U.S. Senate Must Now Take Up Critical Vote to Allow Millions of Essential Caregivers to Move Out of Poverty, Create Jobs, Improve Senior Care, and Demand Healthcare Justice for All Communities!
(November 19, 2021) – The House passage of the “Build Back Better” Act is truly historic.
This initial victory simply would not have been happened if it wasn’t for the thousands of home care workers and caregivers in Pennsylvania and across our country who marched, rallied, phone banked, wrote letters, organized town hall meetings, and held press events to demand that our country recognize our essential workers and seize the moment to make truly transformational investments in our caregiving workforce.
As I said in our press statement following the House vote:
“For many months, home care workers have joined with millions of other essential workers and American families to demand Congress pass the Build Back Better Act, which will give all Americans – no matter your zip code, what you look like, or where you’re from – the chance to thrive.”
Pennsylvania’s senior population is growing at a rate twenty times higher than the national average, The Build Back Better Act will help ensure everyone can get care when they need it, by:
- Moving caregivers out of poverty;
- Creating more home care jobs;
- Giving home care workers the choice to join together in a union and collectively bargain for better wages, benefits, training, and working conditions, and
- Ensuring taxpayer dollars go towards good-paying jobs that provide quality, affordable care for families who need it.
We are on the brink of making history! Now more than ever it is critically important that all caregivers, seniors, adults with disabilities, and working families rise up and make our voices heard to reimagine and redesign our long-term care system in the United States.
We are demanding that the U.S. Senate immediately take up and pass the Build Back Better Act on behalf of all Americans who need and deserve a better care system.
We can solve overlapping crises by creating good union jobs for home care workers, transform our long-term care system, and create justice for Black and Brown communities and essential workers by tearing down the walls of systemic racism within the healthcare sector and throughout our society.
The time to act is now!
-Matthew Yarnell, President, SEIU Healthcare PA