Caregiving Crisis: We get nothing.
A shocking tea encounter during Spring Break, the push for counting unpaid labor in GDP, and calls for companies to act get louder.
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,
We left our house for spring break. We actually (gulp) left the country to visit dear friends in England and romp around for a bit.
My son had his first sleepover, he got to 'start' the London Eye and have a private car on his 7th birthday, and we got caught in an English countryside roundabout traffic jam that made even my Tetris-loving brain explode. 😱
But the moment I will keep thinking about... the one that will be inspiring me and this newsletter for quite some time happened at a hotel after my kid dug through a petri dish of jelly.
We were at a "science-themed tea" (delightful) and struck up a conversation with a boy and his mother seated near us. The boy was charming, and he and my son compared notes on their candy fossil findings in chocolate dirt. (Delicious.)
The mother and I talked, too. They're from Bulgaria and have been traveling around. She is trained in Montessori and instructing her son from France, England, Germany, you name it, using places like museums to bring learning to life.
She asked about Montessori schools. Are they prevalent in the U.S. for elementary?
No, they seem to be more for preschool.
How much money does the government pay for kids to go to private schools?
Um, usually none, I responded. School is usually only “free” if you go based on where you live... with the exceptions of some specific schools, depending on cities and states.
And then she asked: "And how much money do you get from the government each month to have your child?”
This was me.
This was her.
Complete shock.
I tried to explain. Like, we started getting money last year but it was for just a few months and it was based on income and actually it was an advance tax refund so it wasn't like they just gave money to us. And also it cut child poverty in half for a few months but the government didn't renew the funding and it doesn’t look likely to be renewed soon. Soooo…
We get nothing.
I looked it up later and Bulgaria has monthly subsidies for children through high school and special subsidies for those under 1. It is one of 108 nations to offer some form of these payments, per a UN report.
The U.S., just like its lack of national paid leave, is an outlier.
It's shameful how we treat families in our country. It's short-sighted, helps no one and puts us at a disadvantage vs. the rest of the world.
The U.S. is the world's richest country by GDP; Bulgaria is 75th. Our per capita income is 3x theirs. And yet, we are not investing in our families and the future members of our society as well as we should...and as well as we could.
We said our goodbyes and wished them well on their travels. (Then we had an awkward ‘we said our goodbyes but here we are again’ encounter due to a lost phone.🤦♀️)
I'm glad we didn't compare parental leaves — she may not have been able to withstand the shock. TLDR; Bulgaria’s maternity leave is 410 days, paid at 90%. Parents and even grandparents can take additional leave until the child turns 2.
We get nothing.
Meanwhile, we're still trying to cram through Congress national paid leave of just a few weeks. (See below.)
This moment will stay with me. When I see headlines about families rethinking the number of kids they have (NYT), and feel the injustice, the frustration and the ridiculousness of it all, I will remember science tea. I should have asked if there was a potion to speed all this up. 🪄
We’ll keep fighting. The conversation continues to get louder and louder. (More below.) Thanks for being here. Please message with your thoughts for future issues. Our next monthly issue is May 27th. See you soon.
What To Know About the Caregiving Crisis This Week
NEWS WATCH: ROUNDUP — Keeping tabs on legislation, regulation and conversation:
GET READY FOR AN UNPAID LABOR PUSH1 — This week brought the beginning of a movement to advance including unpaid work (ie caregiving) into the GDP. The Institute for Women's Policy Research Power+Summit in San Francisco included a "who's who of care economy thought leadership," Fortune reports (and I can attest, as I watched a lot!): IWPR CEO C. Nicole Mason, who coined the term “she-cession,” Ai-jen Poo, co-founder of the National Domestic Workers Alliance, Reshma Saujani, who crafted the Marshall Plan for Moms, ‘Fair Play’ author Eve Rodsky (and a creator of the CareForce), along with top data experts and more. The official kick-off for the "Unpaid Work in the GDP by 2030" will come at an all-day multidisciplinary conference on unpaid labor in September in LA. Rodsky is launching the Fair Play Policy Institute, a private effort to research and raise awareness of the importance of valuing unpaid labor.
