For most of her career, Briana paid family members to take care of their children, but schedules can be very complicated and inconsistent. She’s tried traditional day care too, but it’s not as easy as it sounds. Between dropping her kids off at daycare and driving to and from work, she was late for work every day and couldn’t work enough overtime to make up for daycare costs, especially since daycare had a hard stop while her job wasn’t .

She took turns trying to stay home with her children’s father, a smelting friend, but that resulted in both of them missing out on the acquisition of pension credits based on the number of hours worked. It all came to a head in the past two months, and Briana joined the millions of women who left working life – unable to pursue the family-keeping career she had worked so hard for for nearly a decade.

Stories like Briana’s are familiar to families across the country. And while the White House and Senate negotiators work out an infrastructure plan, workers like her run the risk of being left out of the improvements the plan has promised. A significant investment in care, including affordable access to quality child and elderly care, would reach every American. But leaving that support behind would put a brake on the economic growth that infrastructure spending could provide.

On Thursday, President Joe Biden announced that he had agreed to a compromise with Republicans over infrastructure. Although many of its details are unknown, we know that it involves many critical investments for Americans: roads and bridges, public transportation, broadband, water and electricity systems, and more. But so far, the deal leaves out Biden’s proposal to spend $ 400 million to bolster care for aging and disabled Americans. Biden’s original infrastructure plan, which included provisions to build and modernize energy-efficient childcare centers, was already inadequate in raising childcare wages and benefits. Now the bipartisan deal appears to limit funding for childcare facilities even more, with only one provision that eliminates lead water pipes. Meanwhile, help for home care workers and working mothers like Briana who need access to affordable childcare is expected to be bundled into a separate bill that the Democrats will seek to pass through reconciliation themselves, which lower the threshold of 51 votes requires (or 50 votes if the vice president breaks the tie). While Biden said he wanted both bills passed at the same time, the Senate Republicans who approved the bipartisan deal are now threatening to step down to prevent the Atonement Act – and leave the future of both laws in limbo.

It is critical to invest in maintenance at the same time as we invest in bridges and broadband. The infrastructure plan outlined by the White House this week is significant and promising for our economy. But without another corresponding bill aimed at the care infrastructure that employees like Briana count on to do their work, this promise will fall short.

The pandemic has shown that our reliance on underpaid and undervalued caring for women, and women of color in particular, is an unsustainable burden on these women, their families and the economy as a whole. But even before the pandemic, professionals who most needed access to these vital benefits were the least likely. It is not enough to go back to where we were.

We cannot expect an equitable recovery without addressing the lack of childcare, home and community services, and paid vacations that have pushed millions of women out of the job market and destroyed the financial security of their families. Individuals, corporations, philanthropies and “the market” cannot solve this crisis. We need significant investment, especially at the federal level, to build an economy that works for all of us. Right now, we should worry about spending too little and not too much.

The path to shared prosperity is through public investment in infrastructure in all its forms. Expanding access to child and elderly care while keeping costs affordable and fairly paying the workers who provide them will require significant federal investment, best done by expanding home and community services and the Acceptance of important provisions of the American Families Plan could be issued. including universal childcare and universal paid leave. These must remain a top priority for this White House and Congress if the full benefits of this infrastructure package are to reach all Americans.

The Biden-Harris administration and Congress must continue to advocate bold and meaningful investments in our nation’s care infrastructure. A comprehensive Nursing Support Plan is not only one of the best ways to ensure our communities can thrive, but it also enjoys strong bipartisan support from the American public. Investing in care infrastructure will create good jobs that will support millions of people in the short and long term as the pandemic recedes, the population ages and our care needs become more urgent. Robust public investment in care will also ensure our economic recovery lives up, including for black women, immigrants, people with disabilities, and others whose jobs have been undervalued and laid off for far too long.

For millions of workers like Briana, this struggle for care is nothing new. While the pandemic has highlighted the fragility of our country’s care infrastructure, a return to this unjust and unstable status quo would be a grave disservice to workers, families and the wider economy. We have a rare moment in building a new future for workers and families and it is up to Congress and the President to seize it.