Caregiving Crisis: Steps forward, steps back. Where's the escape hatch?
Jobs numbers show persistent problems for Black women. It's time to pressure lawmakers, employers, the Jarretts say.
Hey everyone,
I worked at a job once that had elevators on every floor. But you couldn’t use them. To go in or out of the building or between floors, you had to take stairs, escalators or special elevators that funneled you through a central floor. The goal was to get people mixing and talking. It was like a forced game of chutes and ladders. Except you had to pay absurd per-minute fees if you were late picking up your kid from daycare.
When I was pregnant, I learned I could get access to all the elevators. With my coded badge, I could go in any direction1. My life became easier. I saved time and effort each day, which proved helpful as my pregnancy wore on and I became too tired for the normal schlep.
And you know what? I became popular with my new access. When I packed up to leave each day, other people did too. I badged them in to the elevator and we all enjoyed the smartest, fastest way to travel. We exited the circular doors onto the street together and smiled, feeling as though we made our lives just a little bit easier.2
When I came back from maternity leave, my elevator privileges were gone — just as I needed special access the most. I was beyond tired, working so hard and rushing home to see my baby before bedtime.
Caregivers need their burdens eased. We need special coding on our badges now. The old way does not work, as the pandemic has made clear. Women are not OK as this CNBC headline said this week. We need more affordable childcare, better systems to support caregivers who work, enhanced payments and tax policies.
Sure, caregivers will benefit. But in a country where 43 million people are unpaid caregivers and 75% of them are women, don't all boats rise on that tide? These solutions won’t hurt others who don’t need them. (Hey, Idaho Republicans, stop blocking bills to help women.) They can keep riding their escalators and funneling through a centralized door, just as they always have.
We are desperate for an escape hatch. If there’s a way to ease the burden and make life better for all, why not do it?
Thanks, as always, for reading. Today marks one month of Caregiving Crisis, which I started because I was so annoyed. With everything! I’ve connected with so many of you and have been heartened to see dozens upon dozens of readers interested in these topics and solving this crisis. Message me with any and all feedback. Hang in there.
What To Know About the Caregiving Crisis This Week
NEWS WATCH: WEEKLY ROUNDUP — Keeping tabs on legislation, regulation and conversation this week:
Black women face steeper unemployment and more burnout. The labor market made modest gains in February after months of stalled growth in a report out this morning. But Black women are falling further behind. Their unemployment rate rose significantly, to 8.9% in February from 8.5% in January, the 19th reports (again, the only news outlet focusing on women in the monthly jobs reports). Black women were also the only group of women to lose workers in the labor force, as 11,000 left while other groups added workers. (Read this first-person column in Elle on Black women’s burnout.) Latinas are at 8.5% unemployment, per the latest BLS figures, and white women are at 5.2%. White men, for comparison, are at 5.3% and Black men are at 10.2%. Also worrying: the share of long-term unemployed (no work for 6+ months) is rising and hit 4.1 million last month. Prolonged unemployment means a harder time rejoining the labor force and difficulty getting similar pay as before. As the 19th puts it: Because women are more likely to be out of work than men, this is expected to exacerbate the gender pay gap.
VP Kamala Harris’ tie-breaking vote sets up Senate to debate stimulus. Expect a 'vote-a-rama' today on the $1.9 trillion stimulus package. Senate clerks must read the nearly 700-page bill aloud, a tactic by Republicans to delay passage. As Newsweek explains, lawmakers will then have up to 20 hours to debate the bill before the 'vote-a-rama' with unlimited amendments. Democrats vow to stay in sessions "no matter how long it takes," Sen. Majority Leader Chuck Schumer said. The goal is to have the package to Biden by March 14 to beat a deadline to prevent unemployment aid from expiring. A proposed change made to secure enough support means narrowing income limits for the next $1,400 stimulus check. Tax breaks for children/parents are still in the pipeline.
Congress considers new bill to fight pregnancy discrimination. The pandemic’s toll on women, jobs and access to healthcare has yielded a sense of urgency missing from prior attempts to pass the Pregnant Workers Fairness Act over the past eight years, the New York Times explains. The PWFA would require businesses to give pregnant women help they need on the job. “It’s just a common sense piece of legislation to help keep women in the work force,” said Rep. John Katko of New York, a Republican leader behind the PWFA. “We have to err on the side of inclusiveness, not exclusiveness.” ::slow clap::
Biden's economic team gets more diverse. Will representation help? There’s been a lot of coverage recently about hostility against women in the male-dominated field of economics. So it’s exciting to see Biden’s team skewing female and Black. Cecilia Rouse this week became the first Black person to become chair of the White House Council of Economic Advisers (Politico). And for the first time ever, a Black women is the chief Labor economist. Janelle Jones, 36, holds the "little-known position that will influence the futures of millions of people," Bloomberg writes. She's focused on solving problems exacerbated in the pandemic, including income inequality.
