Caregiving Crisis: Let's get radical
One mom's radical call to arms, plus unpacking the homecare expansion and time to worry about the fate of the new child government payments next year?
Hey everyone,
Turning it over to a caregiver reader to talk about her experience in her own words, as part of our effort to share more stories to inform and shift the conversation. Here’s Natalie (not her real name, prefers to keep it private given her line of work.)
"We have been radicalized."
When I read that sentence in your newsletter, I couldn't believe it. That's the exact phrase I've been using to describe myself for a few months now.
I'm a nurse practitioner who works in Public Health, so my perspective on the pandemic is pretty freaking dismal. All of our support systems in America, including Public Health, have been gutted for decades and we are now paying the price. The political atmosphere of the last 20-30 years has made it seem like wanting really basic stuff like a decent minimum wage and paid maternity leave is "radical." Those things are not radical. But I feel radicalized.
I remember the exact moment it dawned on me. My family of origin are all liberal, total 60s hippie parents, a yoga instructor sister, always vote Democrat, Northern California organic-eating liberals. In January of this year, my sister went to goddamn French Polynesia on vacation (not that I'm mad about it or anything) and posted pics and videos all over social media. It was so clueless and obnoxious. She has watched me despair over the last year: isolating myself to protect our parents, crying because my 4-year-old daughter was also isolated and I worried about what that meant for her long-term, and fucking exhausted from seeing so many Americans displaying zero regard for others' safety while my friends who work in the ER and ICU work themselves into the grave. So many of us are sacrificing while everyone else parties. That's probably harder than the pandemic itself.
It was shocking to me that she was capable of this. I didn't know how to talk to her about it, so I called our dad, who is a kind and gentle man who loves both of us. His response also shocked me. He said, "She has taken all the safety precautions. I think it was safe for her to go." I said, "That's great for her. What about everybody else?"
That's when I realized that though my family, these wonderful people I love, call themselves liberals, they're not. They're libertarians. They just want to be able to do whatever floats into their heads without thinking about anyone else. Their definition of making the right choice is: am I safe?
So I feel radicalized not because my own values or ethics have changed. I feel radicalized in comparison to what's normal for everyone around me.
I've started referring to nearly everything as evidence of the American Post-apocalyptic Hellscape.
I have an American friend who lives in Australia, and he calls us severely mentally ill. It's true. How could any sane person be ok with half a million preventable deaths? How could any sane person be ok with so many mass shootings? And on and on and on.
-A radical mama
Emily again. 👋 Thank you to Natalie for a radical call to arms.1 It’s been another week filled with violence, police killings and anguish. Let’s “break up with politeness” as this inspiring Elle column says women should do. We have to tell it like it is if we want it to change. Have a caregiving story or know someone who does? Please message me — we want to tell stories of caregivers, raise awareness and normalize our very ‘radical’ wants. Hang in there and see you soon.
What To Know About the Caregiving Crisis This Week
NEWS WATCH: WEEKLY ROUNDUP — Keeping tabs on legislation, regulation and conversation:
White House releases $39 billion to help the pandemic-battered child care industry. Some $24 billion will go directly to providers to help them reopen or stay open, keep workers on payrolls, provide mental health support and safe learning environments, the White House said (Axios). These are overwhelmingly small businesses, owned by women and disproportionately owned by people of color. More than 25% of providers have remained closed, the White House says, and there are 164,000 fewer child care jobs now than there were last year, VP Kamala Harris said (CNN). And of course, when those center are closed, other caregivers have a difficult time working, too. The remaining $15 billion will go to states to help them make care more affordable and to boost pay for early childhood workers. The money comes from the $1.9 trillion rescue plan and represents 2% of it.
It’s a start and we’ll take it. We’ll dive more into the world of child care providers in an upcoming issue.
Everyone’s quibbling over whether caregiving is infrastructure. SIGH. The past few weeks have had tweet after tweet of snark against and support for the Biden administration including caregiving in its infrastructure bill(s) that has Washington fighting (Washington Post). The Atlantic has an excellent read on the semantics and arguments: Opponents say infrastructure is something physical like bridges and roads. It has to actually crumble. But supporters counter infrastructure is anything that is needed for the operation of a society. The author says including caregiving as infrastructure results from what feminists have been saying for decades:
"That traditionally feminized caretaking or ‘reproductive’ labor — the child care, elder care, cooking, cleaning, shopping, and domestic logistics that usually women do, often for low pay in the homes of others or for no pay at all in their own homes — is just as essential to the functioning of the economy as roads and bridges are. Domestic labor has to get done for any other work to get done."
Expect more empathy and fresh solutions as more women lead world economies. That's the takeaway from a Reuters article looking at the potential for change as women lead the U.S. Treasury, World Bank, European Central Bank, International Monetary Fund and more — all jobs that a decade ago men held. This could lead to more inclusive solutions that benefit all of society as it seeks to push past the legacy of Covid, the World Bank's chief economist said. Women are different from the 'rest of the group' and that means they see things differently, said Rebecca Henderson, a professor at Harvard Business School and author of “Reimagining Capitalism in a World on Fire.”
