Every 8 Seconds, an American Turns 65. How Do We Care for Everyone?

<p>Every day in the United States, <a href="https://www.cdc.gov/nchs/fastats/births.htm" target="_blank">more than 10,000 babies are born</a> and <a href="https://www.pewresearch.org/fact-tank/2010/12/29/baby-boomers-retire/" target="_blank">10,000 people turn 65.</a> But America doesn’t 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.</p><p>American 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 — 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.</p><p>Ai-jen Poo is a co-founder and the executive director of the National Domestic Workers Alliance, a MacArthur “genius” grant winner and the author of “<a href="https://thenewpress.com/books/age-of-dignity" target="_blank">The Age of Dignity</a>: Preparing for the Elder Boom in a Changing America.”</p><p>Fixing America’s systems of care has been Poo’s life’s work. But for her, the current state of America’s care infrastructure is more than a looming crisis; it’s a huge opportunity — one that, if solved, could supercharge the American economy, ensure dignified care across our life spans and revolutionize the future of work. And Poo’s 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.</p><p>This conversation is about how caring for the people we love became so atrociously unaffordable and unmanageable — 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