Life on the Front Lines: Direct Care Worker Challenges, Immigration Issues and Quest for Equality

ASA'S Future Proof

ASA'S Future Proof
Life on the Front Lines: Direct Care Worker Challenges, Immigration Issues and Quest for Equality
Aug 27, 2020 Season 2 Episode 5
American Society on Aging

Ai-jen Poo is the co-founder and executive director of the National Domestic Workers Alliance, a nonprofit organization working to bring quality work, dignity and fairness to the growing numbers of workers who care and clean in our homes, a workforce that is disproportionately immigrants and women of color. With the help of more than 280,000 domestic workers, NDWA has won a Domestic Worker Bill of Rights in nine states and the cities of Seattle and Philadelphia, and brought more than 2 million home care workers under minimum wage protections. In 2011, Poo launched Caring Across Generations, a campaign to address the nation’s crumbling care infrastructure, catalyzing groundbreaking policy change including the nation’s first family caregiver benefit in Hawaii and the first long-term care social insurance fund in Washington State. She is the author of “The Age of Dignity: Preparing for the Elder Boom in a Changing America,” a widely acclaimed book that makes the case for access to care for all families. Peter and Ai-jen will explore the issues of equity and justice and how they intersect with Poo's work around securing a living wage for domestic workers and quality of life for the elders they serve.