 Welcome, everyone, to another crisis conversation live from the Better Life Lab. I'm Bridget Schulte, director of the Better Life Lab and full disclosure. This is my first day out of quarantine. I have had COVID and I am delighted to be on the other side of it. If anyone thinks it's a hoax, talk to me, it's not. So today I'm really delighted to have this panel discussion on really exploring the issues of care and how that's playing out in the 2020 election. You know, as I've covered political campaigns over the years as a reporter, one of the things that pundits would always say is that, well, care issues, they don't really move voters. Voters care about the economy or they care about jobs or they care about law and order. And so care issues haven't really had a whole lot of airtime, if you will. We'll be talking later today about in the earlier Democratic presidential debates. Jezia St. Julie and our research associate analyzed how often care came up and how it mattered who stood on stage and you had Elizabeth Warren talking about Aunt B and how critical that was for her to be able to continue to work and to cover her care responsibilities. Well, this time, now you've still, you know, months after COVID has hit, you've got so many families who are struggling. Their kids either don't have childcare. Those care options are closed down or they've been shut off. You've got schools, some are open, some are closed, some are hybrid. Parents are still struggling with remote learning. So this is what we're going to be exploring today. Is the experience that people, that care is really front and center in so many people's lives. How is that playing out in the election today? So let me introduce our guests and we're going to dive right in. And as always in our conversations, we welcome that participation of people who are listening in today. So please use the chat function, share a story, share your perspective, ask a question. We'll be getting to that after we have a conversation with the panelists. So joining me today is our own Rosalyn Miller. She's the policy analyst of the Better Life Lab. And she's the author of a report recently analyzing some nationally representative survey data where she found the bipartisan case for caregiving. We also have Amanda Brown-Learman. She's the managing director of the Supermajority, a progressive membership-based organization that trains women to become effective advocates to build an equitable future for all women. And she's also a former political and organizing director for the Democratic National Committee. And we also have Abby McCloskey. She's an economist and founder of the McCloskey Policy LLC, who has advised multiple presidential campaigns, including Howard Schultz, Jeb Bush, and Rick Perry. She's also a member of the AEI Brookings Bipartisan Working Group on Paid Leave, who's written quite a bit recently on Paid Leave and childcare. So Rosalyn, let's start with you. You know, the issue of care, you know, at the Better Life Lab, our view is family and care are really not partisan issues. What did you find when you were, what are some of the high points when you were reviewing this nationally representative survey data? Thanks, Bridget. Yeah, that's exactly it. Care is not a partisan issue. So hi, I'm Rosalyn Miller. I'm a policy analyst at New America's Better Life Lab, and I'm happy to be here to share a bit about a report we published called the bipartisan case for caregiving to go straight to the point. Like we saw in the first presidential debate, we've got some very intense divides between political parties, and it only seems to get worse every day. These partisan divides run so deep that it sometimes seems nearly impossible to have honest policy conversations and use them to center and address critical issues like caregiving, which affects everybody. Our survey actually found a lot of people, Democrats and Republicans, regardless of their party identification, overwhelmingly agree in that they value caregiving, they struggle with work-life balance, and they need better financial supports to balance their work and their family lives. While historically major pushes for better family supportive care policies have come from the left, more recently, especially as COVID has really worsened these issues and made care much more visible, more conservative politicians have been discussing the value of care as a cornerstone of the economy and proposing more ideas. However, policymakers have stalled in working across the aisle to deliver long-term and meaningful change to care systems in the United States. Although care could be the issue that actually draws massive support from across the political spectrum, our national representative survey that we did in partnership with NRC at the University of Chicago, which was collected last year pre-COVID, shows that even before the pandemic upended people's lives, working families, people needed and wanted support with caregiving and paid family and medical leave in particular. We know this because of two major trends in our findings that I'll briefly cover and then we can get into the discussion. One is everyone experienced work-care conflict, and the other is that there's this universal value for care providers, but there's also shared barriers to providing that care. So to go into some data on the work-care conflict, the work-care conflict trend