Lena Bilik

Social Security's shortfall isn’t about demographics, as some would have you believe. The real issue is decades of rising income inequality, compounded by policy choices that have shrunk the share of wages that are taxed to pay for the program.

We do this discourse over and over. Lot of Americans love the idea of a Scandinavian safety net but don't love the idea of paying for it. So we tell stories about how we can tax just "the rich" to get there. And that is not how math works.

Why Does Child Care Seem Less Affordable Than Ever?

Child care costs are rising faster than inflation—up 8% since mid-2024—and in some states now exceed in-state college tuition. Yet many providers earn $13/hour and operate on razor-thin margins.

Both families and workers are suffering under a broken system.

Health Care Has Become the Lifeblood of the Labor Market

Fascinating care work story here. Lately been thinking a lot about how some of the most necessary & growing jobs (all in care; elder/home care, nursing) are some of the lowest paid, but also some of the LEAST replaceable by AI. We quite literally must value these workers more. shorturl.at/WR16r

Excited to see our CEO, @elizabethwwilkins.bsky.social , get to meet with @mayor.nyc.gov - two people so committed to the nitty gritty work of HOW government can truly deliver for working people. #RooseveltSociety

When we talk about child care, we need to talk about paid leave • Indiana Capital Chronicle We don’t often talk about child care and paid parental leave in the same conversation when it comes to public policy.

So appreciate seeing this...Paid leave and universal childcare should be much more connected in our policy discussions.

indianacapitalchronicle.com/2026/03/03/w...

My latest brief for Roosevelt Institute: Let's remember that childcare is a labor issue- not only for working parents, but childcare workers who do this work for poverty wages. Collective bargaining and labor power can help us win what we all need on childcare: rooseveltinstitute.org/publications...

@cscce.bsky.social

52 Ways Federal Actions Hurt Early Childhood Educators in 2025 - Center for the Study of Child Care Employment Low pay and poor working conditions are embedded in our current child care system, which relies on undervaluing the labor of women, particularly women of color.

Incredibly useful and deeply disheartening breakdown of the various ways this administration has hurt childcare workers. Part of any childcare policy plan going forward must address the harm done to this workforce in recent years, on TOP of decades of them being so undervalued.
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Childcare has long been left out of convos on affordability partially because it's an issue that impacts the short-and-long term economic security of WOMEN in particular. Meanwhile, childcare costs more than housing in most of the country. Exciting to see it included in these convos more & more.

How to Reduce Poverty Among SSI Recipients: Modeling the Impact of the SSI Restoration Act Over the last year my colleague Jack Landry and I have been working to quantify the impacts and costs of a family of policy proposals meant to reform the Supplemental Security Income (SSI) program, a ...

As promised, today @rooseveltinstitute.org releases a blog post previewing our topline findings from @jacklandry.bsky.social and my upcoming paper analyzing the impacts and costs of the SSI Restoration act of 2024!

rooseveltinstitute.org/blog/how-to-...

This whole thing where billionaires snap up media properties so they can run them into the ground to make it harder for people to call them and their cronies to account is extremely obvious and very tiresome. It also limits our access to largr information about culture and the world, also by design.

What aging adults need is a public insurance system that covers long-term care, home & community based services, & a well-paid care workforce. It's quite literally like this admin considers a policy that would actually benefit people, and goes, "ok cool, let's do the exact opposite of that."

Caregivers for the elderly could lose wage protections under Trump proposal The Labor Department has proposed rescinding an Obama-era rule that gave home care workers the right to overtime pay and other wage protections. The administration says the rule made care too costly.

This is not only callous, but an insanely illogical thing to do in the face of our rapidly aging population...Poverty wages have already created a massive elder care workforce shortage. Making that worse + the Medicaid cuts will be disastrous for aging adults and their families. shorturl.at/ev6C3

We live in a country that is currently starving and cutting programs and services for young children to grow, learn, and thrive, & instead is choosing to fund a secret police to literally terrorize young children and their families. Words can't describe the shame we should feel.

Is Universal Childcare the Democrats’ Winning Issue This Year? The policy is catching fire in the party as a key plank in addressing the affordability crisis. The question is whether it will motivate midterm voters this fall.

Spoke to @newrepublic.com re: childcare, & you'll hear me say this again, until we get a childcare system that works for families AND workers:
“In order to expand a childcare system to be even close to universal, you have to improve pay and benefits for the workforce,” Bilik said. shorturl.at/GT1Tn

Roosevelt Institute Welcomes 2026 Class of Think Tank Fellows Today, the Roosevelt Institute announced its winter 2026 cohort of think tank fellows—a group of scholars, policymakers, and public intellectuals whose work collectively advances a democratic vision f...

🎊 Exciting news: We’re proud to introduce our 2026 cohort of think tank fellows!

This inspiring group will help advance our #GoodLife vision of shared prosperity and power for working people.

Meet the new Roosevelters ⬇️

'Why aren't they in the streets' is answered almost every day in my small town by people in the streets! Rather than asking 'why aren't they in the streets' it's worth asking 'why isn't your media showing them in the streets' and 'who is served by downplaying resistane in its myriad forms.'

Parents are cutting back on child care as costs stretch budgets Research shows 1 in 5 families face child care hardships because of the expense, with single mothers most affected.

Survey of parents: 1 in 5 said they had to cut back on childcare bc of cost. Important to note what this means in practice: forgone wages, sometimes lost jobs, when families's budgets are already so precarious and close to the brink. & the federal freeze will only make this worse.
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Minnesota Students Are Living in Perilous Times, Two Teachers Explain (Opinion) The federal government is committing the "greatest constancy of deliberate community harm."

Minnesota Students Are Living in Perilous Times, Two Teachers Explain (Opinion): The federal government is committing the "greatest constancy of deliberate community harm."

Trump’s Attack on Child Care Funding Undermines Early Educators, Shortchanges Children, and Increases Costs for Families The Trump administration leveraged allegations of fraud in Minnesota in an attempt to freeze essential child care funding, a move that reflects a dangerous, broader posture toward the early childhood ...

The child care system is under attack. Threatening funding cuts undermines program integrity & risks care for children. And empowering “citizen journalists” to do the work of gov’t investigators endangers early educators & children.
S/o @kcpeeks.bsky.social
www.americanprogress.org/article/trum...

Thinking about this a lot this week, re:....everything....

Looking forward to hearing more details about the childcare plan in NY, (esp around workforce compensation!). But for now, leaning into hope. Proud to live in a state that shows us that in these dark times, the government CAN still do what it's truly here to do: work for the people.

Politics / June 18, 2025 Abolishing ICE Is the Bare Minimum ICE agents aren’t out of control. They are performing their designed role as fascism’s storm troopers.

tapping the sign www.thenation.com/article/poli...

Mayor Jacob Frey: "They are already trying to spin this as an action of self defense. Having seen the video myself, I want to tell everybody directly that is bullshit."

Not coincidentally, the states losing federal money are among the few that guarantee families more than the most inhumane level of cash assistance.

I wrote in July about the sorry state of children & family policy in the US. Even then it was hard to imagine things getting worse for poor children, but the cruelty just keeps escalating.

Don't let anyone tell you these lawmakers are "pro-family".

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What to know about Trump administration freezing federal child care funds The Trump administration has frozen child care funds to all states after allegations of fraud at Minnesota day care centers run by Somali residents.

How it will impact states nationwide: apnews.com/article/minn...

This is a lot like "defund Planned Parenthood." There we saw that when a provider closes there isn't someone else waiting in the wings to swoop up and provide the care. And "refunding" doesn't bring orgs back to life - staff have moved on, leases are lost, etc.