#100DaysforCare Pledge

In the first 100 days of the new Administration, the Biden-Harris Administration and Congress have a transformational opportunity to lift tens of millions of people out of poverty by implementing long-needed care infrastructure policies and ensuring gender equity is centered in their COVID relief and recovery legislation.

Dear Senators and
Members of Congress,

We thank Congress and the Biden-Harris Administration for the robust focus on Care in the recovery stimulus that will start to lift tens of millions women and children, specifically women and children of color hit hardest by the COVID-19 crisis, out of poverty. Care infrastructure is key for an equitable recovery and just as essential to a large share of the workforce as roads and bridges.

The COVID-19 pandemic has laid bare the economic, gender, and racial injustices in our country. We’ve seen 5.4 million women leave the workforce, many due to childcare or other caregiving demands. But, even before the pandemic, women and children already made up 70% of our nation’s poor, despite the fact that women have earned their place as the most educated cohort in the labor force in America.

Our collective failure to invest in policies that support caregivers, ensure working people can both care for themselves and their loved ones, and guarantee women are at long last paid equitably at work has unraveled decades of progress in the labor market and threatens to hold back the economy for decades to come.

By redefining Care as permanent, national infrastructure, Congress and the Biden-Harris Administration have an incredible opportunity to make transformational strides to eliminate American poverty, ensure equitable, financial stability for tens of millions of women and families, and create millions of jobs across all sectors.

We urge you in the strongest possible terms to prioritize full national funding for all Americans of each of these policies while the political will still exists.

Emergency and Permanent Paid Family and Medical Leave
High-Quality, Affordable Childcare for All
Invest in the Care Economy: Uplifting long-term and dignified care by providing care workers and family caregivers substantive infrastructure will, in turn, hold up a more productive and successful American workforce and economy.

Lifting women will lift families and communities and the children and others they care for. It’s critical that the forthcoming Build Back Better and recovery efforts are centered in a gender equity framework that creates financial stability for the disproportionate number of women hit hardest by this crisis. Ignoring these policies will be detrimental to our economy, our labor market, and our workforce for decades to come.

We’ve long been sold a story that government is our enemy -- let’s show people that smart investments can and will solve big problems facing real people and set America on a path to a prosperous and equitable future.

We urge Congress to meet this moment with everything it deserves.

Signed,

The Careforce

The Careforce is a group of working parents, business and nonprofit leaders, caregivers, economists, researchers, and gender equity advocates working to lobby for transformational, equitable policy change on behalf of women and children in America.

(signatories below)