Article by Alexandra Mateescu. Points, Medium.
April 16, 2020.
The United States has long faced what’s been called the “care crisis.” Many families struggle to care for children while working long hours, and to also support elderly parents in the face of an underfunded elder care system. To bridge the gap, families often rely on unpaid care from family members or paid careworkers.
During the pandemic, careworkers are being laid off, and frontline, low-wage “essential service” workers often cannot afford to pay for care at home when schools, daycares, and eldercare support shut down. A particular cruelty of the pandemic is that caring for others is most desperately needed, but also the most risky kind of work. Like gig platform workers, domestic workers such as nannies, home health aides, and housecleaners continue to be treated as disposable and invisible, even as public relief efforts try to stem the ongoing economic and public health crisis.
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