Family caregivers provide an estimated $600 billion in unpaid labor every year.

61% work either full- or part-time. 16% have stopped working or had to change employment in order to meet their caregiving needs. In 2021, the CDC reported that 30% of unpaid family caregivers experienced suicidal ideation in the 30 days prior.

Millennial caregivers, like Joanna, are least likely to report having health insurance and a greater proportion report being in fair to poor health.

There’s a lot more, but suffice it to say - it’s bad out here.

Joanna is privileged with her community, her education, and her laptop that allows her access to the few, but dedicated, resources that exist to support caregivers and those for whom they care.

Joanna is grateful to learn everyday from the subcommittees on which she serves; those associated with Justice in Aging and California Coalition on Family Caregiving are (and have been, for decades) working on the least romantic parts of this fight not just for equity, dignity in disability & aging but substantive support for the caregivers who make the world go round. Tuning in to learn from this network of lawyers, legislators, advocates, caregivers, and Californians is the work of which Joanna is most proud.

And there’s so much she has to learn.

She would love to tell you about their work; more, if you’re curious, she hopes you tune in for a webinar sometime. They’re pretty phenomenal.

Some days, Joanna wonders if she’ll ever stop yelling about the ways in which the myth of American independence has rendered illegible, scorned, even, those reduced to their dependence. With the fight for accessible, affordable, quality long term care and the recognition & rightful pay for the labor of care yet ongoing, she hopes she never does.

Most days, though, she looks to the community. If you have a caregiving story or know someone who’d like to share theirs, please don’t be shy about dropping a line. We’d love to share the platform with you. And if you’ve been affected by any of the recent care cuts in any way, please reach out; Joanna will pass every story along to the subcommittees on which she serves.

Believe us: every single voice matters.

Caring Across Generations, directed by Ai-jen Poo, is always collecting care stories. They understand that a coalition for dignity in care is, fundamentally, a coalition of labor.

(Which is, of course, to say: private equity has no place in the way we fall ill, live fully, grow old, or die in dignity.)

It shouldn’t be that folks have to give up their career or wage-earning potential, their community or mental health, their own potential to live and age in health & fullness in order to afford care to those who deserve all the same. But that is the American reality (and, now, even more dire.)

So, this is a small part in the ongoing fight to make the choice of care one made not at the expense of.

And that’s the spiel.