Senate President Spilka’s Remarks to the Greater Boston Chamber of Commerce

Good afternoon, and thank you for inviting me to speak withyou today.

 Thank you, Miceal for that kind introduction, and thank you Jim for your leadership of the Boston Chamber, and for your ongoing partnership with the Legislature.

 I’d also like to thank Board Chair Micho Spring, who inspired us last year with her concept of going “forward to work,” as well as the members of the Chamber, especially for your recent efforts to increase the number of women on boards, a longstanding goal of mine as well.

I’d also like to thank the staff of the Chamber. We have seen how willing our staff have been to pivot during these extraordinary times, and I always feel it is important to acknowledge that.

As we enter year two of a difficult pandemic, I have been reflecting on what we have learned over the past year. I am heartened to report that Massachusetts was prepared for this unprecedented crisis in many ways.

Working together, the Legislature and the Baker Administration hit pause on the state budget process for Fiscal Year 2021 so we could gain a better understanding of where we would be financially. There was wisdom in waiting, because we were able to pass a sound budget that makes investments in key areas to plan our economic recovery, while avoiding new taxes and the drastic COVID-related budget cuts that were predicted by many.

This was possible because, for years now, our state has worked hard to save responsibly for the rainy day we are now experiencing. The Legislature has also been intentional, since the Great Recession of 2008, to pass policies that promote the diversification of our sectors and industries, allowing us to weather our current situation better.

In addition, the Senate’s solid working relationship with business and labor, forged during years of collaboration, allowedus to move quickly recently on making changes to UI rates and bringing the taxation of Paycheck Protection Program loans in line with federal guidelines.

A very important piece of this “mini grand bargain” remains unresolved, however; and that is the emergency paid sick time Ilaid out as a senate priority, just three months ago in January. Our essential workers continue to need paid leave while they are still at risk of contracting COVID, or need to quarantine or recover from receiving a vaccination, and so i hope the Governor will sign this important provision expeditiously.

Despite the many challenges we faced this year, I’m proud to say that we passed Economic Development, IT and Transportation Bond bills; worked hard to get a police reform bill that puts us on a path to racial equity signed into law; and–thanks to a strong partnership with the new Speaker, Ron Mariano–sent a landmark NextGen Climate Change bill to the Governor. We have also kicked off our 2022 budget discussions by the Senate and the House committing to fully funding the Student Opportunity Act.

While we were able to complete some very important work, we must also acknowledge that COVID-19 has thrown into stark relief many persistent and inequitable gaps that exist in our society. It has also presented us with a rare opportunity—and a responsibility—to reimagine the path towards what I call “back to better” by addressing those gaps head on.

I have been particularly struck by the statistics on the devastating effects COVID-19 has had on women in the workplace. Before the pandemic, women in Massachusetts were participating in the workforce at increasing rates, surpassing the national rate by 2019 – but the pandemic has brought women back to where they were after the 2009 recession. In fact, the percentage of women participating in the U.S. labor market in October 2020 was the lowest since 1988.

It is clear to me that if we wish to have a full and equitable recovery, we must take a close look at the factors that affect women’s employment, at every level and in every sector, and one clear factor that we must address is caregiving. In the same way that we learned to diversify our sectors after the last recession, we are now learning that we must support and strengthen the caregiving sector in Massachusetts so that we can support working families across the Commonwealth.

Almost exactly one year ago today, I appeared before this Chamber, in what was your first ever virtual forum, if you can believe it, and declared that childcare was as important to our infrastructure as roads and bridges in getting people back to work. The struggles of the past year have borne this out, which is why I have pushed the Legislature to begin to address the need for childcare, including providing for emergency childcare for essential workers, increasing rates for early education providers, and dedicating $40 million for a new reserve to cover parent fees for those receiving subsidized childcare. We also established the Early Education and Care Economic Review Commission to review childcare funding and make recommendations on policy changes to expand access.

With the promise of over $500 million in federal funding through the American Rescue Plan, we are well-poised to make more strides in making childcare more accessible and affordable, and I look forward to working with all of you to dedicate our best thinking towards tackling this problem, both in the public and private sectors.

But childcare is just one piece of what many are calling a “caregiving crisis”–a storm that has been brewing on our horizon for a few years, but which COVID-19 has turned into a full-blown tsunami. Many people, mostly women, who work in non-caregiving professions, but are sandwiched between aging parents and growing children, have dropped out of the workforce in alarming numbers to care for those who rely on them, while too many Black and brown women who work in caregiving professions have been crushed by the job losses of the economic downturn, with devastating results for their families and communities. As we all feel the squeeze of this caregiving crisis, is it any surprise that we are facing a mental health crisis as well?

But this is Massachusetts, my friends, and I know we can do better.

President Biden has identified the caregiving economy as a top priority, most recently in his infrastructure plan. With luck, there will be significant investment in caregiving, from early education and childcare to elder care and care for people with varying abilities, from the federal government in the coming months and years.

This is our shot to be a national leader in transforming the way we support caregivers–and careworkers–and build a thriving economy that works for everyone.

That’s why I am proposing here today that we steward federal and state dollars to create a system of intergenerational care that provides a way to support, connect and integrate community-based care across all ages, with the goal of making intergenerational care accessible and affordable to all, while supporting the workforce to make it possible.

What does this look like? I’m not entirely sure yet, but I do know that we have a problem to solve, and we’ve tackled difficult challenges similar to this before.