“There’s a lot of work to be done to make sure that we don’t just restore workers to where they were in January 2020 or four years ago,” Janelle Jones said. “We’ve seen workers take a huge hit over the past generation.”
Time devotes next week’s issue to stories about women in the pandemic. "COVID-19 has made it impossible to deny the ways broken systems hurt women," reads the intro to a collection of stories examining how women are working toward a better future. A must-read is a look at mothers suing employers who denied them accommodations and/or leave to care for their kids. Per Time: At least 58 lawsuits have been filed in the U.S. from April 2020 to February 2021 that allege an employer denied emergency parental leave, did not inform employees of their right to take emergency leave, or fired employees for asking to work remotely or take leave while schools and day cares were closed.
Bottom line: Steps forward, steps back, this week. There seems to be more conversations and they’re getting louder. A lot is riding on stimulus. Fingers crossed for next week.
OH BOY: MOTHERS REGAIN JOBS, BUT KIDS ARE STILL HOME — Women have been making gains in employment and are now about even with men in terms of employment levels, according to new Census data featured in a New York Times story. But that’s not good news if just a quarter of U.S. children are back in school full time. In fat, it’s terrible news.
“In some sense, we should be more concerned,” said Misty L. Heggeness, a principal economist at the Census Bureau and a co-author of the new analysis. “There are still kids to take care of and all the work to be done.”
Difficulty securing child care and worries about workplace flexibility are still holding women back, Reuters reports. Some, like 41-year-old Karen Zucker, are trying not to mention their kids when they interview for jobs. Zucker, who works in educational publishing, has seven-year old boy and girl twins and a three-year-old boy.
“I’m worried that I will be judged for having to take care of my kids, or maybe they’ll think that I’m unreliable,” Zucker told Reuters. “I try not to mention it, even though I think it’s a huge asset. Moms get stuff done.”
Bottom line: Don’t necessarily interpret gains in women’s jobs as being good news. If anything, it shows that women need even more support as they work again AND deal with kids, remote schooling and everything else. On the plus side, caregivers’ abilities to multitask, prioritize and execute are top notch. Employers should be anxious to have them.
JARRETTS: PRESSURE LAWMAKERS, EMPLOYERS — Valerie Jarrett says her generation of mothers swallowed the difficulties of working and caregiving, and dealt with them. But younger generations of moms, like her daughter, Laura Jarrett, are talking openly and sharing their problems. This is what can lead to change for the crisis affecting millions of caregivers, mostly women, they say.
The two Jarretts — the elder a former top advisor to Pres. Barack Obama, the younger the anchor of "Early Start" on CNN, both of them law school graduates — spoke in a forum this week hosted by MamaDen, a community for moms started by journalist Julianna Goldman.
They talked about the struggles of motherhood — Valerie as a single mom, and Laura as the mother of a young son in the pandemic. Tantrums due to the wrong color of sippy cups to finding time for self-care (wine or the gym?), and tough career decisions. They also talked about what’s to come, if we work for it. The pandemic has laid bare structural and cultural impediments that have existed for decades, said Valerie Jarrett. Now is the time to act with purpose.
"It's up to us all to put pressure on lawmakers, employers and ourselves to say the status quo is not one where we will thrive in the long-term. People have to be uncomfortable to be able to grow and develop," Valerie Jarrett said.
Women should tell their stories and start to demand change. Companies, losing talent and customers, should be listening to their workforce and asking how they can help.
Goldman asked: was the pandemic an inflection point? The widespread caregiving crisis, demonstrations for racial equality — are they the start of sustainable change?
Laura Jarrett worries the conversation in the media is an echo chamber for women. Men must be involved for lasting change to happen.
"I worry we’re not going to snap back. I worry this is a generational change of women’s careers being ruined by this pandemic," she said.
Bottom line: It’s heartening to see powerful mothers like the Jarretts speaking so openly about these struggles. Let’s add more voices to the choir and push for change.
STOP CALLING IT A ‘SHECESSION’ — Full Frontal with Samantha Bee tackles in a new segment what she says is the media's favorite asinine question: Can women have it all?3
She says the question is even more absurd in the pandemic, in a segment that does a great job of laying out the problems and data, and often idiotic news coverage, of the past year. Women make less than men, they’re more likely to be laid off in the pandemic and more likely to leave the workforce to care for kids, millions of them affected by school closures. Women are now less likely to have kids (the U.S. expects 300,000 fewer births this year) and they’re changing timelines for starting families. Stop asking the question if women can have it all, Bee says.
“It's sexist and it frames the idea of balancing work and children as a personal choice. If we want to support families and women, we need strong public policies, like universal preschool, subsidized childcare and paid family leave,” Bee said.
The economic recovery depends on it.
Bottom line: Rosie the Riveter’s new slogan, per Samantha Bee, says it all.
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.
Not Willy Wonka style, sadly.
Charlie Rose was often also in the circular doors when I left. Even on my first day I was told to stay away from him. Ugh.
(I love this kid so much.)