Biden proposes investment in caregiving community amid pandemic
Increasing funding to the caregiving community is the basis of Joe Biden's latest proposal to revive the economy amid the COVID-19 pandemic. In the third arm of his "Build Back Better" jobs plan that was released on Tuesday, Biden focuses on childcare and eldercare, calling it a "21st century caregiving" model.
Through this investment in quality, affordable care, Biden promises 3 million new jobs to aid those Americans out of work due to the COVID-19 pandemic or who are underemployed.
"This is about easing the squeeze of working families," Biden said while laying out the plan in remarks in Delaware on Tuesday. "I know it's hard to think of future when you're just trying to get through the crisis at hand."
The price tag for this care plan is $775 billion over 10 years and the campaign insists it will be paid for by "rolling back unproductive and unequal tax breaks for real estate investors with incomes over $400,000 and taking steps to increase tax compliance for high-income earners."
Older Americans receive top billing in the plan and the majority of the appropriated money. According to a recent CBS News Battleground Tracker poll, Biden is making serious inroads with seniors, a group that tends to vote Republican.
Biden says he will allocate $450 billion to give more seniors the choice to receive care at home or "in supportive community situations." Specifically, the former vice president wants to target the 800,000-person Medicare waitlist for home and community care by increasing Medicaid funding to states. With an additional 150,000 more community health workers funded through "direct grant funding" specifically in places with "systemic racial discrimination," Biden wants to improve care quality, too.
Altogether, 1.5 million new jobs are promised in the eldercare field.
The next group of assistance is for childcare, with Biden's biggest promise being "build[ing] our child care infrastructure back better for the long-term, including by making high-quality child care affordable and preschool universal for three and four year olds," the plan states.
"We are in a childcare emergency," Biden said in his speech on Tuesday.
Through this childcare effort is the other half of the overall 3 million jobs guarantee, pledging to create new 1.5 million jobs in childcare services.
Biden's already-announced universal pre-K for three, four and five year olds is also factored into this plan as an opportunity to save parents "thousands" of dollars per year on childcare costs.
For low-income and middle class families, Biden wants to offer a $8,000 tax credit to help pay for child care. Other ways to assist with this universal childcare goal is capping childcare costs at 7% for low-income families, the price deemed by Health and Human Services Department when childcare begins to be unaffordable.
Another element is "incentivizing" of "bonus payments" childcare providers to offer early morning, evening and weekend care. He also wants to increase hours of after-school, weekend and summer care for older kids. Increasing care and community colleges for parents and Department of Defense institutions is also mentioned.
Biden's campaign went to great lengths with reporters to compliment the plan putting care giving at the center of a jobs plan. Caregiving for children and the elderly is "an issue for families, not just an issue for women," a Biden campaign official said, mentioning Biden's own personal experience raising his two sons after the death of his first wife.
Along with this care plan, Biden has promised around 10 million new jobs in two additional plans that were released in July. The plans focused on increasing "Buy American" manufacturing and instituting a "green economy" with more emphasis on renewable energy.