Sarita Gupta is the co-director of Caring Across Generations and the co-director of Jobs With Justice. She is a nationally recognized expert on the economic, labor and political issues affecting working people, particularly women and those employed in low-wage sectors. She is widely recognized as a key leader and strategist in the progressive movement. She has over 20 years of experience working to expand people’s ability to come together to improve their workplaces, their communities, and their lives by creating solutions to the problems they face.

In her role with Caring Across Generations, Sarita spearheads a national movement of families, caregivers, people with disabilities, and aging Americans working to transform the way we care in this country so that all families can live well and age with dignity. By harnessing the power of online and grassroots organizing and culture change work, the campaign is shifting how our nation values care and caregiving relationships. The campaign is calling for policy solutions that create a much-needed care infrastructure that provides high-quality, affordable options for people who need care, support for family caregivers, and strengthens the care workforce. Caring Across Generations was instrumental in paving the way for the Home Care Rule, the effort to finally provide minimum wage and overtime protections for 2 million home care workers. The campaign was also successful in winning the Kapuna Caregiver Program in Hawaii, which provides a financial benefit to working family caregivers. And most recently, the Washington Long-Term Care Trust Act, which establishes the first state based public long term care program in the nation.

As a working family caregiver in the “sandwich generation,” Sarita grapples with and can speak to the care issues facing more and more Americans: Balancing caring for her daughter with caring for aging parents. She has devoted time to addressing our nation’s care issues given her own family’s journey navigating care for her father with Alzheimer’s. She believes we have a once in a generation opportunity to design a system of care that can meet the needs of all families.

Born in the United Kingdom and raised in Rochester, NY, Sarita currently lives in Silver Spring, MD, with her husband and daughter.

When she is not working, you can find her practicing yoga, reading mysteries or other great books, and coaching her 8 year old daughter’s soccer team.

If you could go on long walk with anyone, who would it be?

If I could go on a long walk with anyone, it would be my grandmother, Sovona Gupta, who died soon after I was born. From all that I have been told, she was strong, kind, loving, a ferocious reader, and curious about the world. I would ask her what it was like to live in India during British rule and how she experienced the struggle for independence. What hopes she had for her children and generations to come. There is a lot about her family that I want to know more about. They were very progressive for their time, ensuring that girls in their family were able to pursue higher education and careers, for example. She was shaped by a set of values from her family that has influenced my mother and my family. I feel some sort of a connection to her, even though I have never met her. It’s funny to feel that way about someone you have never met…but I do.

On Sunday afternoons, you can find me...

Riding my bike, hiking, reading, or cooking with my amazing husband and daughter. Sunday afternoons are generally family time for me. Although, sometimes, I sneak in a nice nap too.

Please share a favorite quote.

“I am a citizen of a world not yet born”—West African proverb