This Mother’s Day, urge Congress to give moms what they REALLY want,
guaranteed access to affordable child care and paid family and medical
leave!
[ [link removed] ]Take Action Now
[ [link removed] ]TAKE ACTION

Dear Friend, 

[ [link removed] ]I don’t know about my fellow moms, but this Mother’s Day, I want more
than flowers, candy and breakfast in bed. Let’s be clear, I totally want
those things too, but more importantly, I want a break. And not just 10
minutes hiding in the bathroom.

For many of us moms, this has been a year of NO BREAKS. It has been a year
of virtual learning, diaper changing on work calls, nonstop cooking,
cleaning, figuring out unemployment, vaccine hunting for elderly parents,
caring for sick family members, and more while being everything our kids
and families needed us to be. We have been the default teachers, the
therapists, the stand-ins for all the friends and classmates, the
cheerleaders, and breadwinners facing a record number of pandemic job
losses. We’ve had to do it ALL. 

[ [link removed] ]And this Mother’s day, it’s time to say that even though flowers and
candy are great, moms NEED MORE. Tell Congress to act now on President
Biden’s American Families Plan and American Jobs Plan to finally, FINALLY
start to catch up with the rest of the world and build a care
infrastructure we all need!

Building a care infrastructure means advancing universal childcare, paid
family/medical leave, home-and community-based services, living wages,
protections for pregnant workers, and a path to citizenship for all care
workers and their communities! Building a care infrastructure is both job
enabling and job creating – it will help close the wage gap, and keep moms
in the jobs we need. It’s time!

Moms and caregivers have been trying their best and have supported,
lifted, and held together this entire nation by taking on so many roles
during the pandemic ALL AT THE SAME TIME, and it is about time we build
the care infrastructure we, our nation, and our economy needs – like
universal paid leave and access to universal child care, home- and
community-based care for people with disabilities and the aging, as well
as living wages and a path to citizenship for all care economy workers. 

We needed these things way before the pandemic; and if this past year has
shown us anything, it’s that we must prioritize a care infrastructure that
truly enables moms and caregivers to go to the jobs we need to support our
families and also creates good care economy jobs. 

[ [link removed] ]Flowers, candy, and breakfast in bed are great, but Congress needs to
build what we really need for Mother’s Day: A BIG, BOLD care
infrastructure!

If you are a mom, this pandemic has likely fallen on your shoulders. And
you’re unfortunately not alone. Women, particularly women and moms of
color, have borne the brunt of this pandemic, with millions of women
having been forced to leave the workforce often to take on caretaking
roles. The White House itself has noted that 2.3 million women have been
forced out of the labor force.[1] In January alone, 1.4 million fewer
mothers of school-aged children were working for pay than had been in the
previous year.[2] Of those who lost their jobs — over 600,000 are Black
and 618,000 are Latina.[3]

The pandemic has made clear the devastating economic and personal costs of
our country’s lack of support for moms by failing to invest in a care
infrastructure that includes paid family and medical leave, child care,
and long-term care. Studies show that women and moms, especially women and
moms of color, have taken the most responsibility for caring for our kids,
our sick family members, our aging relatives and neighbors and supporting
the people in our lives with disabilities; all while sacrificing our own
careers and wellbeing in the process. 

Moms shouldn’t be forced to sacrifice everything, from their jobs, their
income and their very last bit of patience because they aren’t getting the
support they need and deserve.

[ [link removed] ]Tell Congress: To recover, we need to address the contributions and
needs of moms, caregivers, and people working in the care economy by
prioritizing universal child care and paid leave, along with home- and
community-based services, and living wages and a path to citizenship for
all care workers.

*We need Congress to move forward on care infrastructure, including the
American Families Plan and the American Jobs Plan ASAP!

