1 of 5 | President Joe Biden delivers remarks on the care economy during an event Tuesday at Union Station in Washington, D.C., where he told care workers they “represent the best of who we are as Americans.” Photo by Bonnie Cash/UPI | License Photo
April 9 (UPI) — President Joe Biden called for increased pay for care workers, and guaranteed paid leave for those who care for family members, in a speech Tuesday at Washington, D.C.’s Union Station.
Biden highlighted his administration’s investments in what he called the care economy, before a group of caregivers that included representatives from the AFL-CIO, AARP and National Domestic Workers Alliance.
“You care workers represent the best of who we are as Americans,” Biden told the crowd. “We look out for one another in America. We leave nobody behind.”
“If we want the best economy in the world, we have to have the best caregiving economy in the world,” he added to applause.
Biden spent the first part of his speech recounting how his family helped him with his two sons after his wife and daughter were killed in a car crash in 1972, six weeks after he was elected to the U.S. Senate.
“Lucky I had a family. My mother, my father, my sister, my brother all moved in, helped me take care of my kids,” Biden said. “I didn’t have any money. I mean, I made a living, but I didn’t have any money. And what I tried to do is figure out how I was going to raise my boys.”
Biden told the crowd of caregivers “you’re the heroes,” because you “do it out of love and concern, not because of the pay, because they’re not getting the pay they need.”
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