Families Are Drowning in Care Costs. Heres How To Change That.
b'Every day in the United States, more than 10,000 babies are born and 10,000 people turn 65. But America doesn\\u2019t have anything close to a comprehensive family policy. That means no guaranteed paid family leave, no universal child care or preschool and a patchwork system of elder and disability care that leaves millions without support.\\n\\nAmerican families are drowning as a result. In some states, the average cost of a full-time child-care program is nearing $20,000 a year; the median yearly cost of a private room in a nursing home is over $100,000 \\u2014 a figure that well exceeds the median household income in the United States. And workers in the child care and eldercare industries routinely make poverty wages.\\n\\nAi-jen Poo is a co-founder and the executive director of the National Domestic Workers Alliance, a MacArthur \\u201cgenius\\u201d grant winner and the author of \\u201cThe Age of Dignity: Preparing for the Elder Boom in a Changing America.\\u201d\\n\\nFixing America\\u2019s systems of care has been Poo\\u2019s life\\u2019s work. But for her, the current state of America\\u2019s care infrastructure is more than a looming crisis; it\\u2019s a huge opportunity \\u2014 one that, if solved, could supercharge the American economy, ensure dignified care across our life spans and revolutionize the future of work. And Poo\\u2019s movement may be on the brink of a major victory: If signed into law, the Build Back Better Act would be the most transformative investment in children and caregiving in generations.\\n\\nThis conversation is about how caring for the people we love became so atrociously unaffordable and unmanageable \\u2014 and what it would take to change that. It also explores why Poo thinks we should view child care and eldercare as essential infrastructure for running our economy and society, the racialized history of why the United States lags behind most of its peers in developing comprehensive family policy, the cultural narratives that have caused America to undervalue care work for so long, how solving the care crisis would be a policy \\u201cwin-win-win\\u201d for everyone, Poo\\u2019s view that \\u201ccare is a problem the market cannot solve\\u201d and why Poo believes that the future of work is inextricably linked to the future of care.\\n\\nMentioned:\\n\\n\\u201cPrep School for Poor Kids: The Long-Run Impacts of Head Start on Human Capital and Economic Self-Sufficiency\\u201d by Martha J. Bailey et al.\\n\\nBook recommendations:\\n\\nThe Sum of Us by Heather McGhee\\n\\nCaste by Isabel Wilkerson\\n\\nBeing Mortal by Atul Gawande\\n\\nThis episode is guest-hosted by Heather McGhee, a public policy expert whose work focuses on the intersection of race, inequality, and social policy. She is the chairman of the board of directors of the racial justice organization Color of Change, the former president of the think tank Demos and author of \\u201cThe Sum of Us: What Racism Costs Everyone and How We Can Prosper Together\\u201d and. You can follow her on Twitter @HMcGhee. (Learn more about the other guest hosts during Ezra\\u2019s parental leave here.)\\n\\nThoughts? Guest suggestions? Email us at ezrakleinshow@nytimes.com.\\n\\nYou can find transcripts (posted midday) and more episodes of "The Ezra Klein Show" at nytimes.com/ezra-klein-podcast, and you can find Ezra on Twitter @ezraklein. Book recommendations from all our guests are listed at https://www.nytimes.com/article/ezra-klein-show-book-recs.\\n\\n\\u201cThe Ezra Klein Show\\u201d is produced by Annie Galvin, Jeff Geld and Rog\\xe9 Karma; fact-checking by Michelle Harris; original music by Isaac Jones; mixing by Jeff Geld; audience strategy by Shannon Busta. Special thanks to Kristin Lin and Alison Bruzek.'