Research has shown that what’s good for moms and caregivers is good for
our country. In fact, a robust investment in the care economy that would
support moms would also create millions of new jobs [4] for the women hit
hardest by this crisis, generate hundreds of billions of dollars in
economic activity,[ [link removed] ] and allow millions of women who have been pushed out
of the labor force to return. With home health aides and personal care
assistants being the third and fourth fastest growing occupations in the
United States, investing a benchmark of $77.5 billion per year would
support over two million new jobs. Over 10 years, this translates to 22.5
million jobs. And that doesn't even include the moms who have been pushed
out of the labor force and will be able to get back to work, or the family
caregivers who can increase their work hours once affordable care options
are available. Investing in the care economy is both job creating and also
job enabling. 

What exactly are we asking for when it comes to building a care
infrastructure that enables moms and caregivers to work and people working
in the care economy to thrive? (President Biden’s American Families Plan
and American Jobs Plan start tackling all of these policies!)

* A comprehensive, federally funded child care system (which estimates
show will require a $700 billion dollar investment) that ensures all
families have access to high-quality, affordable child care that is
available when and where they need it and invests in the education and
compensation of a diverse workforce.
* Ensuring that all care workers, as well as every person in our nation,
should be paid living wages of at least $15 per hour (and we should
get rid of the harmful lower tipped minimum wage).
* Paid Family and Medical Leave that would ensure all working people
have access to at least 12 weeks of paid leave to bond with a new
child, address a personal or family related illness, or handle needs
that arise from a military deployment.
* Invest $400 billion to Medicaid Home and Community-Based Services to
create over one million union protected direct care jobs, expand
access to home and community-based services to people with
disabilities and aging adults, support unpaid family caregivers to
re-join the labor force, and advance a path to citizenship for
essential workers, Dreamers, and TPS holders.

[5]Let Congress know that a Happy Mother’s Day means investing in critical
care infrastructure now! Move forward the American Families Plan and the
American Jobs Plan!

Decades of underinvestment is what made the pandemic so disastrous for our
communities and our families. And it’s costly not only for women, moms,
and disproportionately women of color and their families, but costly for
our economy overall. For example, “the risk of mothers leaving the labor
force and reducing work hours in order to assume caretaking
responsibilities amounts to $64.5 billion per year in lost wages and
economic activity.”[ [link removed] ] 

And without paid leave, caretaking and prioritizing our own well being is
impossible. It should be a given, for example, that we should not work and
spread illness when we are critically sick and recovering, that we should
never have to choose between our families and our paychecks, our lives and
our livelihoods. Our families need and want a sustainable paid leave
policy in place so that families and businesses are never scrambling for
piecemeal solutions when critical illness strikes, a serious family
caregiving crisis arises, or a new child arrives. COVID has demonstrated
how crucial this is, and honestly, it is inexcusable to think that after
everything that has happened, that we go back to how broken things were
for moms. We should never be in this situation again.

[6]We have the opportunity to make long term, structural investments and
build a care infrastructure. Congress must act!

This is our second Mother’s Day being celebrated during a pandemic. Though
we are moving forward, we cannot really progress as a nation without
prioritizing what moms want and need. The best Mother’s Day present would
be a country that has policies which support and uplift moms. Now is that
time. 

We’ve done our part to keep our families and nation afloat during an
unprecedented crisis, so yes while we will take those flowers and that
candy, we also deserve so much more. Moms don’t need lip service for doing
such a great job during this pandemic, we need our policymakers to
celebrate us by finally building a care infrastructure like most other
nations take for granted! 

Thank you for all that you do to lift up our families and our nation!

- Nadia, Nina, Kristin, Donna, Ruth, Sara, and the whole
MomsRising.org/MamásConPoder Team

P.S. – Want to have an even bigger impact? [ [link removed] ]Send a letter to the Editor
saying "Families need Care Infrastructure now!"

References:

[1] White House: "[ [link removed] ]The Employment Situation in February"
[2] "[ [link removed] ]The Employment Situation in February" & "[ [link removed] ]America's Mothers are
in Crisis"
[3] [ [link removed] ]PDF: THE PANDEMIC, THE ECONOMY, & THE VALUE OF WOMEN’S WORK
[4][5] [ [link removed] ]It’s Time to Care: The Economic Case for Investing in a Care
Infrastructure
[6] "[ [link removed] ]How COVID-19 Sent Women’s Workforce Progress Backward"

 


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