There's a single policy issue that can unite our country.

Friends,

What if there was a single policy issue that could unite Americans from all walks of life, across the political spectrum? Dawn Huckelbridge, founding Square One board member, believes there is — and she’s got the receipts to prove it. As we get ready for the long 4th of July weekend, I highly recommend reading this piece from her below, all the way to the end. We’re deeply honored that Dawn continues to support our work and our candidates.

Tony

Square One Supporters,

This week we celebrate 250 years of our country striving, marching, legislating, lobbying, trying, fighting, failing, and trying again for a more perfect union. We’ve made landmark progress, on civil rights, voting rights, reproductive freedom — and we’ve backslid. The work of the next chapter will be to recover what we’ve lost, and to begin the work we didn’t finish or never started.

A large piece of this country’s unfinished work, I believe, is key to its survival: a family care agenda.

When Franklin D. Roosevelt signed the Social Security Act more than 90 years ago he remarked, “This law, too, represents a cornerstone in a structure which is being built but is by no means complete.” The law created unemployment insurance and retirement benefits, but not paid leave for injury or illness — it was left out. As a result, FDR spent years calling to complete the system by adding this missing component; when he died, Truman made adding back this protection a signature goal of his administration. But to this day, the United States has no guarantee for paid sick or medical leave of any kind.

What’s more, at the 1919 International Congress of Working Women in Washington, DC, women from 19 nations demanded paid maternity leave, job guarantees, and medical care as global labor standards. The United States is one of the few countries in the world that failed to ever realize it.

We invest less in child care than nearly every OECD nation and it costs more than college in most states — if you can even find it. Aging and disability care averages more than $60,000 a year, and often much more, with waiting lists from months to years. Families lose more than $34 billion a year without access to paid family leave. We pay the price in jobs, promotions, savings, retirements — and also our healing, bonding, and time with our loved ones. All while Boomers keep aging, the sandwich generation keeps growing, costs keep rising, and our financial futures look more precarious by the day. And, importantly, while our country becomes increasingly divided, alienated, and extreme.

But it’s important to point out not just the cost of not having these policies, but to illustrate what we gain when we do. And to my delight, I’m hearing candidates do that more and more. I’ve seen it at the top of (many Square One!) candidates’ economic agendas, from Christina Hines to Rebecca Bennett to JoAnna Mendoza to Pia Dandiya. We saw Mayor Mamdani begin to implement his ambitious child care plan within months of his election (note, New York already has paid leave statewide). During his campaign he said, “Life doesn’t need to be this hard. We all want more money in our pocket, more dignity in our lives, more rest and joy.” Polling over decades has proven that these policies are the most widely supported in the country. They motivate progressive bases and persuade swing voters. They turn out new and less likely voters. They impact every single one of us.

Because yes, caregiving has disproportionately impacted women, and that’s certainly been a factor in its deprioritization and delay. But also who doesn’t want freedom to control their own time and to support their own loved ones? It’s not only mothers, it’s the rail worker who wants the dignity of a single paid sick day. It’s the construction worker who is injured on the job and can’t keep a paycheck. It’s the dads, and grown sons and daughters, it’s every one of us who will at some point need to give and receive care. And our lack of a national policy is making us sicker, lonelier, and isolated; it’s bankrupting us and robbing us of joy and life opportunities. And in that kind of a country, it’s much easier to demonize and dehumanize each other. It’s much easier to find someone to blame who doesn’t look or speak or pray like us. It’s much easier to cling to a politics of hate.

We had a vision of what our lives could be like in the aftermath of the pandemic: the Build Back Better Act — which nearly got over the finish line — included policies like paid leave and more. It was an economic agenda that would have materially improved our lives and rebuilt our communities. It would have built back not just roads and bridges but our financial security; it would have afforded us our time and dignity and ability to be present for what matters most.

I see this finally resurging, in the Democrats’ care and affordability agenda, in candidates across the country who know what it means to be a new parent or to be standing by their parent’s bedside, often both. I believe centering our humanity in an agenda that protects our livelihoods is key to us winning elections this year and in 2028. I believe it’s key to staving off fascism and saving our democracy. We have the opportunity not just to restore a status quo, but to imagine something new — a society that cares for each other, that enables us to live full lives as whole people. I believe we can and we must. It might not only be key to winning elections, but to surviving and creating our next 250 years.

Dawn Huckelbridge

Director of the Paid Leave PAC + OG Square One Leadership Board Member + Director of Paid Leave for All Action + Mom and Daughter

Let's Send Care Leaders to Congress

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