Happy New Year!
As we step into 2025, we do so after a year that brought its share of challenges. These times haven’t been easy, but they’ve also shown the strength of our community. Even in moments of uncertainty and difficulty, your resilience and unity remind us that hope and progress are always within reach.
Your commitment to justice, care, and dignity for domestic workers ensured that, despite the obstacles, 2024 was a year of real and lasting impact. On the national stage, here’s what we achieved together:
- Elevated care as a national priority: Care-related issues reached 574% more people in 2024 compared to the previous year, driving urgency for systemic change.
- Took our movement on the road: The Care Can’t Wait Bus Tour traveled across seven states in six days, gathering more than 1,100 attendees at stops in Illinois, Wisconsin, Michigan, Pennsylvania, New York, North Carolina, and Georgia. With over 24,000 voices joining us online, we united the call for better care policies to lower costs for families, raise wages for workers, and improve access to quality care.
- Strengthened worker leadership and advocacy: Domestic worker organizers led a national strategy call in November with over 400 participants. They shared stories of their success and challenges in mobilizing communities and driving historic get-out-the-vote efforts, inspiring a renewed focus on advancing dignity and equity in the care economy.
- Unified for change: During Care Workers Recognition Month, care workers and advocates joined forces with lawmakers to demand fair wages, protections, and expanded access to care, spotlighting the critical contributions of care workers to our society.
In states across the nation, our movement delivered powerful results:
- Georgia: Secured $120 million to raise rates for HCBS providers and created a pathway to raise care worker wages.
- California: Won a $5.5 million judgment against six residential care agencies found guilty of wage theft, a major victory for worker justice.
- New Jersey: Advanced the NJ Domestic Workers Bill of Rights, paving the way for essential legal protections like paid sick leave and wage theft safeguards.
- Maryland: raised standards for home care workers by passing legislation to prevent misclassification and to collect vital data on the workforce.
- North Carolina: Fought to preserve childcare slots by securing an additional $101.25 million in state funding for stabilization grants, preventing closures and maintaining vital services for families.
- Washington, D.C.: Celebrated the second annual Care Workers Recognition Month with national leaders and advocates, amplifying the call for equity and justice for care workers.
Looking ahead to 2025, we have bold plans to protect and expand these gains, no matter the challenges we may face:
- Defend Medicaid and care jobs: Medicaid funds almost 70% of all home and community-based services, making it a lifeline for care workers and families alike. We’ll fight to protect this critical funding from harmful cuts and push for expanded services to support the people who make care possible.
- Make rights real: From wage protections in California to new safeguards in New Jersey, we’ll focus on ensuring workers see real benefits from the rights we’ve fought to secure.
- Mobilize for care justice: By training leaders, amplifying worker voices, and organizing communities, we’ll continue making care a top priority in legislatures across the nation.
We need your support to make 2025 our most impactful year yet. Take action today to stand with domestic workers:
👉🏽 Pledge your Commitment to Care and Dignity: Show your support for the fight to ensure every care worker and family is valued and protected.
👉🏽 Spread the word: Share this message with your networks and follow us on Facebook and Instagram so that you can share stories of worker leadership that are driving change in every corner of the country.
Together, we’ll fight to maintain and build on the progress we’ve made so that we can create a future where every worker is respected, protected, and valued. Thank you for being part of this journey—let’s make 2025 a year of hope and transformation.
Thanks for all that you do,
Care Team
National Domestic Workers Alliance
Thank you for being a dedicated supporter of the National Domestic Workers Alliance!
We're working day and night to win respect, recognition, and labor rights and protections for the more than 2.5 million nannies, house cleaners, and homecare workers.
The majority of domestic workers sit at the center of some of our nation’s most decisive issues because of who they are and what they do: they are women – mostly women of color, immigrants, mothers, and low-wage workers. They are impacted by almost every policy affecting the future of our economy, democracy and country.
Domestic workers can lead us toward a new, inclusive vision for the future for all of us -- and your grassroots support is the fuel that can get us there.
Join our SMS list: Text NDWA to 33843
This email was sent by the National Domestic Workers Alliance, the nation’s leading voice for dignity and fairness for the millions of domestic workers in the United States.
National Domestic Workers Alliance | 45 Broadway, Suite 2240 | New York, NY 10006 | DomesticWorkers.org
The National Domestic Workers Alliance, Inc. is a 501(c)(3) nonprofit organization (EIN: 35-2420942). Donations to NDWA are tax-deductible to the fullest extent allowable under the law.
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