IV 117TH CONGRESS 1ST SESSION H. RES. 180 Expressing the sense of the House of Representatives that it is the duty of the Federal Government to dramatically expand and strengthen the care economy. IN THE HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES MARCH 1, 2021 Mr. BOWMAN (for himself, Ms. BUSH, Ms. CLARKE of New York, Ms. JAYAPAL, Ms. MENG, Ms. OCASIO-CORTEZ, Ms. PRESSLEY, Ms. WIL- LIAMS of Georgia, Mrs. WATSON COLEMAN, Mr. CARSON, Ms. NORTON, Ms. TLAIB, Mrs. DINGELL, Mr. GARCI´A of Illinois, Ms. JACOBS of Cali- fornia, Ms. VELA´ZQUEZ, Mr. KHANNA, Ms. LEE of California, Mr. JONES, Mr. ESPAILLAT, Mr. BRENDAN F. BOYLE of Pennsylvania, Mr. THOMPSON of Mississippi, Mr. HASTINGS, Ms. OMAR, Mr. POCAN, Mr. SAN NICOLAS, Mr. COHEN, Mr. NADLER, Mr. BLUMENAUER, Ms. SCHA- KOWSKY, and Ms. BASS) submitted the following resolution; which was referred to the Committee on Education and Labor, and in addition to the Committees on Energy and Commerce, Transportation and Infra- structure, Financial Services, Agriculture, the Judiciary, and Oversight and Reform, for a period to be subsequently determined by the Speaker, in each case for consideration of such provisions as fall within the juris- diction of the committee concerned RESOLUTION Expressing the sense of the House of Representatives that it is the duty of the Federal Government to dramatically expand and strengthen the care economy. Whereas the preamble of the Constitution of the United States cites the duty to ‘‘promote the general Welfare’’, VerDate Sep 11 2014 02:44 Mar 02, 2021 Jkt 019200 PO 00000 Frm 00001 Fmt 6652 Sfmt 6300 E:\BILLS\HR180.IH HR180 kjohnson on DSK79L0C42PROD with BILLS 2 •HRES 180 IH establishing care for the people of the United States as one of the pillars of our system of government; Whereas, even before the novel coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID–19) pandemic and the recession it triggered— (1) the United States was experiencing profound cri- ses of care and well-being; and (2) critical public services and programs in the United States were underresourced or nonexistent; Whereas we are interdependent and, at various stages of life, everyone will give or receive care; Whereas care work makes all other work possible, and the economy of the United States cannot thrive without a healthy and robust foundation of care for all people; Whereas over 3,700,000 children are born every year in the United States, and about 10,000 people in the United States reach retirement age each day; Whereas nearly 20,000,000 adults in the United States have long-term care needs arising from old age or a disability; Whereas, in 2019, more than 1 out of 5 adults in the United States had been an unpaid caregiver for an adult family member or friend, or for a child with disabilities, in the preceding 12 months; Whereas 60 percent of unpaid caregivers worked for pay out- side the home, and most were women; Whereas over 3,000,000 children and young people in the United States had also been caregivers for adults; Whereas, in 2019, women in the United States spent an aver- age of nearly 4 hours per day on unpaid care work and housework, 57 percent more hours than men; VerDate Sep 11 2014 02:44 Mar 02, 2021 Jkt 019200 PO 00000 Frm 00002 Fmt 6652 Sfmt 6300 E:\BILLS\HR180.IH HR180 kjohnson on DSK79L0C42PROD with BILLS 3 •HRES 180 IH Whereas just as our country’s physical infrastructure is crumbling, the Federal and State programs constituting our care infrastructure are an outdated patchwork, and quality care is inaccessible for millions of people in the United States; Whereas the United States does not guarantee paid time off to give and receive care, and is the only industrialized country in the world without a national paid family and medical leave program; Whereas, in 2018, only 17 percent of the United States work- force had access to paid family leave through their em- ployer; Whereas the median cost of a private room in a nursing home facility is $105,850 per year; Whereas childcare is the highest household expense for fami- lies in much of the United States, and public childcare assistance is limited; Whereas Medicaid— (1) covers long-term care needs, but with strict in- come and asset eligibility requirements; and (2) has an institutional bias, requiring State pro- grams to cover care in congregate facilities, while home and community-based services are optional and limited; Whereas Medicare generally does not cover long-term services and supports; Whereas only 7 percent individuals in the United States aged 50 or older are covered by private long-term care insur- ance, which is often prohibitively expensive; Whereas, in 2019, nearly 30,000,000 people, including 4,400,000 children, did not have health insurance in the VerDate Sep 11 2014 02:44 Mar 02, 2021 Jkt 019200 PO 00000 Frm 00003 Fmt 6652 Sfmt 6300 E:\BILLS\HR180.IH HR180 kjohnson on DSK79L0C42PROD with BILLS 4 •HRES 180 IH United States, over