Our underappreciated care workforce is getting a boost but deserves more 

Most people know just how essential care work is. And if you don’t know, let’s talk about it. 

The work is hard, emotionally and physically. Child care, home care and nursing home workers are undervalued and underpaid due to a legacy of racism and sexism, and it’s time we put an end to it. 

Consider Lisa Briggs, who I joined last month for a roundtable discussion in Wisconsin, where Vice President Kamala Harris listened to workers’ experiences as she announced new measures to support the nursing home workforce and advance quality care for residents. 

Briggs has been a certified nursing assistant for 28 years. She has dedicated her life to caring for nursing home residents, helping seniors and people with disabilities with daily tasks like taking their medications, eating, going to the bathroom and more. 

Briggs believes in treating all her residents as family. Because each resident is someone’s parent, grandparent, sibling or child. She feeds them, listens to their stories, comforts them when they cry and even holds their hands as they say their last words. Often all on the same day. 

Briggs’s story isn’t an anomaly. It’s a similar picture across the country. Caregivers like her are being asked to care for more and more people, which results in lower-quality care for everyone. At the same time, they’re essential workers who aren’t being paid nearly enough to support their own families. They’re leaving the industry in droves, not because they want to, but because they are burned out and can’t afford to stay. 

The Biden administration has been listening and taking action. In Wisconsin, Vice President Harris celebrated a final federal nursing home staffing standard, the first major change to nursing home regulations in 30 years. Requiring nursing homes to provide a minimum of 3.48 care hours per resident as a condition for participating in Medicare and Medicaid is a critical first step to ensuring our loved ones get the care and attention they deserve. 

The administration also finalized a new rule that paves the way for 80 percent of all Medicaid payments for home care services to directly fund compensation for home care workers.

Those measures add to steps taken last year when President Joe Biden issued an executive order in direct response to millions of families and care workers who have demanded action to address the care crisis that affects every community. The proposals include critical improvements that would lower child care costs,  provide higher wages for child care providers and improve care for veterans.

Putting more money toward home care and nursing home workforces will expand access to quality care and ensure that public dollars fund it. The combination of measures helps lay the groundwork for transforming long-term care jobs into good union jobs with wages that reflect the value of this essential work. They will help workers build careers and help the care industry retain and attract the caregivers we need to stabilize this workforce. 

These are huge, historic steps, but it’s not enough. Care workers should not live in poverty. No matter where we work or where we live — poverty-wage jobs are unacceptable. Care work makes all other work possible, and we must continue investing in the care industry until every care job is a good, family-sustaining union job.

Care workers continue to remind us all that they were among the Black and brown women who turned out in record numbers to elect Joe Biden and Kamala Harris. They made the difference in states like Georgia, Michigan and Nevada. They’re ready to do it again and they’re looking to the Biden administration and congressional leaders to deliver on promises made to working people and women of color.

There’s no doubt about it. Care workers are a force to be reckoned with — and they’re not alone in this fight. Working people are organizing across industries to end poverty-wage work once and for all in every sector. From fast food workers to airport workers, Starbucks baristas, autoworkers, teachers, healthcare workers and beyond, working people are sending a clear message that they will show up to vote for worker champions who will fight for an economy that works for everyone. 

We celebrated the workforce during Care Workers Recognition Month in April, but we can’t stop at recognition. Vice President Harris said it best: We owe caregivers “so much more” than applause. It’s time we honor their value and respect, protect and pay them accordingly.

April Verrett is secretary-treasurer of the Service Employees International Union (SEIU).