We
at Roosevelt mourn the continued loss of Black and brown lives to
police brutality. For the justice and accountability our communities
deserve, we all must work to dismantle systemic
racism.
An Overdue Investment in
Care
“I don’t know how anyone could live through the pandemic and
not see clearly that a care infrastructure is part of the backbone of
an overall strong economy.”
Roosevelt Fellow Lenore Palladino in
the New Republic
The future of policymaking is—and
must be—gender-forward.
And as the pandemic has reminded
us, we can’t afford to wait for it.
Over the last year, the COVID-19
crisis and structural sexism have intersected to devastating effect:
Women have disproportionately lost or left their jobs, reduced their paid hours, and devoted additional,
unpaid hours to childcare
and household work.
Black and brown women, who faced
record
job loss and are
overrepresented both in the hardest-hit
industries and in
care work, could experience prolonged and unnecessary economic loss—as
they always have—in the absence of meaningful structural
change.
As Roosevelt’s Rhiana Gunn-Wright
told
the New Republic, “Economic transformation is not possible without care
infrastructure, at least if you want to do it equitably.”
Enter the American Jobs Plan, a
significant portion of which would invest in the care economy at
unprecedented scale and with a transformational approach, as Roosevelt
Program Manager Emily DiVito explains in
a Washington Post op-ed.
In contrast to the subsidy-driven
solutions of prior interventions, the AJP would spend $25 billion for the creation of childcare facilities
and $400
billion for home and community care for people with
disabilities and the elderly.
In addition to creating
jobs and bolstering collective-bargaining
rights, it would also “address the supply shortages that make finding
care difficult—shortages made worse because about 20,000
childcare centers have closed permanently during the pandemic,” DiVito
writes. “It’s a strong pivot toward policymaking that tackles systemic
sexism in the economy head-on.”
The Inflation
Illusion
Last week, Roosevelt’s Mike Konczal, J.W. Mason, and Lauren
Melodia warned
that the year-over-year inflation numbers for March, released on
Tuesday, might seem misleadingly
high.
As predicted, the Consumer Price
Index did indeed rise—2.6
percent—as
did food and gas prices.
However, as they
emphasized—and the White House
echoed—these numbers are not cause for concern, because they reflect
deflation in 2020 rather than inflation this year.
To get a more accurate picture,
and to avoid raising alarm over artificially high numbers, monitor the
inflation rate starting from January 2020, as Konczal told Slate.
Join the Conversation
On Tuesday, IRS commissioner Charles Rettig estimated
that the US loses roughly $1 trillion each year in unpaid
taxes—due primarily to tax evasion by large
corporations and the wealthy. Next week, join us for two webinars
covering how this happens, and how to fix
it.
Fair Share: How Wealth Tax and Progressive
Taxation Can Create Equity
With opening remarks from Sen.
Elizabeth Warren (D-MA)
Tuesday, April 20, 2021 at 2:00 PM
ET
Moderator:
-
Lindsay
Owens, Great
Democracy Initiative Fellow and Groundwork Collaborative Interim
Director
Featured speakers:
-
Amanda
Fischer,
Policy Director at the
Washington Center for Equitable Growth
-
Darrick
Hamilton,
Roosevelt Fellow and Founding Director of the Institute for the Study
of Race, Stratification, and Political Economy at The New
School
-
Kitty
Richards,
Roosevelt Fellow and Strategic
Advisor to the Groundwork Collaborative
Learn more and
register.
In partnership with our colleagues at the Brennan Center
for Justice:
Tax the Rich: How to Tackle Wealth Inequality in
America
Wednesday, April 21, 2021 at 12:00
PM ET
Moderator:
Featured speakers:
Learn
more and
register.
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