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Source: Campaign page

See also abbreviated biography in the White House website.

HUMBLE BEGINNINGS.

It all starts in a little house on North Washington Avenue.
Joseph Robinette Biden, Jr. is born in Scranton, Pennsylvania, the son of Catherine Eugenia Finnegan Biden and Joseph Robinette Biden, Sr., and the first of four children.

The Bidens move to Delaware.
When Joe is 10, the Biden family moves to Claymont, Delaware, to look for better work. It becomes the state Joe calls home.

Joe enrolls at the University of Delaware, where he double majors in history and political science. He goes on to Syracuse University, where he earns his law degree.

A NEW LEADER.

Joe starts a family.
Joe marries Neilia Hunter at St. Mary’s of the Lake in Skaneateles, New York. In the years to come, they have three children together—Joseph R. “Beau” Biden, III, Robert Hunter, and Naomi Christina.

The first campaign.
Joe practices law at a firm in Wilmington while also working part-time as a public defender. Later that year, he launches his first-ever campaign for the New Castle County Council, which he won by 2,000 votes.

Joe sticks up for the little guy—and never stops.
As a member of the New Castle County Council, Joe fights against a massive 10-lane highway project that threatened to pave over Wilmington’s neighborhoods and push back on the oil companies building refineries on the Delaware coast.

Victory turns to tragedy.
At age 29, Joe becomes one of the youngest people ever elected to the United States Senate. Weeks later, tragedy strikes the Biden family when Neilia and Naomi are killed and Hunter and Beau are critically injured in an auto accident.

A YOUNG VOICE IN THE SENATE.

The 120-mile commute.
Joe is sworn into the U.S. Senate at his sons’ hospital bedsides, and begins commuting from Wilmington to Washington every day, first by car and then by train, in order to tuck his sons in bed at night and see them get up in the morning. He will continue to do so throughout his time in the Senate. For five years, Joe raises Beau and Hunter as a single father, with the help of his sister Valerie and his family.

An early voice for campaign finance reform.
Joe first calls for the public financing of campaigns in the early 1970s. In the decades to come, he’ll continue to take action to restore and strengthen our democratic institutions, starting with protecting the right to vote.

Joe marries Jill Jacobs.
Beau and Hunter tell their dad that it’s time to ask Jill Jacobs, then a high school English teacher, to marry them. They marry at the United Nations Chapel in New York City in 1977. Jill leaves teaching to become a full-time mom—and in 1980, their family is complete with the birth of Ashley Blazer, named by her brothers. A lifelong educator, Jill will go on to earn her doctorate in education and return to teaching as an English professor at a community college in Virginia.

A leader on arms control.
Joe leads a delegation of senators to meet with Kremlin officials in Moscow to present U.S. conditions for the ratification of the Strategic Arms Limitation Talks–SALT II. It is the beginning of his decades-long leadership on nuclear arms control and strategic security negotiations to keep the American people safe, prevent an unchecked nuclear arms race, and establish norms of international conduct. Later, as Vice President, he will be critical to Senate approval of the New START Treaty with Russia, which brings deployed strategic nuclear weapons by the two countries to the lowest level in history.

One of the first climate change bills.
Joe calls for action to address climate change and protect the environment before it was a mainstream issue, introducing the Global Climate Protection Act. Later, as Chair of the Foreign Relations Committee, he organizes several hearings on climate change and rallies support on a number of non-binding resolutions on the issue, in an attempt to build momentum for action to address climate change.

A LEADER IN THE SENATE.

As Chairman or Ranking Member of the Senate Judiciary Committee for 16 years, Joe is widely recognized for his work writing and spearheading the Violence Against Women Act and blocking Jeff Sessions’ and Robert Bork’s nominations to the bench.

Taking on the NRA.
Joe takes on the National Rifle Association and wins—twice. In 1993, he secures the passage of the Brady background check bill, ushering the bill through conference and defeating an NRA-supported filibuster. And in 1994, he champions the passage of bans on assault weapons and high-capacity magazines.

Addressing the scourge of violence against women.
At a time when gender-based violence is still considered a “family issue,” Joe writes and spearheads the Violence Against Women Act—the landmark legislation that criminalizes violence against women, creates unprecedented resources for survivors of assault, and changes the national dialogue on domestic and sexual assault.

As Chairman or Ranking Member of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee for 12 years, Senator Biden plays a pivotal role in shaping U.S. foreign policy. He is at the forefront of issues and legislation related to ending Apartheid,  terrorism, weapons of mass destruction, post-Cold War Europe, the Middle East, and Southwest Asia.

