WASHINGTON – Rep. Jamaal Bowman (D-N.Y.) on Tuesday night led the Congressional Progressive Caucus’ Special Order Hour on the House floor on the subject of the American Families Plan and the need to invest in the care economy.
Rep. Bowman was joined by his colleagues Reps. Pramila Jayapal (D-WA), Mark Takano (D-CA), Dwight Evans (D-PA), Ilhan Omar (D-MN), Kai Kahele (D-HI), Ayanna Pressley (D-MA), Andy Levin (D-MI) and Jan Schakowsky (D-IL).
Click here for a video of Rep. Bowman’s opening remarks, and see below for a transcript. Click here for video of Bowman’s closing remarks.
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Tonight I’m pleased to be joined by many of my colleagues in the Congressional Progressive Caucus to talk about the long overdue investment we need to make in the care economy - something that our infrastructure has always relied upon.
I introduced the Care for All Agenda earlier this spring calling for the federal government to dramatically expand and strengthen the care economy.
The American Families Plan outlines the next step we need to take to get there, which must include improving work conditions and compensation for care workers nationwide.
The care economy impacts all of us: our children, elderly loved ones, family members with disabilities, child care workers, home health aides, nurses, and so many more. Care is something we all need, at different stages in our lives.
The care economy includes our essential workers, who put their lives on the line everyday during the most devastating global pandemic in a century. Many of us will be caregivers ourselves if we haven’t been one yet.
Ask any working family about how hard it’s been to find affordable, quality child care even before COVID.
Ask a child care worker if they can afford to send their own child to the center they work at.
Ask any one of the vast majority of workers who do not have paid family and medical leave how hard it is to care for a loved one who is ill while holding on to their job.
Ask anyone who qualifies for long-term care under Medicaid but has been unable to access it due to the healthcare workforce shortage.
Ask a home health aide how much they make hourly and the need to redesign our care infrastructure will become abundantly clear.
Just as our physical infrastructure is crumbling, the United States today suffers from a lack of care infrastructure. These two truths are intertwined.
Our crumbling infrastructure disproportionately harms Black, brown, Indigenous, and low-income communities. The negative health impacts arising from fossil fuel use, industrial pollution, and toxic materials in our homes and schools are literally making us sick.
We need to invest in eliminating carbon emissions and we also need to invest in the caregivers we are counting on to heal us now.
We’re calling for a broader shift to a society based on care for people, communities, and the planet we share.
We are still grieving more than 600,000 lives lost to COVID in our country, many of them caregivers themselves. In this last year we saw how badly we need a robust care economy and what happens when our investment in care doesn’t match our needs.
I know that for some, talking about caregiving as infrastructure sounds like a new idea and a “nice to have.” None of this work is new and all of it is necessary.
I’ve heard directly from New Yorkers who rely on caregivers everyday, like a constituent of mine in Westchester who was born with diastrophic dysplasia and wrote in about how we need to do better by our caregivers and pay them a living wage.
Now in her 50s, she qualifies for Medicaid and needs home-based care. The home health aide who cares for her has to work two additional jobs to make ends meet. That should give us all pause.
One of the biggest champions for caregivers and domestic workers, Ai-jen Poo, said that: “The definition of infrastructure is that which enables society and the economy to function. So what is more fundamental than the ability to take care of our loved ones?”
Caregiving is almost always provided by women, and especially Black and brown women. This work has historically been made invisible, which creates opportunities for the exploitation and poverty wages many of our caregivers face without protection or recourse.
When it comes to finding care, millions of families are left with no option but to “figure it out,” which we know so often means women not taking paid work in order to provide unpaid care work for their own families.
The American Families Plan will help us bring the care economy out of the shadows with key investments in child care, paid leave, Medicaid, home and community based services, and more.
This goes so much deeper than making it possible for families to enter and remain in the workforce. We need to ask ourselves what kind of systems and structures we want in place -- not only for people to survive, but also to thrive and reach their full potential.
Given how common it is to need care and not get it, we must ask ourselves: are we, as a nation, structured to listen? Are we structured to care?
We need to listen to the caregivers and the families who rely on them so that we make the most powerful investments that will not only boost our economy, but allow us to heal and truly move forward as a society.
We need to rebuild our nation with a new foundation. A foundation rooted in love, care, and equality.
That’s the kind of thinking we need in the infrastructure package.
And now, I’m pleased to yield to my other colleagues who will highlight other critical care economy needs.
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