The Fortune article is a great read into the history of the GDP and why unpaid labor should be counted. Not doing so devalues work that is "fundamentally necessary to a nation's economic success," per some who created the GDP and argued unsuccessfully to include unpaid labor in calculations. Those whose work isn’t counted are doubly hurt because it’s estimated family caregivers lose $300,000 in lifetime earnings, "which cuts into social security contributions, pensions, stable retirements, and other benefits."
Valuing this work will lead to better outcomes for women, Rodsky says.
“How can knowledge not be power?” Rodsky says. “I can’t tell you what it will look like when [unpaid labor] is measured, but I can tell you what it looks like when it’s not. Reproductive rights held back. No paid leave. Zero childcare options. What did it do for us not to have it in the GDP? Could it really get worse? We might as well try something new.”
LATEST ON PAID LEAVE — Progress in states, pressure nationally.
Maryland will become the 10th state to offer paid family leave to employees after the state legislature voted to override the governor's veto of legislation. Eligible employees will receive up $1,000 for each of up to 12 weeks of leave a year. They'll also got job protection. A payroll tax starting October 2023 will fund the benefit. Leave will be available starting 2025. (Society for Human Resource Management) Congrats to Myles Hicks and everyone from Maryland Rise, which led the fight. (Read our CC interview from February)
Big brands come out in support of national paid leave: AirBnb, Twitter, Salesforce, Etsy and some 350 companies announced they have joined the national campaign fighting for passage, Paid Leave for the United States. The move comes as Biden's Build Back Better Act is stuck in Congress. Only Fast Company covered it. Full company list here.
THE ARMY IS BEING ALL IT CAN BE — New U.S. Army policies aim to "create one of the most consequential sets of quality-of-life improvements ever for military parents," writes Military.com. Grassroots efforts helped advance these policies affecting 400,000 soldier parents (including 29,000 single fathers). The benefits are vast: soldiers who give birth and non-birth parents, and those undergoing fertility treatments, are excused for one year from duty that would take them away from home; more access and support for breastfeeding soldiers, and they can be excused from deployments where accommodations cannot be guaranteed. And commanders are being encouraged to give soldiers flexibility when caregiving issues arise.
"We recruit Soldiers, but we retain families," Gen. James McConville, chief of staff of the Army, said. "Winning the war for talent means making sure our best and brightest people don't have to choose between service and family."
Bottom line: The effort to get unpaid labor counted in GDP is exciting. I’m so passionate about this crisis because its tentacles are so big - wages, retirement, the health of the economy, it’s all connected. We have to give caregiving the respect it deserves. Maybe if we talk numbers those in power (mostly non-caregiving men) will start listening?
THE NO 💩🕵️HEADLINE OF THE WEEK — I used to work somewhere where we would keep tabs on headlines we classified as “no poop emoji Sherlock.” (This is a family newsletter!) And when I saw headlines of a new study, it was like old times.
So let’s start a semi-regular feature, depending on how the headline writers work. (I’ve been one of them. I can say it.) Here’s a completely obvious one from NBC…but maybe not for the person (man?) writing it?
Deloitte says women it surveyed this year report being worse off than those surveyed last year, just one year into the pandemic. Are these findings surprising when nothing about our care infrastructure has changed and work expectations are going back to normal?
53% said their stress is higher than a year ago; almost half feel burned out.
They're more likely to be looking for a new job, and the top reason is burnout.
Just one-third say their employer offers flexible work options; 94% percent (!!) believe that requesting flexible work will affect their likelihood of promotion.
60% of hybrid women workers feel they have been excluded from important meetings; half say they lack exposure to leaders critical to career progression.
Women of color and LGBT+ women are more likely to have experienced microagressions at work, with women of color significantly more likely to be excluded from informal interactions or subject to belittling comments.
