Hello all,
I hope you're all well, and I look forward to seeing you again someday at a DART meeting.
My organization, Family and Home Network, focuses on parent / child time together - the need for generous amounts of time together as well as parents' experiences as they take the time to meet their children's needs. We offer parents affirmation, information and advocacy.
In pandemic times - and at all times - caring for children is an essential activity, whether it’s done by child care professionals, early educators, or parents themselves. Frail elderly people and adults with disabilities often also need care; unpaid family members often provide that care - especially in BIPOC families. This essential caregiving activity is not counted as ‘work’ in our measures of GDP – a decision made by male economists in the 1950s (see Marilyn Waring on YouTube “GDP Measures the Wrong Things.”)
Grassroots organizations have long been working for recognition and compensation for the work of unpaid caregiving and now there is legislation pending in the U.S. House of Representatives, introduced by members of the Congressional Black Caucus and cosponsored by dozens.
The Global Women’s Strike, Women of Color Global Women’s Strike and the Every Mother is a Working Mother Network have issued this call for action:
The Worker Relief and Credit Reform Act, WRCR H.R.5271, introduced by Reps Gwen Moore (WI) & Marcia Fudge (OH), would expand the Earned Income Tax Credit (EITC) to make it fully refundable and available to more people, including mothers and other unwaged primary caregivers, and get cash directly into mothers’ and families’ hands. It redefines workers to include unpaid family caregivers & students.
My organization, Family and Home Network, has endorsed this bill.
Congress will be in session starting today, July 20 - but only for a few weeks – so time is of the essence! During negotiations on pandemic relief bills, broad support for this bill would be an enormous help to advocates fighting for it.
A note about nonprofits and advocacy. FAHN’s Board was concerned about IRS rules for 501(c)(3) organizations. Nancy Berlin, who is working with the Global Women's Strike – and until recently was policy director for the California Association of Nonprofits – summed up the rules: a nonprofit organization can lobby for specific legislation as long as less than 20% of the org's expenditures are spent on this activity. One of the sources Nancy provided is the Council of Nonprofits, where I found this inspiring message: “Arguably, the most important public policies we have in the United States have come from nonprofit organizations lobbying for their causes…. These achievements may be largely attributed to the strong leadership of executive directors and board members who knew that direct service alone would not change the flawed or missing public policies that contributed to the problems their organizations were trying to alleviate.” (David F. Arons in Nonprofit Governance and Management)
Please let me know if you have questions or comments.
Catherine Myers, executive director, Family and Home Network
703-304-3982
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