It’s not easy or cheap to age these days. Over one in four older Americans will spend more than $50,000 on long-term care costs across their lifetime. About one in ten will spend upwards of a quarter of a million dollars.4 These financial expenses are expected to increase as the over-65 population grows. This makes the need for a system to help Americans plan for and manage these costs even more urgent.5 Pete is proposing a new, historic long-term services and supports program to help cover the costs of long-term care for older Americans with a high level of need. Specifically, he will:

• Establish Long-Term Care America, a historic long-term services and supports program. Those eligible will receive a fully-covered benefit of $90 per day for long-term care for as long as they need it. Of people currently 65 or older, 11.3 million people will receive benefits from the program at some point in their life.6
• Strengthen the private long-term care insurance market for those with shorter-term long-term care needs by standardizing plans and establishing a long-term care insurance marketplace.

Unpaid family caregivers and professional direct care workers, three-quarters of whom are women,7 play an essential part in providing care to aging adults and people with disabilities, including dementia. They help ensure that these people can live in their own homes and communities. We are in an ever-worsening caregiving crisis. This crisis is driven by poor working conditions and a need for care workers that, if left unaddressed, could mean almost eight million unfilled jobs by 2026.8 Pete will take the following actions to address these challenges:

• Set a $15 per hour minimum wage for everyone, including direct care workers. This will increase wages for about 1.8 million personal care aides and 650,000 home health aides.9
• Ensure that direct care workers have power and representation in the workplace.
• Meet future demand for care workers by increasing opportunities and training, helping states develop online marketplaces and job boards for care workers, and expanding programs to train caregivers and create career ladders.
• Guarantee quality direct care work by setting national standards through a National Direct Care Workforce Standards Board.
• Improve family caregivers’ access to services and supports, including through long-term care navigators and community-based service hubs.

Most people nearing retirement age prefer to age in their home, yet it gets harder to remain in place as people age.10 Even among public plans, such as Medicaid, there is a bias toward institutional care that deprives people the opportunity to age where they feel most comfortable. Pete’s administration will help ensure that everyone has the option of aging at home or in their community. He will:

• Improve the accessibility of Medicaid’s long-term care, including by raising asset and income limits, and barring Medicaid from taking families' homes to pay for their long-term care.
• Create a national program to expand access to consumer-directed service models, including by setting standards and ensuring access to self-directed, home-based services.
• Ensure everyone has the choice of receiving long-term care at home or in their community, including by eliminating Medicaid’s institutional bias, mandating coverage of home- and community-based services, and expanding coverage of home- and community-based care.
• Enhance Medicare coverage of non-elderly people who are disabled and expand home- and community-based care benefits, including by eliminating the two-year waiting period for Medicaid coverage for people on the Social Security Disability Insurance Program.
• Help seniors age in their community by increasing funding for the Older Americans Act.
• Protect Americans' right to choose health care coverage that work best for them through Medicare for All Who Want It, and ensure access to safe and affordable treatment through Affordable Medicine for All.

Social Security is the main reason poverty among seniors fell from 35 percent in 1960 to 10 percent today.13 Despite what many Republicans erroneously claim, Social Security is not facing imminent insolvency.14 But Social Security does face a fiscal imbalance that needs to be addressed—without raising taxes on working- and middle-class Americans. At the same time, we must do more to ensure that Social Security provides sufficient economic security for the financially vulnerable and for those still left out of the program, like caregivers. Pete proposes to:

• Fully protect Social Security for the next generation without cutting anyone’s benefits by ensuring the most fortunate pay their fair share.
• Increase Social Security benefits to keep vulnerable seniors out of poverty.
• Value family care work like professional employment—by counting years spent caring for a child, elderly, or disabled dependent toward Social Security benefits.
• Work with Congress to protect Social Security forever by automatically adjusting tax rates for high earners.

Protecting and expanding the promise of Social Security is the key way to promote financial security for America’s retirees. On top of Social Security, many households want to save more for retirement and also for a rainy day. But roughly half of all Americans do not have a workplace retirement plan, often because their employer either doesn’t offer one or doesn’t offer a matching contribution that makes saving attractive.15 Those left out are disproportionately low-income and people of color, worsening the injustice of America’s wealth gaps.16 Not only that, but unexpected emergencies place an enormous burden on families who have not been able to save for a rainy day.17 A major barrier to saving for retirement is the fear of not being prepared for a pre-retirement emergency. To address these challenges, Pete will:

• Institute a Public Option 401(k) so that all workers have the opportunity to supplement their Social Security benefits if they choose with employer contributions. This will enable the typical worker to retire with over $500,000 in the Public Option 401(k). All Public Option 401(k) investments will have low fees so that workers, not financial institutions, make extra money on hard-earned savings.
• Give workers the choice to enroll in a standard savings plan with a substantial employer match and let them opt out at any time.
• Help American families weather financial emergencies with a Rainy Day Account within the Public Option 401(k).