Care beyond Crisis? COVID In-home Policies in the United States

Analyzing pre-pandemic policies and COVID-19 emergency measures, this paper seeks to determine the extent to which COVID policy responses departed from existing policies, whether national legacies informed the framing and formulation of COVID policies, how inclusive were these emergency measures. The COVID-19 health crisis not only exacerbated the preexisting care crisis, but it also highlighted the fragile care infrastructure and lack of protections for in-home workers. In the US, weak federal labor standards accord minimal social protections and a meagre safety net. Paid in-home workers’ employment conditions are not simply an outcome of less regulation, but also a consequence of differential rights, rewards, and recognition of the value of care inscribed in regulatory and legal norms, as evident in the review of pre-pandemic policies. The paper documents the large-scale public interventions aimed at mitigating the spread of COVID-19 and its economic aftermath. Neo-liberalism dictated a narrow frame of policy options from a more expansive menu of possible choices. The federal response to COVID-19 mirrored the uneven policy landscape prior to the pandemic. In the political vacuum, a small number of progressive states and municipalities instituted public healthcare measures and policies aimed at supporting “essential workers” and/or workers excluded from federal benefits. As the crisis subsided, most states reverted to former policy frames. US pandemic policies stubbornly stayed within a neo-liberal rubric. “Emergency Keynesianism” could not overcome policy inertia and political stalemate. Enhanced benefits failed to reach most domestic workers due to pre-existing gaps in coverage. Jurisdictional conundrums created regulatory gaps, particularly among migrants who are disproportionately represented among in-home care workers. COVID-19 policies designed to address the exigencies of the health crisis neither alleviated care deficits nor addressed the structural causes that give rise to precarity and high turnover rates in this labor market sector. Political polarization stymied the impulse for and the possibility that COVID-19 would lead to modification of the neo-liberal agenda and be replaced by increasing public sector investment in the care economy.