A White House summit Wednesday touting the success of job creation under the $1.9 trillion American Rescue Plan Act could tee up a renewed push for the administration’s Build Back Better initiative.

Vice President Kamala Harris said $40 billion in ARPA funds earmarked for workforce development have helped create millions of jobs in everything from home care to construction. However, she said more needs to be done to create good-paying jobs.

“We need to build an economy that works for working people,” Harris said. 

Labor Secretary Marty Walsh called for increased training and education — elements included in Build Back Better.

“This is how we grow our nation’s workforce, this is how we meet the needs of our economy and it’s also how we achieve a more inclusive economy.” Walsh said.

ARPA gave states a temporary 10% increase in the Federal Medical Assistance Percentage (FMAP). States have until March 31, 2025, to decide how they want to spend the $12.7 billion in Medicaid funding to support in-home care. Service Employees International Union Secretary Treasurer April Verrett said more than half of the states already have taken steps to raise home care worker wages.

“Each dollar invested in care has a multiplier effect,” Verrett said. “We know that investing in care enables all other work to happen. It also allows caregivers to continue to do this life-sustaining work.” 

Workforce campaign

LeadingAge on Wednesday used the White House summit as an opportunity to announce its Aging Services Workforce Now advocacy campaign. The organization of nonprofit long-term care providers said it is calling on Congress and the administration to do the following: pay aging services professionals a living wage, offer incentives to retain and attract qualified staff, expand training and advancement opportunities, build dependable international pipelines of trained caregivers, and enact meaningful, equitable long-term care financing.

“We appreciate the Administration’s commitment to workforce investments, and applaud the efforts to strengthen funding for vital home and community-based services. But our country must learn from past mistakes,” Katie Smith Sloan, president and CEO of LeadingAge, said in a statement. “Chronic underinvestment in and longstanding disregard for aging services — and primarily the valuable workers who are its core — created an opportunity for COVID to wreak havoc. That must not continue. We’ve got to repair, rebuild and reinvigorate this sector.” 

SEIU push

Many states have used ARPA funds not only to increase their minimum wage, but also to provide bonuses to direct care workers. But SEIU, which is actively organizing home care workers nationally, said pay rates for direct care jobs are still too low in many states.

On Tuesday, members of SEIU Local 105 and hundreds of caregivers rallied on the steps of Colorado’s state capitol building calling for a care workers bill of rights, which would guarantee a liveable wage. Last year, Colorado lawmakers raised the minimum wage for home care workers to $15 an hour, but the demonstrators want that wage increased to $24.

The Biden administration’s Build Back Better plan originally called for $400 billion in funding for home- and community-based services to further increase caregiver wages. The amount was later scaled back to $150 million, but the entire initiative stalled in the Senate late last year.