points to the issue that we need better care policies for people to balance work and care. Democrats and Republicans experience work-care conflict equally in our survey. Regardless of gender and party, more than two-thirds of caregivers among our respondents said they were employed at the same time as providing care, and of those working caregivers, two-thirds had missed work to provide care. In particular, yeah. That's really something, you know, and that's really interesting that you found that, you know, that the data showed that there was this equal, you know, equal pain, if you will, of trying to combine work and care. You know, let me, let's put a pin in that for a minute. Rosalind will come back to you in a minute, but Abby and Amanda, let's turn to you. You know, it's interesting. So this report and Rosalind saying is there's potentially, you know, this is potentially a great bipartisan issue. You know, and yet when you, you know, when you look at sort of what are the issues that move voters, you know, say recent polls like by Pew Research Center, it's almost as if there's two different elections in terms of what people are saying, you know, motivates them most, you know, on the right it tends to be the economy, you know, and on the left it's much more about, you know, racial justice and climate change. So Abby and Amanda would love to turn to you at this point and get your view. Amanda, should we start with you? Sure. I'm fascinated also Rosalind because I think it, we feel it all the time just in terms of care, not being a partisan issue and we do a lot of work having talked to women across the country about the experiences that they have that also unite us in a shared set of values. One of which is just the truth about what being a woman, what in many cases being a mom feels like in this country and there's so many different unifying experiences in that, if you will, that I think ground women in a shared set of values about what that, what those experiences are, but also then how we think our government should represent us and how leaders should also respond and support the needs of women. Supermajority actually got its start just because at the end of the day the numbers bear out the fact that women are the majority of voters. We are the supermajority and when we elect leaders, when we put people into office and we're reminded by even the presidential debate, it's like why are there three white men on the screen right now? But we should be able to expect so much more of our leaders and representing us and actually putting the lives and experiences of women, particularly women of color who are so deeply affected right now front and center when they're thinking about how to solve the country's greatest problems and the care crisis, the care economy even if you will, speaks to how women are thinking about taking care of their children, how they're thinking about taking care of the elderly people in their communities, how they are thinking just so many of us are also in the care industry as teachers, as domestic workers. And again, a lot of that work falls on to women of color across the country who have not been paid for that work in the way that they should even before COVID. And I think what we've seen just through COVID is that COVID has just exacerbated, if you will, a problem that already was there, experiences that already were real life struggles for survival for so many women and their families across the country. And COVID is just illuminating that in a different way. And I hope if there's sort of one thing good that comes from that, it is the fact that women see each other's pain in this and are able to unite in this and organize around that so that we do not find ourselves in this position in the future. And with the election that we have in just 32 days even, I hope that we can channel that when we go to the polls and just make sure that we are demanding so much more of our leaders of how the government needs to support women in this moment. And just thinking personally, I saw this number even this morning and I'm sure Rosalind and Abby, I'm sure you have all of the numbers here having researched this so deeply, but I saw this report that was just 865,000 women have dropped out of the labor force this month compared to 216,000 men that did. And I think it's really important to think about the work that sort of, yeah, I'm like trying to remember what exactly to call it, but just the work and burden, if you will, that women feel and are oftentimes a dispute in any relationship that you're in about what women are carrying and facing as they're thinking about the care responsibilities that they have in their own lives and what that means for us in this moment, just thinking about the economic recession we're in and what that will do for women for not just us right now in this moment, but for generations to come. Because for generations, right. Well, Amanda, we'll come back to you to talk more about sort of how this is translating. I hear what you're talking about in terms of kind of trying to energize voters, but sort of kind of how that's playing out in terms of moving issues and voters. But Abby, let's turn to you at this point. You know, what is it that you're seeing? What do you see that's different this election when it comes to care in terms of, you know, what you've seen in previous elections? Yeah, thank