On Tuesday, former Vice President Joe Biden and his campaign unveiled a plan titled “The Biden Plan for Mobilizing American Talent and Heart to Create a 21st Century Caregiving and Education Workforce.”

Biden discussed his plan in New Castle, Del. during a virtual event, the same place where he served as a member of the county council before running for the U.S. Senate.

The plan was released at a time when Americans are realizing the value of caregivers and people working in education, after quality care for older loved ones has been harder to find amid a pandemic and schools districts across the country have said they will not reopen in the fall, forcing parents to adjust. 

The new proposal would invest $775 billion to strengthen the country’s caregiving economy over a span of 10 years.

Biden intends to pay for it by increasing tax compliance for high-income earners and rolling back certain tax breaks for real estate investors with incomes over $400,000.

It will focus on the expansion of access to high-quality childcare, in-home elder care and long-term care for the disabled. 

The 10-page document starts out by recognizing Biden’s own struggle in balancing family care after the passing of his first wife, Neilia Hunter, and then attacks President Donald Trump for worsening the livelihoods of caregivers with his handling of the COVID-19 pandemic.

“This man simply doesn’t understand. He can’t deal with our economic crisis without serving and saving and solving the public health crisis. For all his bluster about his expertise on the economy he’s unable to explain how he’ll actually help working families hit the hardest,” Biden said at his event.

It goes on to reaffirm the former Vice President’s commitment to giving caregivers and early childhood educators a raise, as well as providing them with up to 12 weeks of paid family and medical leave.

Pew Research found that out of 41 developed countries, the U.S. is the only one to not offer paid parental leave. Smaller countries like Estonia offer 86 weeks or over a year and a half of paid leave to new parents.

With respect to the elderly and those with disabilities, he wants to allocate $450 billion to give more of them the ability to choose whether they receive in-home care or supportive community situations. 

This will mean working to eliminate a waitlist of 800,000 who are seeking home and community care under Medicaid. 

Biden would also want to see more being offered to seniors so that they can live independently if that is their choice.

“Think of expanded vital services like: rides to appointments, meals, day programs for seniors, making their home safer for them. It builds on an innovative provision created under the Affordable Care Act, the very program the president ceaselessly is trying to gut,” Biden said on services for the elderly. 

His plan lays out that 1.5 million news jobs in caregiving and community health will be added. 

Every three and four-year old in the country will have access to free and high quality pre-kindergarten. This will allow parents to save thousands on child care and if there was a stay- at-home parent, they can return to the workforce earlier.  

Biden hopes to expand this to ensure families with after-school, weekend and summer care by adding to the Child Care Development Block Grant so more children can be eligible for the program. 

The childcare section of his plan also took into consideration parents who do not want to be far from their children when working. That could be because of the commute it forces parents to make after working a long day, wanting to be close by in case something happens to their child or any other reason. 

“There’s other common sense steps we take like expanding tax credits for businesses to build childcare facilities on site so you can go to work with your child. Put them in a childcare center that the company got money, a tax credit, for building,” the former Vice President detailed part of his childcare plan.

Overall, the plan says that it will lead to 3 million new care and education jobs being created.

Universal child care was a large part of Senator Elizabeth Warren’s platform when she ran for president and this draws speculation that Biden might choose her to be his running mate. 

She has said that she is open to joining the ticket and according to The New York Times, she is one of the few candidates who is being vetted very seriously and has moved on to the advanced stage of the process. 

The Biden campaign has been quickly releasing new policy proposals in recent weeks ahead of the Democratic National Convention next month in Milwaukee, WI, where the party platform will be finalized.

This is the third pillar of their “Build Back Better” initiative, with the first two revolving around domestic manufacturing and green energy. 

Biden’s latest policy announcement came on Friday when he detailed alongside wife Jill his vision for how he would want to see school reopen in the fall.