Going deep on employer child care
A Q&A about an interesting new book, and red state legal attacks on a New York abortion doctor
Hi everyone—
Some quick updates:
Two weeks ago I emailed you I piece I co-wrote about the chaos and stress transgender Americans are facing with their passports under this new administration. This issue got a lot more national attention last week following Hunter Schafer, the star of the TV show Euphoria , speaking out about how her replacement passport now lists her as “male.” You can read my piece for more context on that if you had missed it, and also wanted to shoutout writer
who wrote poignantly about Schafer’s situation.My intergenerational home-sharing story is no longer behind the paywall so if you were interested in reading that story and are not a Vox member, you can do that now here.
I’ve received mostly really nice, thoughtful feedback to this story, but I also had gotten some interesting gratuitous reactions over the last couple days, from a few people accusing me of trying to “manufacture consent” for non-dignifying housing solutions. “Just build more housing for god’s sake” is probably the most generous version of this argument. The basic premise of the frustration though is that it’s insulting to talk about spare bedrooms being a solution, as opposed to talking about everyone having their own private home.
I did just want to respond to this briefly because I think anyone who is paying attention to our housing crisis knows it’s going to take a mix of short-term and long-term solutions, and while increasing housing supply is an urgent thing we need to do, home building takes time, and many people have no time at all. But more than that, increasing our housing supply does not just mean increasing our supply of single family private homes. It means increasing our supply of diverse housing options. And just as some people reacted with outrage to my story back in October when I wrote about the potential to convert vacant office buildings into adult-style dorms, others wrote to me saying how glad they would be to have had a more flexible option like that, or how useful they could imagine that being in a future stage of their life. People need to recognize that not everyone wants or needs or prioritizes the exact same things in a living situation. And having a shared bathroom on a floor of a building is a far cry from not having plumbing in your building at all. And even if you don’t like the idea of living in a spare bedroom in a house with someone, that doesn’t mean it’s not a good option for a lot of other people, or that everyone hates the idea as much as you do. My story highlighted some examples of those, and there are many others.
Plus, in the case of the intergenerational home-sharing in particular, many seniors simply can’t manage their own private homes by themselves. Figuring out living situations that allow seniors to age in place as they’d like, and allow people to live in cities or in private arrangements they might not otherwise be able to afford, is hardly in my view something to readily dismiss. I think we do a really bad job talking about the challenges of aging in this country more generally, and there’s a reason groups like the AARP are really interested in the idea of home-sharing. We don’t have enough nursing homes in this country for everyone to go to, people can’t afford them even if we did, and even if we did and they could afford to go, most people don’t want to go to them. So it’s worth it to think about how we can help support people grow old in the places they’d most prefer to be, while also leveraging empty space they might have. And yes we need to build new homes as well. But construction is slow, and is expected to slow further this year. I just got an email today that after a surge in multifamily housing completions in 2024, the market is bracing in 2025 for new unit completions expected to decline by nearly 50 percent.A source shared with me a video this week of some civil service civil disobedience at the federal Department of Housing. On all the TV screens throughout the agency there was a video playing of Trump kissing Elon Musk’s feet, with text that said “LONG LIVE THE REAL KING.” I shared the video on Twitter and it really blew up? Almost 5 million people viewed it and it was reposted in a lot of other news’ organizations coverage. (As a friendly reminder for any other federal workers out there, you can contact me securely on Signal at 1-202-681-6194!)
New reporting:
I have a new feature out this week, and it’s a deep dive on the world of employer-sponsored child care. There are a ton of different models with this right now as states, cities and companies are experimenting — ranging from building on-site child care facilities to giving stipends to employers to spend on daycare to paying grandma or a backup babysitter. There’s a real growing body of evidence that these kinds of benefits help business recruitment/ retention/ productivity. But workplace benefits also have a shaky track record, as we know with health insurance. Employers can be fickle. Their interests aren’t necessarily aligned with workers or with kids. In a country like the US, where the private sector plays such an outsized role, is it helpful to have them step up in child care? If so, how? I talked to a lot of people working and thinking through these questions and the story is here to read. Would love to hear your thoughts.
Last week, I wrote about Dr. Maggie Carpenter, a New York abortion provider who is facing unprecedented criminal charges in Louisiana for prescribing abortion pills, along with a $100,000 legal penalty (plus interest) in Texas for allegedly doing the same. These are pretty staggering developments; they mark the first lawsuits brought by red states against a blue state abortion provider. They also represent the first real tests for abortion shield laws, which eight Democratic-led states have passed since Roe’s overturn to help protect doctors dispensing (FDA approved) abortion medication to patients. As I try and explain in the story, these lawsuits are part of an evolving “states' rights” strategy to restrict abortion nationwide. I talked with experts including Dr. Carpenter’s colleague. You can read my coverage here. If you would like to learn more about Dr. Carpenter’s telemedicine abortion organization she co-founded after Roe’s overturn, can read more here.
And then finally, I have a Q&A up with Yoni Appelbaum, a historian and journalist at The Atlantic, about his new nonfiction book Stuck: How the Privileged and the Propertied Broke the Engine of American Opportunity. I really liked the book, which looks at how and why Americans have become less likely to settle in new places, and what the consequences are to this decline in “geographic mobility” for US society. I think a lot about housing and this book helped me think about housing in a new way.
Here’s a preview of our conversation:
Me: Your book powerfully argues that geographic mobility shaped America’s innovative spirit. But moving often means leaving behind the family, friends, and neighbors who give our lives real meaning. Is there a way to recapture the benefits of mobility without asking people to repeatedly uproot their deepest local ties?
Appelbaum: I was surprised as I researched the book to see what a large role mobility had played in shaping the distinctive character of America, not just in terms of economics. Maybe the most surprising thing is what an enormous role it’s played in shaping the vitality of American community. When people relocate, they tend to feel lonely when they first arrive, and respond to that feeling by reaching out, by making connections, by making themselves do uncomfortable things like joining organizations.
We often think of mobility as something that dissolves the ties that mean the most to us. In practice, though, in the US, mobility has usually served as a kind of social glue, as the thing which binds us to each other. And if you look at the last 50 years with a really sharp decline in mobility, we have simultaneously seen a really sharp decline in other kinds of social ties. That’s not coincidental.
You can read the rest of our conversation here.
Thanks for reading,
Rachel
love all your work sm