you. And thank you so much for hosting all this, Bridget. It's good to be with you guys. You know, I think given the nature of the crisis that we're in, it's often been said that elections aren't won or lost based on policy alone or even based on the economy, but given the devastation to our economy from COVID, it's actually become an outsized issue across party lines, not surprisingly. There was a recent Axios poll in Ohio, a swing state that showed concerns about jobs in the economy are the number one concern of voters there over and above healthcare and education and COVID and the other top tier issues we tend to think about. And I think what's especially interesting in this election is that you can't talk about, to Amanda's point, you can't really talk about the economic recovery and jobs without talking about caregiving. You just can't slide it into that tertiary slot like you were talking about Bridget as a tag on issue when it's so core to the unemployment crisis and labor market crisis that we're seeing. So I recently worked on a poll with Bipartisan Policy Center looking at the unemployed persons in our economy. We have 13 million still even though that number has gone down. It's a huge number of people. And the number one reason why parents who are unemployed are not looking to go back to work is because of caregiving. It's because of school closures, child care closures. And so I think it's a significant issue in a selection in particular. And as such, you've seen Vice President Biden put forward quite historic $775 billion caregiving package. And while President Trump has not released many plans on any issue about what he would do for reelection, he is running on his accomplishments for working families, running in part and his accomplishments for working families in his first term, which for Republican president are somewhat, you know, in a good way out of step with his predecessors in terms of advocating for paid leave and child care. So you're seeing kind of this to Roslyn's point and the data showing Bipartisan issue, interest in the issue. I do think you're seeing that play out in politics as well and in this election. You know, to stick with you, Abby and Amanda, you know, is it finally sort of that the people are beginning to see it to your point that you really can't have an economic recovery without having child care and that this, you know, rather than being seen as a side issue or a women's issue or a nice to have kind of issue that it's really central when you're talking about jobs in the economy. I mean, do you, you know, Abby, let's start with you. Are you seeing that in terms of how candidates are even talking or addressing issues? Yeah, you know, I think a bit of the nuance of it in what you certainly see play out politically is the environment we're in because of COVID and school closures and, you know, two out of five children who were in child care prior to the pandemic are no longer in those arrangements. I think that's a huge crisis. And I think that policy members of, you know, both parties are interested in solving that acute crisis. Joni Ernst has put forward childcare plans. The Senate Republicans, the House Democrats, the new House Democrat bill all have included relatively similar amounts, if not even slightly more in the Republican side for helping shore up childcare facilities. I think to your point Bridget is, it is, it is, it is true that the current moment we're in is very different and unique. We're not normally dealing with these type of school closures and childcare closures, which calls for like a unique set of solutions. And I think there's, there's agreement that we must like, we must make the system stronger. How that translates into longer term reform, I think is, is a bit less clear. And I think the set of issues, you know, to Amanda's point that have always been there and have just been exacerbated in the current crisis are still somewhat different when you're looking at permanent policy. And so what I'm, I'm interested to see is how does this translate, you know, kind of beyond the crisis we're in to, to our, to four years from now. Right. You know, so Amanda, you know, to that same point, you know, are we getting more unity? Like you're saying that sort of the sense of shared narrative, shared story, shared pain. And yet when it comes to how we solve it and, you know, kind of what a public role is in terms of public policy, is that where there is still a lot of difference? Or what are you hearing in terms of how that's shaping voters expectations as well as campaign issues and priorities and candidate discussion? Yeah, no, definitely. I mean, I think that the solutions, if you will, definitely are different on either side of the aisle. And I think one thing that really resonates with me personally is the, the issue of care has always been sort of relegated as this like women's issue. And one thing that you're seeing also happen in this pandemic, this moment of, I mean, just great economic like injustice and all of the injustice is sort of bubbling, if you will, right now in our country is that it's becoming more than just a women's issue. It's becoming also more than just about childcare, which to be honest, I mean, no, neither party has been able to advance that. And I, I mean, I would be, I would dare say that that's also because we do not have a representative government that