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This week, we’ve curated a selection of Better Life Lab resources to frame candidates' work, care, and family positions. Welcome to Your Life, Better for August 15, 2024!
Left: Democratic presidential nominee Vice President Kamala harris arrives to speak on the final day of the Democratic National Convention, Thursday, Aug. 22, 20124, in Chicago.
Right: Republican presidential candidate former President Donald Trump appears with Vice presidential candidate JD Vance, R-Ohio, during the Republican National Convention, Monday, July 15, 2024, in Milwaukee. (AP Photo/Julia Nikhinson)
The Presidential Candidates on Work, Care, and Family
Better Life Lab Resources to Help You Navigate the Final Campaign Months
By Haley Swenson, Better Life Lab Research and Reporting Fellow
We are now just over two months away from the 2024 U.S. presidential election. As the campaign season heats up, U.S. families face the monumental twin challenges of steep price increases in housing, child care, and groceries, and nonexistent or crumbling public infrastructure for workers and caregivers. Fortunately, thanks to the public’s long-standing support for investments in care and the care movement’s organizing and educating on these issues, as Better Life Lab fellow Katherine Goldstein reported in A Playbook to Transform How America Cares, care and work-family justice issues are likely to get more attention than ever from candidates.
In April, Better Life Lab Director Brigid Schulte reported on the work-care records of Republican nominee Donald Trump and then-Democratic candidate, Joe Biden. Schulte wrote that, “What both men have done as president, despite their rhetoric, is incremental at best, and woefully inadequate compared to the need,” and noted that though Biden had an ambitious care agenda going into his first term, he was unable to pass most of it in Congress. Although the Biden administration used executive action to better support care and caregivers, she concluded that, “for the American government to truly begin to support working families, its leaders will have to put aside short-term political thinking to recognize the deep and urgent nature of their need.”
Now Democrats have a new leader at the top of their ticket. This week, we heard Kamala Harris’s priorities around many issues first hand at the Democratic National Convention (DNC). When it comes to specific comments on work, family, care, and gender equality policies the Better Life Lab works to advance, Harris mentioned protecting public early care and education, securing reproductive rights, and building an “opportunity economy.” In July, Donald Trump emphasized border security and deporations at his Republican National Convention (RNC) speech. In the coming months we’ll see debates between the presidential and vice presidential candidates.
Here are some of the top priorities for families that the Better Life Lab staff will be watching for from all of the candidates as their campaigns enter their final months:
Plans to Expand and Protect Access to Reproductive Health Care in All Its Forms
The June 2022 Dobbs v. Jackson Women’s Health Organization Supreme Court decision overturned a constitutional right to abortion, unleashing a torrent of lawsuits, legislation, and ballot initiatives on abortion rights, and confusion, fear, and heartbreak in hospitals and homes. In the United States, childbirth is already far more dangerous than in peer countries, especially for Black women. As my colleague Julia Craven reported, “There are 22 deaths for every 100,000 live births—nearly double the rate for Chile (14.3) and more than triple the rate for the United Kingdom (5.5).” For Black women, there are 69 deaths per 100,000 births.
In recent days, Trump has attempted to distance himself from debates about reproductive rights and has evaded questions about whether he supports Republican efforts to achieve a national abortion ban, repeatedly calling for states to legislate the issue. As Vice President, Harris released the White House Plan for Addressing the Maternal Health Crisis. She has consistently supported reproductive rights, including access to birth control, abortion, and fertility treatments such as IVF. And during her acceptance speech at the DNC on Thursday, Harris alluded to supporting legislation to guarantee abortion rights across the nation, stating, “And when Congress passes a bill to restore reproductive freedom, as President of the United States, I will proudly sign it into law.”
For more stories and reporting, here are further Better Life Lab resources covering the ongoing reproductive health crisis and its impact on families and gender equality.