half of them people of color, and tens of millions more people were underinsured; Whereas the median annual pay of childcare and home care workers is $25,510 and $17,200, respectively, leading to high turnover and reliance on public assistance; Whereas childcare workers are 95 percent women, and home care workers are 87 percent women, both disproportion- ately people of color and immigrants; Whereas, in 2020, according to the Bureau of Labor Statis- tics, 8 percent of health care support workers and 3.6 percent of personal care and service workers were mem- bers of unions; Whereas these conditions have historical roots, as— (1) in the decades following the abolition of slavery in the United States, Black people primarily worked as domestic and agricultural laborers; and (2) during the New Deal-era, domestic and agricul- tural workers were excluded from social programs and labor protections, particularly those created by— (A) the Social Security Act (42 U.S.C. 301 et seq.); (B) the National Labor Relations Act (29 U.S.C. 151 et seq.); and (C) the Fair Labor Standards Act of 1938 (29 U.S.C. 201 et seq.); Whereas the COVID–19 pandemic has underscored that frontline work, including direct care, childcare, nursing, health care, public and community health, mental health, domestic, social assistance, education, service, retail, de- livery, food, restaurant, agricultural, and other work, is VerDate Sep 11 2014 02:44 Mar 02, 2021 Jkt 019200 PO 00000 Frm 00004 Fmt 6652 Sfmt 6300 E:\BILLS\HR180.IH HR180 kjohnson on DSK79L0C42PROD with BILLS 5 •HRES 180 IH essential to the functioning and flourishing of the United States, and to the care of all people; Whereas, during the COVID–19 pandemic, it has been nec- essary for frontline workers to engage in numerous strikes and work stoppages to obtain safe workplaces, personal protective equipment, the right to shelter in place, and other basic protections; Whereas domestic workers, mostly from the global South, were the most common victims of labor trafficking re- ported in the United States between 2007 and 2017; Whereas care and domestic workers who are migrants or im- migrants are especially likely to face wage theft, abuse, and other forms of exploitation; Whereas hospitals in the United States are understaffed, and most of the country does not require minimum nurse-to- patient ratios that save lives; Whereas health care and social assistance workers suffer from the highest rates of injuries due to workplace vio- lence; Whereas the closure of rural hospitals is accelerating, and 135 rural hospitals have closed since 2010; Whereas Black, Latino, and Indigenous people have all been more than twice as likely to die of COVID–19 than White people; Whereas adults receiving long-term care in institutional set- tings represent less than 1 percent of the United States population, but account for more than one-third of COVID–19 deaths in the United States as of the date of introduction of this resolution; VerDate Sep 11 2014 02:44 Mar 02, 2021 Jkt 019200 PO 00000 Frm 00005 Fmt 6652 Sfmt 6300 E:\BILLS\HR180.IH HR180 kjohnson on DSK79L0C42PROD with BILLS 6 •HRES 180 IH Whereas the decision of the Supreme Court of the United States in Olmstead v. L.C., 527 U.S. 581 (1999), estab- lished the right of people with disabilities to be inde- pendent and supported in their homes and communities; Whereas lack of access to technology and broadband internet among people of color, low-income and rural commu- nities, older adults, and people with disabilities has nega- tively impacted the well-being of those people, particu- larly during the COVID–19 pandemic; Whereas, on any given night in 2019, well over 550,000 peo- ple were unhoused in the United States; Whereas, in 2019, in the United States, 1 in 7 children, more than 1 in 4 Black children, and more than 1 in 5 Latino and Indigenous children lived in poverty; Whereas youth suicide rates are rising, and suicide attempts by Black adolescents increased by 73 percent between 1991 and 2017; Whereas the Federal Head Start program reaches only 36 percent of eligible low-income children, and Early Head Start reaches only 11 percent; Whereas 14,000,000 students attend schools with a police of- ficer but no counselor, nurse, psychologist, or social worker; Whereas mental health professionals, such as school psycholo- gists and counselors, are best equipped to maintain school safety without pushing children into the school-to- prison pipeline; Whereas nearly 1 in 4 students, or up to 3,000,000 students, has been missing from school during the COVID–19 pan- demic, and will need additional support both in and out- side of school to accelerate learning; VerDate Sep 11 2014 02:44 Mar 02, 2021 Jkt 019200 PO 00000 Frm 00006 Fmt 6652 Sfmt 6300 E:\BILLS\HR180.IH HR180 kjohnson on DSK79L0C42PROD with BILLS 7 •HRES 180 IH Whereas the youth mental health crisis has been exacerbated by the climate crisis, and has worsened due