is thinking about how to respond to childcare and paid leave and that whole conversation, which is off again, a women's issue to so many, but it's about how do we take care of our parents in this moment who we have to pull out of nursing homes? How do the teachers, my little sister is even a teacher and she works at a charter school in DC and she's 20, 27 years old and she had to fill out a will to go back to school because I mean, it's just crazy what the sort of expectation is, but those are essential workers and they are disproportionately women, they're disproportionately women of color. I think it's also expanding the conversation around care in terms of the support that we provide to domestic workers who all of us are dependent upon. Again, I think about can reflect on my own experience and recognize all of the privilege and sort of luxury I have in this to have, to be able to send my daughter to my three year old to a program outside of the home still every day and every day I'm like, please don't close today. And my, I have a one year old and we have a nanny, but you know, thinking about the risk that like I felt personally a deep sort of had a lot of anxiety about asking her to come back, but like I also have to work and you need a job as well. And so just the, just the responsibilities I think that we have to respond to the, again, the domestic care working community that are millions of jobs in this country that have been in many ways devastated this year. And I think that I'm, I think that again, if there's something to be said for what this moment can do is really change the conversation and broaden it beyond just that of childcare because it and beyond just that of people again being able to cast it aside as a women's issue and it is affecting every parent in a way, every family in a deeper way than I think that I think allows for a conversation if you will and hopefully will allow for some bipartisan solutions to that and at least call on every leader up and down the ballot to try to address this. The one other thing I would say is that it's not, and one thing that I even learned in the 2018 cycle is it's not just about what our president says or what or even at the presidential level that so many of the rules and laws and policies that govern our everyday lives are made at the state level or even the local level and the ability for us to band together, organize and put people in those positions of leadership that also represent us and just thinking about the incredible wave of women who have are running on that even and ran on that in 2018 or running on that in 2020 to be real leaders and real heroes and actually responsive to the needs of their constituencies and their communities right now. So I want to, Rosalind, I want to bring you in in a minute but Abby, I saw that you had something to add and I did want to ask you, you know, just Amanda mentioned in 2018 there was this wave of women running and winning although we're still at a fairly dismal 24% in Congress, although that's better than it has been, but there was a loss in terms in the GOP side. There are fewer women, you know, so that's a concern. You know, at the same time, I guess one of the other things that I'm wondering for so long the national conversation has been from the right, well there is no government role, family is a private responsibility, you know, don't have kids if you can't afford them, figure it out on your own kind of. I'm just wondering is COVID beginning to shift that narrative on the right? You know, is there a beginning to do, you know, is there a beginning of a conversation of like families really can't do it on their own? These are markets that don't really work, that we really do need some kind of public involvement. I'm just really curious what's happening on the right. Yeah, there's really so much to say. It's hard to think of where to start, but I do think, you know, when you look at the GOP the last decade, right, you think of the Tea Party and the Freedom Caucus and Grover Norquist tax pledge, there's been a resistance not just to caregiving programs, but to any new federal program out of the belief that the debt is already yet unprecedented and continuing to grow levels, the federal government is, you know, maybe more the source of our problems and the solution. That said, I am a firm believer that that is changing specifically in the area of care, and I do want to give the Trump, you know, administration credit where credit is due in terms of helping to put forward some of these policies for the first time as a Republican presidential candidate and president. And I am seeing, I think bipartisan movement in Congress also, and, you know, we have bipartisan proposals for paid leave. The childcare proposals are actually not that far off. I think that both sides really would support some type of childcare subsidy by income bracket to help low-wage families in particular be able to afford childcare and specifically a childcare option of their choice if that's home-based care or center-based care. I think there's more commonality there than maybe meets the eye and potential for more momentum than is initially obvious. And I think that's one of the things that I think is really important. And I think that, you know, I take great comfort in that. And, you know, I don't think you have to experience something directly to empathize