Why Recent Abortion Access Supreme Court Rulings Are Status Quo for Deteriorating Rights
The U.S. Black Child and Maternal Health Crisis Is Centuries in the Making
A Map and Table showing the overlap between abortion legislation, paid leave programs, and restrictions on local paid leave protections
Candidates’ Specifics on Paid Family and Medical Leave
The United States remains the only wealthy country in the world not to guarantee paid leave to new parents. The 1993 Family Medical Leave Act only provides access to unpaid leave and reaches only about 56 percent of U.S. workers. A well-designed paid family and medical leave program would offer financial, health, and economic benefits to workers and families, businesses, and the national economy.
Both Vice President Harris (and President Joe Biden before her) and former President Donald Trump have expressed support for paid leave policies in the past. Harris has long championed paid family and medical leave that would cover all working people when a new child arrives or a personal or family medical issue arises. Harris supported legislation both as a U.S. Senator and as a Democratic presidential primary hopeful in 2020. The 2024 Democratic Platform includes a commitment to a comprehensive, universal, 12-week paid family and medical leave program, similar to the plan the Biden-Harris administration fought for in the Build Back Better Act.
Trump was the first Republican president to mention support for paid leave in a State of the Union Address, and in his 2020 campaign backed a limited plan for parental leave that would allow parents to borrow from their future child tax credits; he also signed the 2019 National Defense Authorization Act, which created a paid parental leave guarantee for federal workers. However, the 2024 Republican Platform does not mention paid leave at all, nor—as far as we know—has Trump on the campaign trail.
Research shows the details of paid leave proposals are critical to the efficacy and equity of a future paid family and medical leave program. We’ll be watching for important details, including:
the duration of leave
job protection for those who use leave
the amount the program offers workers to replace their earnings, and its funding source
the scope of the plan for covering self and family care beyond leave for new parents
Check out these Better Life Lab resources for background on paid leave, policies that work, and stories about the starkly different experiences of those with and without paid leave when they need it.
A Nation of Paid Family Leave Have- and Have-Nots Characterizes the United States in 2023
The Paid Parental Leave Duration Report
Explainer: Paid and Unpaid Leave Policies in the United States
Explainer: Paid Leave Benefits and Funding in the United States
Our story series: To Have and Have Not: What it Means to Live in a Country that Does Not Guarantee Paid Family and Medical Leave
Candidates’ Recognition of Child Care as Central to the Economy and Plans to Invest Public Dollar
The average cost of child care for two children is now more than the average rent in every state in the country and average mortgages in nearly all. More than four years since the Covid-19 pandemic began, the U.S. childcare workforce still has not returned to pre-pandemic levels. And though their low, sometimes poverty wages have risen slightly, their wages have grown much less than for workers in other sectors over the past few years. Most providers can barely eke by. Child care is a market that doesn’t work – and shouldn’t be a “market” at all, but rather a public good, like schools, libraries and public parks.
Vice President Kamala Harris has supported efforts to make child care affordable in the past, including a “Children’s Agenda” when she ran for president in 2020 that would have paid child care providers living wages and provided free care to families making less than 75 percent of their state’s median income. She has continuously used her platform as Vice President to bring attention to the crisis of affordable, high quality care. The Trump campaign has not made a statement about the child care crisis. As president, Trump proposed a $95 million cut to the Child Care and Block Development Grant in 2017 (Congress rejected the proposal and increased its funding by $2.37 billion). Trump authorized emergency funding for child care at the outset of the pandemic in 2020, including $3.5 billion in supplemental funding to the Child Care Development Block Grant and another $10 billion in the Coronavirus Response and Relief Supplemental Appropriation Act in December 2020. In 2021, then-Senator and now, Republican Vice Presidential nominee J.D. Vance called universal child care “class war against normal people.” Our research and reporting show there is no comprehensive solution to the child care crisis absent a substantial and sustained investment of public funding. For more reporting on the child care crisis and on innovators and policies that could build a trusted, high quality, equitable, and affordable system for all, check out these resources.
Innovations for Universal Child Care
A child care reporting series: Stories to Drive Policy Change
From our colleague Aaron Loewenberg in New America’s Early and Elementary Education Policy Program: Where Does Kamala Harris Stand on Early Care and Education?