“You tend to be more open to different solutions,” Henderson said. “We’re in a moment of enormous crisis. We need new ways of thinking.”
San Francisco experiments with giving $1,000 month to Black and Pacific Islander new moms. Such guaranteed income programs aim to curb systemic poverty, inequality and racism and the new Abundant Birth Project is the first to focus on pregnant moms and their babies. Payments will go to 150 women during their pregnancies and the first six months of their children's lives. Such guaranteed income programs are becoming more commonplace, Time reports, as Americans get comfortable with direct assistance that has been the norm in Europe for decades. (Cue the new child tax credits. See more below.) New York University also announced the establishment of a new Cash Transfer Lab to look at the impact of policies like these.
Bottom line: This whole semantics argument against caregiving infrastructure is for the birds. Expect it to keep playing out and likely to get worse when caregiving for children makes it into the second round of the infrastructure package, perhaps next month.
HOMECARE EXPANSION COULD HELP LOOMING ELDERCARE WOES — Putting the definition of infrastructure aside, let’s look at the storm of eldercare problems ahead that the package is trying to help. The massive homecare expansion in the new infrastructure bill reflects “growing alarm” by some experts about the nation's “inability to absorb the enormous growth in its elderly population,” the Washington Post reports. Some $400 billion of the $2 trillion American Jobs Plan aims to expand in-home health-care services for the elderly and disabled. Childcare and other caregiving needs were postponed to a second plan, with details set to emerge next month.2
Panic alert: The U.S. aging population — which is slated to double by 2050 — is expected to further strain the workforce of caregivers, complicate retirements of millions and force many children, especially daughters, out of the labor market to care for their parents, the Post says. But yes, let’s not call it infrastructure. 🙄
“This is an absolutely critical piece of the package,” Heather Boushey, a member of the White House Council of Economic Advisers, told WaPo. “We think of it as core to our nation’s infrastructure.”
So far the plan is light on details and passage by Congress isn’t guaranteed. It also may not be enough and that will hurt its workforce, largely female and people of color, the 19th writes in a richly reported article that explores the arguments, history and toll this takes on workers. Look at how one of the authors breaks it down:
There are some 2 million home care workers now, and many of them exist outside the realm of the formal labor force, Time’s UP CEO Tina Tchen said. The expansion could include adding another 1.5 million jobs over a decade, and get these workers protections they are missing: increased pay, paid family and medical leave, collective bargaining rights and job training programs. Demand for this work is only going to get worse, see prior panic paragraph above. The 19th says the profession is estimated to grow 34% between 2019 and 2029, per BLS stats. That's mind-blowing when you consider the average growth for all jobs in that period is just 4%.
Bottom line: There are so many problems to be fixed now ahead of what we know is coming. Everyone who has a parent or who ages themselves will be affected by this. And we have to protect and empower these workers, who are and will be providing a fundamental service to society.
HOORAY, THERE'S A CHILD TAX CREDIT. BUT MAYBE NOT NEXT YEAR? —We've waited decade upon decade for more relief for families that (finally) recognizes supporting children helps the broader good, just as other countries like Canada and Germany do. Direct payments are coming this summer following the passage of the American Rescue Plan. The provision is expected to cut child poverty in half (in half!) because 27 million families who made too little to qualify before (yes, you’re reading that right) now will get help. Buuuuut the program is authorized for just one year.
That’s the big question, Alexis. In late March, some 41 Democratic senators sent Biden a letter urging him to make the credit permanent, the 19th reports. Sen. Mitt Romney has his own plan and that could resurface, too.
Policy experts say Republicans could influence the outcome because of a divided Congress. “A year from now when it’s up for renewal, it’ll be really important to have at least some kind of Republican Plan B or base of support for making it permanent and, importantly, having a strategy for paying for it,” one expert told the 19th.3
The benefit costs about $100 billion a year, and the Trump tax cuts in 2017 cost about twice that, New York Times reporter Jason DeParle said on a recent episode of Fresh Air, discussing the impact of the benefit on child poverty. He says Democrats are counting on the fact it'll be hard to take away the benefit after it's been in place.
"Once you've cut child poverty by half, it's harder then to say 'never mind. We're now going to double child poverty in the next year by cutting this benefit.' So I think they've been surprisingly united around this policy. And I think their hope is that its effectiveness will make it so popular that its repeal will become politically impossible," DeParle said.
Bottom line: Can lawmakers really take it away after pulling so many children out of poverty? Time to keep talking, keep the pressure up and ensure we’re continuing to help the most vulnerable families.
THIRD TIME’S THE CHARM TO SUPPORT PATERNITY LEAVE? — Fox News personality Jesse Watters is making news for saying he now supports paternity leave, having taken some time off this month with his new son. It’s his third kid.
Bottom line: Good to expand the voices supporting paid leave, even if it takes them having a few kids to realize it.
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 every other week but other things may get in the way.
Here’s me waiting for childcare relief details. (Also this show is a delight.)