shortages, to boost formula manufacturing.
How exhausting this must be for the parents who have to hustle now to do something as simple as get their kids fed3. (Recognizing it is a privilege for so many of us to normally be able to feed ourselves and our families so easily.) So I reached out to one of the bravest, awesomest moms I know - my friend Jen Rae Wang of Omaha - who had posted online earlier this week thanking people for helping her source formula to feed her adorable 10-month-old twins Ara and Vela.
We texted because we’re moms (she is a mom of FIVE) and she told me she has been sourcing formula from friends in Italy (ITALY!), California, DC, Florida, Colorado and her family in Iowa.
“I have an amazing coworker friend who was driving from Kansas to Vegas for her vacation and she stopped at stores along the way and just mailed a box,” she said, adding she thinks she was on a motorcycle too.4
Jen Rae says she chases FB posts that friends screenshot and send to her and she has a list of other moms and caretakers that need specific types.
What strikes her, she says, is that it is all women helping each other.
“Just like the pandemic, it’s women who are getting it done and taking care of one another, our kids, and our future.”
Bottom line: Proud of women stepping up and stepping in…but really? Must we always?! I asked JRae to sum up this formula situation in emojis:
🔎🍼🔥🔥🤦♀️⌛👶👶
CARE ECONOMY WORTH UP TO $6 TRILLION — It’s a number that would make even Dr. Evil5 blush.
The care economy - both paid and unpaid, is worth a staggering $6 trillion according to a new report by Boston Consulting Group. Researchers make the case in the report starting with their title — “To Fix the Labor Shortage, Solve the Care Crisis” — that a lot of money and workers are at stake, and to get the economy going, we must take care of care. Unpaid care is worth as much as $3.5 trillion, while the formal (paid) care economy is worth $2.2 trillion. There’s also a gray economy, too.
These are big numbers, but no surprise when you see the researchers estimates about the pervasiveness of the effect of care on the workforce. They estimate:
"Employed caregivers" make up over half the workforce (those who work and have caregiving duties). And they comprise nearly 60% (!!) of US gross domestic product.
Nearly nine in 10 of these workers depend on other care providers, either paid or unpaid, to free them up to perform their own jobs.
As many as 10 million potential workers (90% of them women) are stay-at-home parents or unpaid caregivers tending to adults.
The researchers say we need to mobilize society to revitalize care with quality, affordable paid care. And it's going to get worse amid "surging demand for eldercare" that will "change the face of care in the next decade."
By 2034, there will be more people 65 and older than 18 and younger for the first time in U.S. history.
The share of workers with care responsibilities for adults is projected to increase to 25% in the next decade. And this will stress members of the "sandwich generation" who are caring for their children and their own aging parents.
Solutions include making paid-care jobs more attractive to new workers, getting companies to offer flexible/stable hours and paid leave.
Bottom line: Gonna turn this back to the BCG researchers. They conclude in their report that the U.S. is facing a “moral and economic quandary involving care and the long-term health of its economy.”
“The pandemic, when families suddenly had to scramble to cover care responsibilities, was a harbinger of what our workforce could look like without investment and innovation in paid care and the care economy overall. These challenges aren’t new, they’re not going away, and they are poised to get worse.”
Signing off
Thanks, as always, for reading. Please send feedback, formula sightings, and your thoughts about this man who has achieved his dream of being a dog (because I have a lot of thoughts.) If you found value in Caregiving Crisis, please share with a friend. See you soon.
This issue is sponsored by CareForce: the driving force in reimagining how we care. Bringing together builders, storytellers, funders and leaders to create the infrastructure of care we all need for the 21st century. Learn more.
Caregiving Crisis is a newsletter written by Emily Fredrix Goodman. We aim to publish monthly but other things may get in the way.
I had to update these numbers while writing.
Pretty sure I just invented this word? Kinda awesome that this formula-fed baby is shamesplaining shamesplaining to the breastfeeding shamesplainers. 🎤
Formula is a lifeline for so many. I was a formula baby. My son was a formula baby. (Body by Costco, I used to joke!) Breastfeeding did not work for us. We spent way more on tongue and lip tie procedures than we would have formula before we made the switch. Formula was the right choice for us… and it allowed other people to care more for my son. And more sanity for me.
My mind went here and I pictured the Wolf sourcing formula and deliveries made on this…chopper.
Because I was feeling wild, I looked up what $1 million from the year Austin Powers took place (1967) would be worth these days: $8.66 million. The more you know. (Cost inflation calculator for life.)