with it. But that said, it is interesting to see the types of folks, especially on the geography side, advocating for these types of caregiving reforms of Uncle Trump, Senator Rubio, Senator Lee, Senator Ernst, one of the few GOP women in Congress who has children. And I think that in their own, you know, with their own two eyes that wait, this doesn't work like how it should work. And if it's unfair for me, how much more unfair is it for people who have less resources and connections than I do? And so I thought it was interesting, even the last two weeks or so, Megan McCain, who's the daughter of Senator McCain, had a child. And one of the tweets around the birth of her child was how outrageous it is that the U.S. doesn't have a 12-week paid parental leave that had never advocated it before. And I'm encouraged to see it. But I think as millennial women and men in particular begin to take on positions of political influence and have seen how this kind of promise we were made implicitly about, have more education, have a job and have a family, like the system is not set up to help with that. In fact, it really hinders it in so many ways. And that has to change. I think that's creating kind of this desire for change, both in kind of the grassroots side and then also among key leaders in Congress and in the White House. And so I just hope that that momentum can continue. So, Rosalind. Abby just made me think about from one of my previous jobs, actually, it was in the business community and we're looking specifically at how women face and overcome struggles that they have in entrepreneurship. And I remember reading all these studies even about how business policies changed with so many men also at the top, sitting at the top. And there was one research study actually that was like, for men, they start to see things differently when they have daughters. And there was also something to be said that it was like, they need to have three daughters before they go. A factorial change. And I remember just being like, everyone needs to have three children. Like how can we make that happen to actually create, you know, better business policy. And it's interesting to see how, I like, I hope that there's lessons to be learned from that just in terms of how the government response looks like also to support women, women and their families as well. Yeah. And there are similar studies about female like politicians and to Bridget's point, I think that is why it's concerning to see the drop in female representation in the GOP because we do know that female congresswoman tend to advocate for these types of policies more. And if that becomes, you know, the GOP becomes kind of an older white male party. I think the potential for the necessary bipartisan action becomes less. And I fear that if it becomes partisan on either side with the solution is that it will just be, you know, enveloped into this term you've seen now with healthcare and regulation, everything else. It just kind of changes with each administration. And it's not a policy that families can depend on. And goodness knows like families have had sifting, shifting sands underneath them now, especially with COVID and before for so long, like there needs to be a policy that they can, can, can root into and depend on and know is there, not something that changes with the partisan winds. Yeah. So Rosalyn, let's bring you back in at this point. And we do have a question. We're coming down on time, but, but Rosalyn, you know, some of this, this kind of grassroots momentum, you know, the survey that you were analyzing, this was even before COVID. And it certainly sounds like they're, you know, I guess what did you see in terms of that potential for, for grassroots momentum, that potential for really support for care and care policy across the political spectrum. Great. We found that there were similar levels of Republicans and Democrats. So Republicans at 72% and Democrats at 74% who agreed that the number one reason that men couldn't afford, couldn't take paid leave to care for their family members aging sick or newborn babies is that they can't afford to. And so there's this very clear connection between financial supports and the trade-offs that families have to make between working and taking care of their families. And for many families, care is often seen as this private issue that should be handled in private, but caregiving is something that really impacts every single aspect of life from workforce participation to education to health. And it may be a private matter, but it has major public effects. So care policies need to be designed inclusively and comprehensively for families to actually see how it affects them and how they're included in that policy, especially diverse families, rural families, single parents, and how they can actually use that support. For example, we know that people, particularly men in the workforce are more likely to use benefits like paid leave when the wage replacement rate is higher. So that points to the financial aspect of it. So if finances are a major reason what we're not able to take leave to provide care, then I think that's a policy where it needs to be built very inclusively with better incentives to actually encourage people to see themselves reflected in that policy and how they can access and use it. So let me pose this to the panelists here. We've