Sandwiched between kids and aging parents? These initiatives will squeeze you harder | Opinion

A care crisis is squeezing working families, pushing parents out of much-needed jobs, and exacerbating labor shortages. All of this is also hurting businesses and our economy.

At the epicenter of this crisis, you’ll find moms, who studies show shoulder the majority of the unpaid labor of care – and who are squeezed to the extent that the U.S. Surgeon General just issued an “Advisory on the Mental Health and Well-Being of Parents,” noting a recent study showing 48% of parents say most days their stress is completely overwhelming.

This squeeze is more like a pressure-packed panini for moms who are in the “sandwich generation” – caring for children and aging parents or other family members at the exact same time. A large number of people are caught in this super pressured sandwich situation. Nearly half of adults in their 40s and 50s are experiencing the physical, emotional and financial challenges of having a senior parent and also a young or financially-dependent child at the same time.

It doesn’t have to be this hard. We can build a child care and eldercare infrastructure so parents can go to work, so children and elderly people can thrive, so care workers can earn living wages, and so businesses and our economy can bloom. In fact, Washington State has a great start on building this critical infrastructure and the benefits to our economy are already rolling in.

But two initiatives on the ballot here in Washington State would roll back the progress we’ve been making and would make bad situations even worse for millions of Washingtonians: Initiatives 2109 and 2124. If passed, these measures would harm not only moms, children, and their families, but also businesses and our state’s economy. Because of this, both deserve a “no” vote on the ballot this November.

Initiative 2109 would be devastating, cutting an estimated $2.2 billion from programs to expand access to affordable child care. Already, more than 600,000 young children don’t have state licensed child care. With the median cost for infant child care increasing a staggering 74% in the last decade, it’s no surprise that two in five parents in Washington report being pushed out of the labor force since having children. I-2109 would worsen our state’s child care crisis.

Initiative 2124 would also be destructive, making caring for aging parents or other relatives even more expensive by destroying our state’s long-term care insurance program. This would harm more than 3.9 million Washingtonians. Killing our state’s long-term care benefits would push more people out of jobs they need as the cost of care exceeds their incomes; and it would also put us at the mercy of insurance companies that routinely reject people with pre-existing conditions, jack up premiums, delay and deny claims, and discriminate by charging women more than men.

Both of these measures would disproportionately harm working women, who are 73% more likely than men to be permanently pushed out of much-needed jobs, sacrificing careers and income. And these measures would also force businesses to spend more on recruiting and training replacement workers, as people are forced to leave their jobs or cut their hours in order to provide care.

The harm I-2124 and I-2109 would cause would be lasting. People who are forced to disrupt their careers or leave the workforce face significant, enduring economic risk due to lost income, fewer career opportunities, difficulty re-entering the workforce, reduced savings, and lower Social Security and retirement benefits. For instance, a 2023 study focused on sandwich-generation women showed they lost an average of $295,000 from their lifetime incomes.

All told, I-2124 and I-2109 would put millions more women in impossible situations. The question is clear: Do we want Washington to be a place where only the wealthy can afford child care and long term care? The answer is even clearer: No. Research shows that most Washington voters want our elected leaders to lower costs and expand access to affordable child care, not undo progress we’ve made. Further, support for tools like long-term care insurance that allow care for disabled, ill, and aging family members is sky high and cuts across demographic and partisan lines.

Washingtonians recognize care work is essential work. That’s why hundreds of health and consumer organizations and advocates for children, working families, caregivers, educators and businesses are urging voters to oppose I-2109 and I-2124. Defeating these harmful measures is critical to helping moms, families, and businesses succeed.