Bottom line: There is so much work to be done. Companies will have to be the ones setting the tone and implementing change from the top.
CALLS FOR COMPANIES TO TRACK CAREGIVER STATUS — What affects 73% of U.S. workers and costs employers $35 billion a year? Starts with care, ends with giving. There's a case to be made for companies to start tracking caregiving status of employees, just as they do other data, write caregiving-in-the-workplace experts Amy Henderson and Sarah Johal in a new article for Harvard Business Review.
Company leaders "drastically underestimate both the number of caregivers in their workforce, and the impact on the bottom line," per research by Harvard business professor Joseph Fuller. Data is prevalent in the workplace now, they write, and it shows motherhood bias at companies is "the strongest and most prevalent form of gender bias in our economy — a self-inflicting blocker to becoming a global talent competitor." The Equal Employment Opportunity Commission noted in March a rise in pandemic-related discrimination complaints (read March's Caregiving Crisis.) The authors say companies can do four things:
Learn from business leaders who already measure caregiving status. Global employment platform Oyster tracks it and plans to look at this status when evaluating equity across hiring, retention, promotions, compensation and engagement.
Work with employees to create a holistic measurement vision. Talk to them about their needs and tap into them via employee surveys and resource groups.
Make data public to build transparency and trust. Companies are already doing that with inclusion and diversity metrics like gender, race, and job class. The authors note Americans want to see this data and studies show companies who share it can outperform peers in the market by 2.4%.
Advocate for more companies to measure and share data. Turn up the pressure, the authors write, by taking the Tending to Care pledge to track the caregiving status of employees and address its implications.
Bottom line: This is good for workers, families, kids, society AND business. Here's hoping companies recognize the competitive benefit they would realize from tracking and sharing caregiving status.
STATES GO WHERE FEDS FEAR TO TREAD — New Mexico and New York are making headlines for advancing major measures to expand access to free childcare.
New Mexico - This Washington Post headline sums it up: New Mexico to offer a year of free child care to most residents. The state is boosting the income limit for families receiving free care to 400% of poverty ($111,000) in a program starting May 1. Officials say the state is the first to offer no-cost care to such a broad range of incomes. This change and an expansion of federal child-care subsidies to middle-class families mean child care will now be free for 30,000 families. Rising costs of food and gas are hurting families, so the state wanted to help so people don’t have to choose between caregiving and work. "We have to remove barriers that are prohibiting people, especially women, coming back into the workforce," said Elizabeth Groginsky, NM Cabinet secretary for early-childhood education.
New York - A measure before the governor worth $7 billion would expand child care subsidies to families making 300% of poverty income levels, about $83,000 — vs. a previous cap of $55,000. This deal isn't making care free; families will have co-payments. Advocates criticized that some 5,000 children who are undocumented will not be eligible for care. The deal awaits lawmaker approval.
COUNTERPOINT! - These subsidies take care of only "half the equation” because they exclude families that care for kids in the home, writes Matt Bruening, founder of progressive think tank People's Policy Project in New York Times. Half of kids 3 and under are cared for this way, so governments should pay parents directly. (Just like my new Bulgarian friend gets!) Critics say these payments could reinforce gender norms by keeping women home and out of the (paid) labor force. Others counter all labor should be paid and studies show countries with these benefits see only a "modest impact" on the number of women in the formal labor market. ::texts Bulgarian friend::
Bottom line: *LOVE* seeing this progress in states. Now New Mexico has Better Call Saul2 AND free childcare? Swoon.
Signing off
Thanks, as always, for reading. Please send feedback, shocking travel moments, and examples of your unpaid work. 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.
This was an accidental pun, I swear. It's so good and so appropriate. Papa don't preach, I'm keeping my pun. (I can keep going.)
So excited Better Call Saul is back for a final season. I think I prefer it to Breaking Bad (shhh) and not just because we share a last name.