Elena Chavez Quezada

Infrastructure is much more than concrete and steel beams; it’s an engine of economic growth and prosperity. It supports the daily services we rely on, powers businesses, and connects people to jobs. For too long, that engine has been neglected—especially in low-income communities and communities of color. But now an unprecedented surge of infrastructure funding across America has opened a window of opportunity that we cannot afford to miss.

How much support do people actually receive from the social safety net? That’s the question that a recently released report from the University of Southern California’s Price Center for Social Innovation aimed to answer. The report, titled ​“Examining the Complex Social Safety Net for Low-Income Working Families,” explored what social programs are available to Los Angeles residents and how the support they receive from those programs varies as their wages increase.

The pandemic has crystalized—in the glaring sort of way—our country’s contradictions. One of them: The dueling demands we put on women to care for others and work without relief, all the while denied fair wages, benefits and other opportunities to achieve economic well-being for themselves and their families. The life of Fita, aunt to one of us coauthors (Elena Chávez Quezada) and a fierce and savvy woman who recently passed away at 100, speaks to what many women experience.