UNITED STATES: Joe Biden will announce more than 50 executive actions to further free preschool and extended care for children, older Americans, and those with disabilities. This is due to congressional opposition, but Biden will continue to push lawmakers to approve $750 billion in financing over a ten-year period in his 2024 budget.
President Biden is instructing government organisations to take action to improve worker support for individuals in the long-term care and childcare sectors and boost access to high-quality care.
He will sign the order at an event with family carers, persons with disabilities, senior citizens, and early childhood and long-term care professionals later on Tuesday in the Rose Garden. Domestic policy advisor Susan Rice assured reporters that the president would not wait to act.
As Biden approaches the declaration of his candidature for president in 2024, the White House is hoping that child and eldercare programmes, which are highly regarded by the general public, would raise Biden’s popularity ratings.
The order was hailed as a major step towards modernising the American healthcare system by Ai-jen Poo and Jenn Stowe of the National Domestic Workers Alliance. They declared that “care is a need that we can no longer overlook” and that this package of executive actions is the all-in commitment needed to ensure that care employment is a good job and that Americans can access care for years to come.
Biden has ordered all federal departments to look for grant programmes to cover childcare and long-term care benefits for employees working on federal projects. He is also considering compelling businesses to increase access to care for their employees.
The Commerce Department mandated businesses to demonstrate how they will assist workers in accessing affordable childcare. This would improve the quality of jobs caring for the elderly and those with disabilities, make home-based care more accessible for veterans, increase early childhood educators’ salaries, and promote the right of care workers to organise a union.
The lack of childcare and eldercare options and rising expenses have reduced the labour pool and slowed economic growth, leading to a $290 billion annual decline in U.S. production. Without calculating the cost, the administration intends to quickly put Biden’s measures into place.
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