In the Economic Development Reform bill we passed after the Great Recession, I helped to create Regional Economic Development Organizations, or REDOs, that, for the first time, provided a “front door” for businesses to access the many programs and services offered by the Commonwealth. Similarly, to keep children out of the juvenile justice system, in 2015 I created Family Resource Centers, or FRCs, which also created a single point of entry where children and families could access basic services, such as behavioral and mental health or housing support.

Both REDOs and FRCs have proven that this type of “one-stop shop” for services can be very successful, with FRCs proving to be especially vital during the COVID crisis, but they currently only support families with children under the age of 18.

I would like to see us expand and build upon the successful FRC model to create Intergenerational Care Centers where everyone, no matter what age, can access information about childcare, elder care, and before and after school programs, as well as services for residents at all stages of life or level of ability, including, of course, mental and behavioral health support.

At the very least, these Intergenerational Care Centers can act as a “front door” to help overburdened family members access information about, and referrals to, everything from childcare to elder care, with perhaps more ambitious goals, such as the co-location of childcare, elder care and care for those with disabilities in one community-based center, or caregivers credentialed to work in more than one area, or other innovative ideas to be implemented sometime in the future.

Now is the time to be bold and think creatively, because, as I’vesaid, we have the opportunity, as well as the responsibility, to not only invest in our recovery, but to rethink and rebuild our communities with connection in mind, which I believe will lead to better physical, emotional and public health outcomes over time.

Too often, government tends to only do short-term planning, and not long-term. But I’d like to take this opportunity to propose our moonshot: long-term planning for Intergenerational Care Centers, which may not be realized until years in the future. But there are steps we can take now to lay the foundation for this future vision of caregiving, starting with shining a bright light on the needs of the caregiving workforce.

According to the US Bureau of Labor Statistics, women make up at least 80 percent of workers in the health and social assistance industry, with women of color making up a growing percentage of this workforce. Despite the truly essential nature of these jobs–after all, you can’t outsource a home health aide position, or the work of the person caring for your family member with disabilities–these jobs continue to be undervalued and underpaid.

We can change this, and build the kind of intergenerational care infrastructure we all deserve. But we have to fully understand the problem first. That’s why I’m asking Adam Hinds, the Chair of the Senate Committee on Reimagining Massachusetts: Post Pandemic Resiliency, to hold a listening session on the Caregiving Workforce, with a special emphasis on the economic impact of COVID-19 on women of color in this workforce, so that we can collect more data on this crucial sector and center black and brown women in our economic recovery plan.

According to Janelle Jones, the chief economist at the Labor Department under President Biden, when Black women benefit from economic policies, everyone does. There is too often a steep climb to economic recovery for many Black and brown women, who are subject to what economist Michelle Holder calls the “double gap”: under-compensation because of two types of discrimination in wages—both racial and gender.

Centering women of color in our economic recovery means that we can tackle some of the most persistent and damaginginequities facing Massachusetts today, while putting us on a path towards stronger communities, better quality of caregiving for all those who need it, and a much stronger economic recovery overall.

While we listen to the voices of the women who have been most affected by the COVID-19 pandemic, we know that there are areas where we can focus now. We can ensure that people are getting the training they need to fill in-demand jobs in the caregiving sector, either through vocational or mid-career training. We can work towards providing living wages, comprehensive benefits and safe working conditions for all careworkers to prevent the enormous amount of turnover that happens in these fields. We can find ways to support the mental health and well-being of everyone working in a caregiving job, so that they don’t give up these jobs for something less demanding. And we can continue to talk about the importance of this sector so that these workers, those that care for our young children, our aging parents, and our friends and family members with disabilities, no longer feel invisible.

This is a challenge for all of us, both in the public sector and the private sector, but I know we can do it. As I have said throughout this pandemic, we are all in this together.

I refuse to accept an unequal recovery where some of us do just fine, while others take decades to return to a status quo that may not have been so great to begin with. That’s not how we do things in a Commonwealth, especially when we have a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity to reimagine our post-pandemic future. I am committed to doing the work to make our Commonwealth stronger, more resilient, and more equitable, and I hope you will join me in finding creative ways to strengthen our caregiving economy and build the intergenerational care infrastructure of our future.

Before I close, I’d like to mention something that’s been on my mind lately. As we come closer to Memorial Day, I have been thinking about my father, and what he experienced as a veteran with untreated mental illness, and the fact that some active and former service members continue to experience high levels of mental illness. As we rethink caregiving overall, and honor the sacrifices of our veterans, we must also rethink how we deliver care to veterans of every generation across Massachusetts. As the Senate and House announced last week, we plan to work on reforming assistance to all veterans in every region of our Commonwealth.

Ensuring that our veterans are connected to their communities is an important factor in ensuring that their physical and mental health is taken care of, and so I look forward to working with the Senate Chair of the Joint Committee on Veterans and Federal Affairs, John Velis, as well as Ways & Means Chair Michael Rodrigues and Senators Rush and Cronin, an active service member and a veteran, respectively, on new initiatives for our veterans, such as funding for workforce training, targeting specialized community-based mental health for veterans and service members, and focusing on the needs of women, who make up at least seven percent of the veteran population in Massachusetts, as well as LGBTQ vets and veterans of color.

As we work our way through 2021, the first year of a two-year session and the second year of a pandemic, please know the Senate will continue to focus on our biggest challenges, including racial equity, transportation, housing, education, economic development, workforce training, mental health and climate. At the same time, as we “reimagine” what is possible in Massachusetts, we will be bold.

We, of course, welcome your continued partnership, and your ideas. Because, together, we will go “back to better.”

Thank you.