We missed you last week while we were hard at work putting the finishing touches on our Care Index and Report! Please join us on September 28 as we launch this exciting new project. Presentation of the index will be followed by commentary from the Clinton and Trump campaigns and an expert panel.

Here are five things you need to know this week to make your life better at work and at home:

Amplifying caregiving

This week, we’re amplifying a brilliant idea from female White House staffers: to make sure you and your female colleagues get heard, repeat other women’s points and give them credit — a strategy they call “amplification.” Read more about women’s efforts to get a seat at the table in the White House.

We’d also like to amplify women’s ideas and perspectives on one of the toughest issues that mothers, and all working parents, face: caregiving. Anne-Marie Slaughter recently stopped by Parent.co’s Where Was I...? podcast to discuss lead parents and the need to value care. The Institute for Women’s Policy Research has published a report on child care for parents in college, revealing high costs, declining availability of on-campus care, and state-by-state variations in policy. Marina Cashdan at Artsy explores the careers of mothers who are successful artists and why the two don’t have to, and shouldn’t, conflict. Laura June at The Cut wonders why reality shows like Keeping Up With the Kardashians don’t show nannies. (If you’re thinking of hiring a nanny, make sure you value their work! An upcoming webinar from Hand in Hand: The Domestic Employers Network can teach you everything you need to know to be a responsible employer.)

Donald Trump has also released his childcare plan this week, with plenty of influence from his daughter Ivanka. In a fascinating interview with Cosmopolitan, Ivanka struggles to respond to questions about paternity leave and her father’s record.

 The future of work?

New policies and options are changing when, where, and how we work. Amazon’s Mechanical Turk platform allows workers to complete short online tasks for small payments. The work is low-paid and precarious, like much of the gig economy, but Turkers organized their own workers’ rights movement to establish fair working standards — and faced pushback from Amazon. Elsewhere at Amazon, the company is piloting a 30-hour workweek for some of its employees. Though counterintuitive, the policy may be good for business, by helping Amazon attract more diverse employees. But some worker-friendly policies may have unintended consequences: working from home could be ruining work-life balance, and workplace wellness policies shift health care costs onto employees, without improving health outcomes. And, for some, work hasn’t changed so much: well-off men continue to work long hours.

The legacy of STOP ERA

STOP ERA activist Phyllis Schlafly passed away last week at the age of 92, after a long career fighting for social conservatism. Following her death, some feminists have reminisced about her rhetoric, tactics, and the impact of her movement, arguing that even those who disagree with her can’t forget her legacy: 7 lessons progressives learned from Phyllis Schlafly, and why America needs more housewives like her.

No single family

“What kinds of families would each of us make for ourselves if we were free to choose knowing that there was room and real support for the kinds of families that made sense for us?” New America CA Fellow Mia Birdsong explores the changing nature of family today and the need for family policy that recognizes the diversity, fluidity, and flexibility of family relationships. In particular, she writes, we should look to black families, who have long blurred the lines between family and community and built loving relationships in the face of serious obstacles.

Women and welfare: then and now

From suffragettes to Hillary Clinton, women activists and their ideas about gender roles have played a significant role in welfare policy and discourse. This fascinating history chronicles the use of welfare to police immigrant mothers, middle-class second-wave feminists’ conflicts with welfare mothers, and Hillary Clinton’s fraught relationship to the widely criticized welfare reform bill passed 20 years ago.

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About New America

New America is dedicated to the renewal of American politics, prosperity, and purpose in the Digital Age. Our hallmarks are big ideas, pragmatic policy solutions, technological innovation, and creative engagement with broad audiences. Read the rest of our story, or see what we've been doing recently in our latest Annual Report.

About the Better Life Lab

New America’s Breadwinning & Caregiving Program is thrilled to unveil a new name, the Better Life Lab, and an updated agenda to transform policy and culture so that people and families have the opportunity to live their best lives at work and at home. As a “lab,” we are dedicated to disruptive experiments, collaborative work, and innovative thinking.

“Your Life, Better: News From the Better Life Lab” will be our way to keep you in the know, featuring the best of what we’re reading and writing about gender equity, the evolution of work, and social policies that support 21st-century families. We will be a clear signal amid the noise to share what’s fresh and crucial to an inclusive vision of work-life, gender, and income equity issues.

Meet the Better Life Lab Team

Better Life Lab

Real choices. Real parity. All people.