‘Care, Actually’ Launches to Examine Caregiving
FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
February 2, 2026
WASHINGTON, DC — A new Substack publication, Care, Actually, launches today to address one of the most urgent yet least clearly understood challenges facing families, workers, and communities: caregiving, and the systems meant to support it.
Caregiving now touches nearly every aspect of American life. More than 50 million people provide unpaid care to family members or loved ones, while millions more rely on paid caregivers across home care, long-term care, and health systems. At the same time, care workers remain among the lowest-paid and most precariously employed in the economy, and families across income levels struggle to find affordable, reliable support. As the population ages and chronic illness rises, these pressures are accelerating.
Yet despite its scale and importance, caregiving is often discussed in fragmented, sentimental, or highly technical terms—if it is discussed at all. The result is a system that remains poorly designed, chronically under-resourced, and difficult for the people inside it to navigate.
Care, Actually was created to help close that gap.
Published every few weeks, the Substack features original essays that examine caregiving not only as a personal experience, but as a set of systems shaping work, health, economic security, and democratic life. The writing combines lived experience with systems-level analysis to explore why caregiving systems fail so many people—and what meaningful repair could look like.
The publication argues that the caregiving sector remains in disrepair in part because of a persistent lack of clear, accessible information. Families are left without a roadmap. Workers are rendered invisible. And policymakers and the public alike often underestimate how deeply care systems influence labor markets, gender equity, racial disparities, and community stability.
The first essays reflect on a health crisis that reshaped the author’s understanding of care and survival, using that moment as an entry point into broader questions about dependence, dignity, and the quiet infrastructure that makes everyday life possible.
“Care is where life happens—at its most ordinary and its most fragile—yet the systems meant to support it are often fragmented or invisible,” said Robert Espinoza, the writer behind Care, Actually and founder and CEO of The CareWorks Project. “This publication is an effort to slow the conversation down, name what’s broken, and bring greater clarity to a system too many people are forced to navigate alone.”
Espinoza has spent nearly three decades working at the intersection of caregiving, workforce development, and aging policy. Care, Actually marks a return to long-form, independent writing at a moment when trust in institutions and traditional media is under strain, and when deeper public understanding of caregiving systems is increasingly critical.
Care, Actually is available on Substack, where readers can subscribe to receive new essays directly.
About Care, Actually
Written by longtime policy strategist and care economy expert, Robert Espinoza, Care, Actually features personal essays on the caregiving workforce and economy — and the lives we share. Drawing on lived experience and decades of policy leadership, it explores why care systems fail — and how we can repair them together.
Media Contact:
Robert Espinoza, Founder & CEO, The CareWorks Project
robert@careworksproject.co