FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE: April 18, 2023
Contact: Christina Coleman, [email protected]
This announcement comes on the heels of the White House Proclamation declaring April as Care Workers Recognition Month.
WASHINGTON – Today, President Joe Biden will sign a slate of comprehensive executive actions to improve care in the history of the United States, sending 50 directives to federal agencies to utilize existing funding to expand care affordability and quality jobs for care workers.
Hillary Holley, Executive Director of Care in Action, released the following statement in response:
“In 2022, voters made it clear that addressing the inequalities and hardships around the economy was what they wanted from our elected leaders, and today, the Biden-Harris Administration did just that. This morning, the White House took yet another historic step toward strengthening our care economy and ensuring millions of Americans can meet the growing demand for care for their families and loved ones. President Biden’s Executive Order will expand affordable care services for families – including home-based care, child care, and long-term care – and ensure care workers and domestic workers – who are disproportionately Black, Latinx, AAPI, Indigenous, and immigrant women – have access to quality jobs that afford them the respect and the pay needed to care for themselves and their families.
That this Executive Order comes during Care Workers Recognition Month is significant: We represent and advocate for the care and domestic workers who are counting on the Biden-Harris Administration to prioritize the ‘unfinished business’ of making historical investments in our care infrastructure. We organize alongside care workers and caregivers – the Black and brown women who are the heart of the Democratic Party – who are determined to vote for leaders who are committed to creating an equitable economic field where they can not only meet their basic needs, but live and work with humanity and dignity. We intimately witness how so many voters find it hard to afford child care or elder care while making the rent and putting food on their tables. And we know that, in many ways, this is what connects us all: The need for care and a shared understanding – across party lines – that care investments will vastly improve and strengthen our country.
It is our duty to publicly recognize who is making that future a reality. We applaud the Biden Administration for centering care as a pillar in our society and economy, and for hearing voters when we say, ‘This is what we need.’ This executive order demonstrates the type of leadership voters will turn out for in 2024. We were promised generational change in the infrastructure that supports us all, and we’re ready to ‘finish the job.’
We can get this done.”
President Biden will sign this executive order later today at the White House during a ceremony with care workers, including care workers represented by the National Domestic Workers Alliance, Care in Action’s sister organization.
Hillary Holley, Executive Director of Care in Action, is available for interviews upon request. For interview inquiries or if you’d like to learn more about the Care Workers Can’t Wait Summit, please email [email protected]
Care in Action is the policy and advocacy home for women who care, working on behalf of more than two million domestic workers and care workers across America. Among the fastest-growing sectors in our economy, domestic workers are also among the most vulnerable and undervalued. As a mostly women and majority women of color workforce, this growing constituency consistently and overwhelmingly supports progressive values in American political life. Learn more at www.careinaction.us.