Caring Across Generations (CAG) is an American national coalition of

caregiver A caregiver, carer or support worker is a paid or unpaid person who helps an individual with activities of daily living. Caregivers who are members of a care recipient's family or social network, who may have specific professional training, are o ...

s and care recipients, with a mission "to change our culture and policy in America to value and support caregiving". CAG was founded in 2011 by Sarita Gupta and

Ai-jen Poo Ai-jen Poo (, ; born 1974) is an American labor activist. She is the president of the National Domestic Workers Alliance. She is also the director of Caring Across Generations, a national coalition of 200 advocacy organizations working to tran ...

to address the rapidly rising number of Americans in

long-term care Long-term care (LTC) is a variety of services which help meet both the medical and non-medical needs of people with a chronic illness or disability who cannot care for themselves for long periods. Long-term care is focused on individualized and ...

and the shortage of

home care Homecare (home care, in-home care, care at home), also known as domiciliary care, personal care, community care, or social care, is health care or supportive care provided in the individual home where the patient or client is living, generally focu ...

workers. One of CAG's original goals is to help create two million quality caregiving jobs in the

United States The United States of America (USA), also known as the United States (U.S.) or America, is a country primarily located in North America. It is a federal republic of 50 U.S. state, states and a federal capital district, Washington, D.C. The 48 ...

Origins

Poo was working on care issues after the

2008 financial crisis The 2008 financial crisis, also known as the global financial crisis (GFC), was a major worldwide financial crisis centered in the United States. The causes of the 2008 crisis included excessive speculation on housing values by both homeowners ...

. According to her, in the midst of a "job crisis nda care crisis", she and other organizers decided to start a project to create two million quality jobs in homecare, for the benefit of care workers and care recipients.

Activities

CAG advocates for government assistance for the estimated 53 million unpaid caregivers in the US, such as family members, who provide an estimated $600 billion of unpaid care annually. According to CAG, the financial and other costs of long-term care that families face is "beyond a crisis point ... It's been a rolling crisis and we're at a catastrophic point." From 2018 to 2020, CAG participate in Lead Local, a research project supported by the

Robert Wood Johnson Foundation The Robert Wood Johnson Foundation (RWJF) is an American philanthropic organization. It is the largest one focused solely on health. Based in Princeton, New Jersey, the foundation focuses on access to health care, public health, health equity, ...

, examining community power and community power-building in

health care Health care, or healthcare, is the improvement or maintenance of health via the preventive healthcare, prevention, diagnosis, therapy, treatment, wikt:amelioration, amelioration or cure of disease, illness, injury, and other disability, physic ...

. The unusual research approach teamed CAG and three other non-academic organizations, Change Elemental, Human Impact Partners, and Right to the City Alliance, with university academics from the

Johns Hopkins University The Johns Hopkins University (often abbreviated as Johns Hopkins, Hopkins, or JHU) is a private university, private research university in Baltimore, Maryland, United States. Founded in 1876 based on the European research institution model, J ...

SNF Agora Institute, the

University of Southern California The University of Southern California (USC, SC, or Southern Cal) is a Private university, private research university in Los Angeles, California, United States. Founded in 1880 by Robert M. Widney, it is the oldest private research university in ...

(USC) Equity Research Institute, and

Vanderbilt University Vanderbilt University (informally Vandy or VU) is a private university, private research university in Nashville, Tennessee, United States. Founded in 1873, it was named in honor of shipping and railroad magnate Cornelius Vanderbilt, who provide ...

. Each party brought its own theories of community power-building and collaborated on research design and case study selection. The CAG-led Care Can't Wait coalition of social justice and labor organizations, founded in 2020, seeks to build a robust federal care infrastructure. Labor unions involved include the

Service Employees International Union Service Employees International Union (SEIU) is a labor union representing 2 million workers in over 100 occupations in the United States, Canada, and Puerto Rico. SEIU is focused on organizing workers in three sectors: healthcare (over half of m ...

(SEIU), the

American Federation of Teachers The American Federation of Teachers (AFT) is the second largest teacher's labor union in America (the largest being the National Education Association). The union was founded in Chicago. John Dewey and Margaret Haley were founders. About 60 pe ...

(AFT), the American Federation of State County and Municipal Employees (AFSCME) and the

American Federation of Labor and Congress of Industrial Organizations The American Federation of Labor and Congress of Industrial Organizations (AFL-CIO) is a national trade union center that is the largest federation of unions in the United States. It is made up of 61 national and international unions, together r ...

(AFL-CIO).

References

External links

* {{Official website, https://caringacross.org/ Caregiving Social justice organizations