A running mate becomes a friend for life.
At a speech in Springfield, Illinois, Barack Obama announces Joe as his vice-presidential running mate. In the months and years to come, they become good friends, and their families grow close.

THE 47TH VICE PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES.

As Vice President, Joe continues his leadership on important issues facing the nation and represents our country abroad—traveling over 1.2 million miles to more than 50 countries. Vice President Biden convenes sessions of the President’s Cabinet, leads interagency efforts, and works with Congress in his fight to raise the living standards of middle-class Americans, reduce gun violence, address violence against women, and end cancer as we know it.

The biggest economic recovery plan in the history of America.
President Obama turns to Joe to first help pass and then oversee the implementation of the Recovery Act—the biggest economic recovery plan in the history of the nation and our biggest and strongest commitment to clean energy. The President’s plan prevents another Great Depression, creates and saves millions of jobs, and leads to 75 uninterrupted months of job growth by the end of the Administration, which has continued until today. And Joe did it all with less than 1% in waste, abuse or fraud—the most efficient government program in our country’s history.

Millions of Americans gain the peace of mind of health insurance.
President Obama and Joe secure the passage of the Affordable Care Act, which will have reduced the number of uninsured Americans by 20 million by the time they leave office and banned insurance companies from denying coverage due to pre-existing conditions.

Joe speaks up for marriage equality.
Vice President Biden vocally supports marriage equality for LGBTQ individuals at a time when most political pundits said it wasn’t a good idea. He later shows the same leadership by expressing early support for the Equality Act.

FOUR MORE YEARS.

President Obama and Vice President Biden win reelection by sweeping margins.

Taking on the NRA, again.
After 26 first-graders and educators are killed at Sandy Hook Elementary School, Joe leads an effort to take more than two dozen actions to make our schools and communities safer, including improving the gun background check system and narrowing the gun show loophole.

The Biden family loses a hero.
Beau Biden, Attorney General of Delaware and Joe Biden’s eldest son, passes away after battling brain cancer with the same integrity, courage, and strength he demonstrated every day of his life. Beau’s fight with cancer inspires the mission of Joe’s life—ending cancer as we know it.

A Cancer Moonshot.
In his final State of the Union address, President Obama asks Joe to head up a new national effort to end cancer as we know it—he ends up calling it his “Cancer Moonshot,” with the goal of  making a decade’s worth of advances in cancer prevention, diagnosis, and treatment in five years.

The highest civilian honor.
In a ceremony at the White House, President Obama awards Joe the Presidential Medal of Freedom with Distinction—the nation’s highest civilian honor.

The Bidens head home.
After leaving the White House, the Bidens take their first Amtrak ride as private citizens in eight years back to their home in Delaware. In the months to come, they will continue their efforts to expand opportunity for every American with the creation of the Biden Foundation, the Biden Cancer Initiative, the Penn Biden Center for Diplomacy and Global Engagement, and the Biden Institute at the University of Delaware.

Experience

Work Experience

• Defense attorney
  1968 to 1970
• Member
  New Castle County Council
  1970 to 1972
• United States Senator
  1973 to 2009

  Delaware

• Vice President
  2009 to 2016

  under Barack Obama

Education

• B.A.
  University of Delaware
  1965

  history and political science

• J.D.
  Syracuse University Law School
  1968

Personal

Birth Year: 1942
Place of Birth: Scranton, PA
Gender: Male
Religion: Christian: Catholic
Spouse: Jill Biden
Children: Hunter Biden, Ashley Biden, Naomi Biden, Beau Biden

Contact

Email:

• Campaign

Web

Government Page, Campaign Site, Twitter, Medium, Facebook, Instagram

Politics

Source: none

Recent Elections

2012

Source: Ballotpedia

Finances

BIDEN JR, JOSEPH R (JOE) has run in 2 races for public office, winning 1 of them. The candidate has raised a total of $904,694,987.

Source: Follow the Money

Voting Record

See: Vote Smart

New Legislation

• Sponsored
• Cosponsored

Source: Congress.gov

Issues

Governance

BIDEN PLAN TO GUARANTEE GOVERNMENT WORKS FOR THE PEOPLE

“We the people.” Those words changed everything. Power rested in the people, not the government. Freedom to think, to speak, to act, to criticize your government, all protected. We became the model for the world. […] Our Constitution doesn’t begin with the phrase, “We the Democrats” or “We the Republicans.” And it certainly doesn’t begin with the phrase, “We the Donors.”