to the COVID–19 pandemic and economic collapse; Whereas Black, Brown, Indigenous, and low-income commu- nities have borne the brunt of health impacts arising from fossil fuel use, industrial pollution, and crumbling infrastructure; Whereas, increasingly, climate disasters and extreme weather events are leaving behind communities suffering from widespread trauma and in need of mental health care; Whereas nurses, care and social assistance workers, and edu- cators— (1) have been first responders during climate disas- ters and extreme weather events; (2) are essential for responding to other forms of en- vironmental harm; and (3) have taken grave personal risks to help the peo- ple they serve; Whereas worsening climate impacts will make care work more necessary and care more difficult to administer, dis- proportionately impacting children, older adults, and peo- ple with disabilities, who risk being separated from their regular care workers and caregivers; Whereas, despite the prevalence of low wages and difficult conditions, direct care jobs, including home care, residen- tial care, and nursing assistant jobs, are already among the fastest growing in the United States and represent the largest occupational group in the country; Whereas communities devastated by deindustrialization and disinvestment are particularly reliant on care and social assistance work for employment; VerDate Sep 11 2014 02:44 Mar 02, 2021 Jkt 019200 PO 00000 Frm 00007 Fmt 6652 Sfmt 6300 E:\BILLS\HR180.IH HR180 kjohnson on DSK79L0C42PROD with BILLS 8 •HRES 180 IH Whereas many care, social assistance, and education jobs are relatively low-carbon occupations, and can quickly become green jobs as certain physical infrastructures decarbon- ize, especially transit systems, health care facilities, and public buildings; Whereas a robust care workforce will also be required to sup- port a just transition to a healthy, zero-carbon economy, as other workers shift to new industries, move across the country, and develop new care needs; Whereas the multiple crises now facing the United States re- quire not only unprecedented investments in physical in- frastructure, but also similarly sized investments in social infrastructure, including care infrastructure; Whereas public investment in care work supports care work- ers’ increased economic activity, creating additional jobs throughout the economy; Whereas we have a historic opportunity to finally build care infrastructure that is equitable and inclusive, and one in which all people can thrive, prosper, weather future dis- ruptions, and age with dignity in their own homes and communities; and Whereas in the context of addressing and defeating the COVID–19 pandemic, economic crisis, systemic racism, and climate change, and taking seriously the mandate to ‘‘promote the general Welfare’’, bold investments in care can anchor the rebirth of our country: Now, therefore, be it Resolved, That it is the sense of the House of Rep- 1 resentatives that— 2 VerDate Sep 11 2014 02:44 Mar 02, 2021 Jkt 019200 PO 00000 Frm 00008 Fmt 6652 Sfmt 6201 E:\BILLS\HR180.IH HR180 kjohnson on DSK79L0C42PROD with BILLS 9 •HRES 180 IH (1) it is the duty of the Federal Government to 1 dramatically expand and strengthen the care econ- 2 omy, healing and supporting the country as we 3 emerge from the COVID–19 pandemic and face the 4 challenges of the 21st century and beyond; 5 (2) the obligation described in paragraph (1) 6 can only be met with far-reaching public invest- 7 ments, designed to achieve the goals of— 8 (A) repairing the wrongs of history, includ- 9 ing by— 10 (i) acknowledging and addressing the 11 legacies of exclusion and oppression faced 12 by caregivers and care workers, particu- 13 larly women of color and immigrants; 14 (ii) acknowledging and addressing the 15 trauma of all those with unmet care needs, 16 such as people of color, including Black, 17 Brown, and Indigenous people, and Asian 18 Americans and Pacific Islanders, immi- 19 grant, LGBTQIA+, older, low-income, 20 rural, and deindustrialized communities, 21 people with disabilities, the unemployed, 22 under-employed, unhoused, people who are 23 incarcerated or who were formerly incar- 24 cerated, veterans, survivors of abuse, and 25 VerDate Sep 11 2014 02:44 Mar 02, 2021 Jkt 019200 PO 00000 Frm 00009 Fmt 6652 Sfmt 6201 E:\BILLS\HR180.IH HR180 kjohnson on DSK79L0C42PROD with BILLS 10 •HRES 180 IH children and young people coping with eco- 1 nomic and climate disruption; and 2 (iii) approaching care policy as part of 3 a broader agenda of dismantling systemic 4 racism, sexism, economic inequality, and 5 other forms of oppression, alongside efforts 6 to achieve truth and reconciliation, repara- 7 tions, decarceration, restorative justice, In- 8 digenous sovereignty, a fair and humane 9 immigration system, demilitarization, a 10 Federal jobs guara [Text truncated for display. 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