Candidates’ Plans to Support Families and Caregivers Throughout Life
As our society ages, home care workers are predicted to be the largest occupation in the economy by the 2030s. This is important work, but the jobs come with low pay, unpredictable hours and, in most cases, no benefits. There are simply not enough workers to meet the demand. Many families are strained to the brink struggling to either pay for care out of pocket, or reducing hours or quitting jobs to provide care themselves. Around 53 million Americans are unpaid caregivers for a family member or loved with a health issue or disability. Nearly one-third spend 20 or more hours a week giving care. The Urban Institute estimates that these unpaid family caregivers, the majority of whom are women, will each lose nearly $300,000 in earnings over their lifetimes caring for aging, ill, and disabled loved ones. Although the Biden administration sought to infuse more public dollars to support home and community-based care in the sweeping Build Back Better legislation, the effort failed in Congress.
For more on care policy across the lifetime, check out:
Better Life Lab Podcast: Caregiving in America—The Dignity Gap
We’ll also be watching for other policy positions that will support families and gender equality, including:
Support for flexible work policies
Raising the minimum wage and ending the discriminatory subminimum wage
Paid sick days and paid annual leave
Efforts to close the gender wage gap
Support for worker organizing
An expanded Child Tax Credit (just last week, the Harris campaign called for a $6,000 tax credit to parents of newborns)
Reforms to the unemployment insurance system
Lab Notes
BLL Director Brigid Schulte published a Q&A with economist Scott Fulford on the financial security that early-COVID era benefits brought to Americans, even if they were unemployed. She was also quoted in a Business Insider article about the reflex to restrict flexible work in response to economic uncertainty.
Brigid and BLL Senior Writer Julia Craven's paid leave resources were included in the Pritzker Children's Initiative newsletter.
BLL Senior Fellow Vicki Shabo's letter to the editor was published in the Washington Post. In it, she championed paid leave as a family-supportive policy that the Harris-Walz campaign should support. She also collaborated with New America colleague Nikki Lee to write an article championing paid family leave as a solution for Pennsylvania families.
BLL Staff Writer Rebecca Gale wrote an article about the White House initiative to bring newborn baby kits to more households for Early Learning Nation. She also interviewed our Reporting and Writing Fellow Haley Swenson on the true meaning of a "happy family" for her newsletter.
Brigid was featured on the Financial Times' Working It podcast, discussing the importance of balancing work and rest and the power of public policy to create healthier work cultures. She presented on similar themes at the New Atlantic Independent Booksellers Association's annual conference. Kirkus Reviews included her upcoming book, Over Work: Transforming the Daily Grind in the Quest for a Better Life in its list of the 150 most anticipated books of the fall.
Vicki wrote an article for The Thread exploring the social and economic benefits of paid leave and was quoted in a guide to paid leave for corporate leaders published by JUST Capital.
What we’re reading
This New York Times article discussing the myriad of ways social and economic factors endanger pregnant women in the U.S.
This POLITICO piece on the momentum behind the bipartisan push for family-friendly policies
New survey findings on abortion experiences, knowledge, and attitudes among women in the U.S. from KFF
This journal article exploring the damage of poverty narratives that center on individual responsibility without acknowledging systemic factors
An Atlantic article discussing new federal legislation looking to address the challenges faced by families looking for summer child care
This New York Times article highlighting the role of care policy in Harris' economic message
A Quartz interview with economist Joseph Stiglitz analyzing Harris and Trump's economic policies
That's all for this week. Thanks for reading!
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About New America
New America is dedicated to renewing the promise of America by continuing the quest to realize our nation's highest ideals. Read the rest of our story, or see what we've been doing recently in our latest Annual Report.
New America's home office is located on the traditional land of the Nacotchtank and Piscataway Peoples.
About the Better Life Lab
The Better Life Lab works in solidarity with the movement for work-family justice to elevate the value of care, advance intersectional gender equity, and transform policy, practice and culture so people and families can thrive. We provide original research and reporting that challenges existing narratives around work and family. As connectors and conveners, we translate that, the work of academics and partners, and the stories of working families into accessible, solutions-focused stories, practical tools and policy and workplace interventions. We creatively amplify them to the widest possible audiences for the greatest impact.
Better Life Lab
Better work. Better care. Better life.
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