We (and This Includes You, Democrats) Have Blown a Huge Hole in the Safety Net

[mntleo2]

50. Unpaid Work = $450 BILLION a year to replace

We first need to begin to respect and define unpaid work.

According to the AARP it would cost tax payers over $450 BILLION dollars per year if we were to replace the unpaid labor of care giving so women can go out there and make rich men richer saying, "Do you want fries with that?" You can find links and read their wonky report here: http://www.aarp.org/home-family/caregiving/info-10-2012/home-alone-family-caregivers-providing-complex-chronic-care.html

What does this replacement of this unpaid mean, you might ask? Well this is the labor (mostly) women have to do to take care of their children, their elders, and their spouses unpaid and without any consideration for the contributions they make to their communities.

How does this unpaid work contribute to my community or to me, you might ask? Well YOU would be expected to pay that $1/2 Trillion yearly more to build, maintain, and staff facilities in order for someone abandoning their loved ones in order to work for a wage.

(Mostly)women LOSE almost $400,000 over a work lifetime due to this labor according to the AARP and other labor studies.

Social Security calls those years of unpaid care giving "zero years" for the 3 to 5 times in their lifetime (mostly) women make the agonizing decision whether to care for a loved one or work for a wage. This means women who choose to care for this loved one will not be eligible for any pension or Social Security benefits.

If women choose this unpaid labor in order to care for their loved ones, they are most often forced to live off the income of the loved one for the 24/7 unpaid labor that gives them zero benefits such as sick leave, vacation, unemployment benefits, medical benefits or retirement. If they were compensated with a wage according to labor and this AARP study, she would be paid upwards of $137,000 per year for the various tasks she performs such as chauffeuring, cooking, house work, nursing,childcare, elder care, physical therapy, household shopping, and various other tasks that would cost far more of they were sourced out.

Welfare insists that women go back to work when their infant is 3 months old. For a women with a newborn to work for a wage at their McJob, she will make at most $1000 per month while the cost to taxpayers is over $2000 per month for infant daycare alone. Other Over 70% of the McJobs they are forced to work are off hours, evenings, weekends and the like when childcare is nonexistent and if it does exist (my city has ONE off hour daycare at this time) it costs much more. Additional daycare for older potty trained kids can cost from $500-1000 per child per month, also tax paid. For the paid worker, this does not include all the other extra costs they may need such as transportation to work, career clothing, etc. At this time taxpayers subsidize much of this while the McJob yields less than $1000 per month, in essence subsidizing corporations over $4000 more per month so they can pay this McWage.

In contrast if these women were given financial support in order to care for their loved ones, it would cost about $1200 per month, and this includes housing assistance, medical for herself and her kids, and food assistance. If her loved one is an elder or spouse who needs assistance so she can work for a wage, facilities costs could soar to upwards of $8000 per month.

The point is that we seem to "forget" all this unpaid labor that is saving us $Trillions and yet is often not even considered "work". If we were smart, which most of us are not if we do not see this work as worthy, we would realize we would not be burdened with these corporate subsidies, it cost less that 1/5th of what we are paying now to support unpaid labor and give far more stability to families.

My 2 cents (and I have more stats and information)

Cat in Seattle
Board member of P.O.W.E.R http://www.mamapower.org