Author: Julie Kashen

Julie Kashen is director of women’s economic justice and a senior fellow at The Century Foundation, a leading progressive think tank. She is one of the nation’s leading experts on the issues affecting working families, having authored numerous studies on childcare, paid leave, equal pay and other topics.

Industrial Policy Requires Care Infrastructure Investments

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The combination of the Inflation Reduction Act, the CHIPS and Science Act, and the Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act (IIJA)—all signed into law by President Biden in the past two years—will create millions of new jobs in the American economy in the months and years ahead. These new industrial policy jobs will be across energy, physical infrastructure, manufacturing, science and technology.

Building care infrastructure into industrial infrastructure is the best way to ensure that these good jobs that have been created have people to work in them. Building a care infrastructure into the new U.S. industrial policy is not only the right thing to do, but also the most strategic.

The U.S. Is in Urgent Need of Childcare Solutions. Build Back Better Would Be a Game-Changer

The U.S. Is in Urgent Need of Childcare Solutions. Build Back Better Would Be a Game-Changer

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The U.S. has not prioritized childcare. Even before the pandemic, many families could not find childcare when and where they needed it. More than half of all families lived in childcare deserts, and those who didn’t faced exorbitant prices. That’s gotten even worse during the COVID-19 pandemic. For those who can afford childcare, extremely high prices take a toll—many families pay more than mortgage payments or rent for care. It’s unacceptable.

The Build Back Better Act will be a game-changer for parents across the nation, lowering prices and increasing the supply of high-quality care at the same time.

federal pandemic unemployment programs

Half of U.S. States are Leaving Women Workers Behind

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After a year that has put parents—especially women—through unimaginable strain as they’ve struggled to keep a roof over their families’ heads and care for their children, governors in 24 states now want to rip out the rug from under them by ending state participation in federal pandemic unemployment programs.

Emergency unemployment aid is doing what it is meant to do: serving as a temporary lifeline while workers search for and return to work.

America Might Finally Get a Comprehensive Care System

America Might Finally Get a Comprehensive Care System

The Biden–Harris administration’s American Jobs Plan and American Families Plan taken together would lay the foundation for building comprehensive child care and early learning, creating greater access to home- and community-based services with a well paid workforce, and paid family and medical leave for everyone that would bolster women’s workforce participation, support healthy child development and learning, ensure people with disabilities can live independently, support aging with dignity, and ensure a flourishing economic future for everyone.