got a question from Elaine Meyer. She says, I'm curious what the guests think about alternate family models than the nuclear family, like extended family living under one roof or some kind of shared care caregiving that might be happening with the pods that have sprouted up during COVID. Do you think policy could encourage such approaches kind of thinking beyond the nuclear family? Abby, Amanda, Rosalind, anyone want to jump in on that? Well, you know, I certainly think we're seeing an explosion of all sorts of different types of family arrangements and that becomes a real consideration in childcare in particular. Yeah, which is why, you know, I really sympathize with Vice President Biden's proposal for caregiving that really allows a lot of flexibility in terms of the provider of types of care. I think that choice in this type of environment is really important and not only for family structure, but also in the COVID environment where people aren't comfortable sending, a lot of people aren't comfortable sending their children to center-based care. And so there needs to be kind of more choice built into the types of policies we have. Yeah, that said, you know, I do obviously desperately want to be reformed, paid leave reform, childcare reform, caregiving reform. And I, you know, would caution to instead of having kind of the all-encompassing policy all at once, that there is some wisdom I've come to believe in an incremental approach and kind of starting with the relationships where we have the most data, like parent to child and trying to secure that before rippling out into kind of a broader set of policies. Well, let's wrap it up with that very thought, you know, where do we go from here and how do we get to the point where there is that sort of, you know, voter energy around care issues where there is a response from politicians and understanding that actually leads to policy. Amanda, let's go to you. What's the path forward? How do we get to the point where care really is a big issue and families really get the help they need? No, definitely. And just to my response to Elaine's question is related to this. I think that actually speaks to what women and families are facing right now in terms of just how to survive every single day, like that. Those extended models, if you will, I think are sometimes out of desperation and like a need to just get through the next day, perhaps rather than being like what is everyone's ideal situation, right? And I think we do need to acknowledge that and acknowledge the choice in that. And that's one of the things that when I think about, you know, the work that we have to do in the 32 days ahead when women are struggling so much every single day just to get by. And this is what I hear from women when I talk to them, they're like, I can't feed my children today or I had to make an impossible choice of going to work or staying at home with my sick kid. Or I mean, they're just facing these really impossible decisions and choices right now that I'm like, can you please make sure to vote? And I, you know, sometimes feel like I'm asking them to do something, like add another thing to their plate in terms of making sure that they get mobilized around this because I do, I worry just about the weight and the burden of everyday life of women right now that we have to do everything we can to organize to make sure that that shows up at the polls and that women are taking the time to vote in their best interest and vote for their families, vote for their children, vote for the future generation around this issue specifically because we need leaders who are going to actually address the problems that we're facing every single day and until we show that power and just turn the conversation into political power, if you will. I think that that's the need in this moment. That's the urgency in this moment. And I think having, making sure that women have that know that that's a priority and see that as the opportunity of what needs to happen on election day and to change the conversation, like that's where we are. That's the number one, that's the number one goal of super majority right now is to make sure that we can turn that sort of despair into power. All right. I hate to do this because I feel like we could go on forever. Abby, did you have a quick final closing thought to start turning despair into action? Well, I mean, I think the biggest immediate thing that needs to happen is there needs to be a COVID relief package for the childcare centers at risk of closing for the children home from school for the working parents. I mean, I think that there's bipartisan momentum to do it. It just actually needs to get done and shouldn't be punted until after the election. All right. Well, thank you all so much for joining us today. I want to thank our panelists. I'd love to thank the participants, the new America events team, our fantastic better life lab team, our producer, David Shulman. Please come back. We'll be, we'll, in a later this month, we'll have a conversation of setting the agenda for what have we learned through COVID to set a really bold agenda for a future of work, family justice, where care is really elevated and valued. So we'll be having that on October 23rd. We hope that you'll come back for that. In the meantime, wash your hands, wear a mask, stay healthy and safe. And we'll see you in a few weeks.