– Joe Biden, 2020 presidential campaign kickoff, May 18, 2019

Donald Trump has presided over the most corrupt administration in modern history. Trump has abused the presidency to enrich himself – spending countless tax dollars at his own properties. Members of his administration have failed to divest themselves from conflicts of interest as promised. Trump has weaponized the Executive Branch against its core mission, including using the U.S. Justice Department to protect the president and his interests, over the American people and the rule of law. And, Trump has welcomed wealthy special interests – including the National Rifle Association – into the Oval Office and to the highest levels of his administration to develop and guide policy.

The charge facing the president who follows Donald Trump is as big as it is essential: restoring faith in American government. The next president must demonstrate with their actions – not empty words – that public servants serve all Americans, not themselves or narrow special interests. Public office is not the prize for winning an election, but an imperative to improve the lives of people across the country – no matter their gender, race, religion, sexual orientation, disability, zip code, or income. The President of the United States has a core responsibility to earn and keep the trust of the American people.

We must elect leaders with integrity, for whom the public interest is paramount. But that’s not enough. We also must strengthen our laws to ensure that no future president can ever again use the office for personal gain. The federal government’s power must be used to better the country, and not in service of narrow, private interests.

Biden is offering an ambitious proposal to ensure that our government works for the people. Specifically, President Biden will:

Reduce the corrupting influence of money in politics and make it easier for candidates of all backgrounds to run for office;
Return integrity to the U.S. Department of Justice and other Executive Branch decision-making;
Restore ethics in government;
Rein in Executive Branch financial conflicts of interest; and
Hold the lobbied and lobbyists to a higher standard of accountability.
These steps are an essential part of renewing our democracy, and to ensuring that it works for the people and includes everyone.

REDUCE THE CORRUPTING INFLUENCE OF MONEY IN POLITICS

Biden strongly believes that we could improve our politics overnight if we flushed big money from the system and had public financing of our elections. Democracy works best when a big bank account or a large donor list are not prerequisites for office, and elected representatives come from all backgrounds, regardless of resources. But for too long, special interests and corporations have skewed the policy process in their favor with political contributions.

Biden has advocated for public financing of federal campaigns since the very beginning of his Senate career. He first co-sponsored legislation to create a public financing system for House and Senate candidates in 1973. In 1997 and many years afterward, he co-sponsored a constitutional amendment that would have limited contributions as well as corporate and private spending in elections and prevented the damage caused by the Supreme Court in Citizens United.

Biden will reform our campaign finance system so that it amplifies the voices of the public, not the powerful — particularly the voices of working Americans. Under his leadership, our system will make sure that the principles of equality, transparency, and public — not private — interest drive all government decisions. Toward those ends, Biden will:

Introduce a constitutional amendment to entirely eliminate private dollars from our federal elections. Biden believes it is long past time to end the influence of private dollars in our federal elections. As president, Biden will fight for a constitutional amendment that will require candidates for federal office to solely fund their campaigns with public dollars, and prevent outside spending from distorting the election process. This amendment will do far more than just overturn Citizens United:  it will return our democracy to the people and away from the corporate interests that seek to distort it.
Enact legislation to provide voluntary matching public funds for federal candidates receiving small dollar donations. While we work toward a constitutional amendment, meaningful change can be made by legislation. Biden will propose legislation to provide public matching funds for small dollar donations to all federal candidates. This will especially help first-time candidates access the resources needed to compete, freeing them to focus on interacting with voters, not high-dollar donors.
Keep foreign money out of our elections. Biden will propose a law to strengthen our prohibitions on foreign nationals trying to influence federal, state, or local elections.  He will direct a new independent agency, the Commission on Federal Ethics (discussed in detail below), to assure vigorous and unified enforcement of this and other anti-corruption laws. The Commission will establish robust disclosure requirements, so that any online electioneering communication that originates abroad is identified and flagged.
Restrict SuperPACs. The Supreme Court’s decision in Citizens United is wrong and should be overturned by a constitutional amendment – but we can’t wait to limit its pernicious effect. As president, Biden will work to enact legislation ensuring that SuperPACs are wholly independent of campaigns and political parties, from establishment, to fundraising and spending.
Increase transparency of election spending.  Our campaign finance law is outdated, and Biden will update it to reflect the modern era. Too often, candidates and their allies now use online platforms like Facebook and Twitter to spread misleading or outright false ads that are micro-targeted to certain populations and unrecognized by the press. Biden will propose legislation codifying what should be a simple tenet of campaign finance law: any group that advocates for or against candidates for federal office in its ads or communications must disclose its contributors.  No more hiding behind “dark money” groups to spread lies. This law will require all online ads, how they’re targeted, and who paid for them to be posted by the groups to a public database on a new one-stop website, ethics.gov — so no one can target voters with misinformation without attracting media or political attention.
End dark money groups. Federal law recognizes “social welfare” groups, also known as 501(c)(4)s, which were intended to advocate for specific causes. But after Citizens United, they’ve increasingly been used as dark money groups — spending hundreds of millions of dollars on federal and state elections without disclosing their donors. Biden will enact legislation to bar 501(c)(4)s from spending in elections – the same bar that applies to Section 501(c)(3) charitable groups. He’ll also lead reform of the Federal Election Campaign Act, to ensure that any entity of any kind that spends more than $10,000 on federal elections must register with the Commission on Federal Ethics and publicly disclose its donors.
Require real time disclosure. Today, voters have to wait until after an election to fully learn who spent money to influence their decision. Biden will propose legislation to change that, by requiring campaigns and outside entities that run ads within 60 days of an election to disclose any new contributions within 48 hours.
Ban corporate PAC contributions to candidates, and prohibit lobbyist contributions to those who they lobby. Biden will ensure that lobbyists and corporate PACs do not play a role in our elections. Biden’s presidential campaign is refusing any funding from lobbyists and corporate PACs. As president, he’ll enact legislation to bar lobbyists from making contributions to, and fundraising or bundling for, those who they lobby. This legislation will be designed to ensure that the public knows as much as possible about the political spending of those who seek to influence officeholders and other government officials.  Any lobbyist contribution must be disclosed within 24-hours, and any lobbyist-hosted fundraising event must be disclosed before it occurs.
Reform funding for national party conventions. Biden will propose legislation establishing that any political party that receives more than 5% of the national vote should have its national convention publicly financed.  Primaries — and the conventions that certify their results — are good for democracy. Conventions should be, too. They should not be funded by corporate or monied interests.
Close the federal contractor loophole. As president, Biden will close the loophole that currently allows officers and directors of federal contractors to contribute to federal candidates. If you make money from government contracts, you should do so on merit — not because of campaign spending.

…

THE BIDEN PLAN FOR BANKRUPTCY REFORM

Biden is adopting Senator Warren’s comprehensive proposal, Fixing Our Bankruptcy System to Give People a Second Chance. In 2005, Biden worked hard to add progressive reforms to a bankruptcy bill that was going to be passed with or without him. Today, he agrees firmly with Senator Warren that we need to fundamentally reshape our bankruptcy system.

As described by Senator Warren in her plan, this plan will:

• Make it easier for people being crushed by debt to obtain relief through bankruptcy.
• Expand people’s rights to take care of themselves and their children while they are in the bankruptcy process.
• End the absurd rules that make it nearly impossible to discharge student loan debt in bankruptcy.
• Let more people protect their homes and cars in bankruptcy so they can start from a firm foundation when they start to pick up the pieces and rebuild their financial lives.
• Help address shameful racial and gender disparities that plague our bankruptcy system.
• Close loopholes that allow the wealthy and corporate creditors to abuse the bankruptcy system at the expense of everyone else.

THE BIDEN PLAN FOR STRENGTHENING AMERICA’S COMMITMENT TO JUSTICE

Equality, equity, justice – these ideas form the American creed. We have never lived up to it and we haven’t always gotten it right, but we’ve never stopped trying. This is especially true when it comes to our criminal justice system.

Today, too many people are incarcerated in the United States – and too many of them are black and brown. To build safe and healthy communities, we need to rethink who we’re sending to jail, how we treat those in jail, and how we help them get the health care, education, jobs, and housing they need to successfully rejoin society after they serve their time. As president, Joe Biden will strengthen America’s commitment to justice and reform our criminal justice system. 

The Biden Plan for Strengthening America’s Commitment to Justice is based on several core principles:

• We can and must reduce the number of people incarcerated in this country while also reducing crime. No one should be incarcerated for drug use alone. Instead, they should be diverted to drug courts and treatment. Reducing the number of incarcerated individuals will reduce federal spending on incarceration. These savings should be reinvested in the communities impacted by mass incarceration.
• Our criminal justice system cannot be just unless we root out the racial, gender, and income-based disparities in the system. Black mothers and fathers should feel confident that their children are safe walking the streets of America. And, when a police officer pins on that shield and walks out the door, the officer’s family should know they’ll come home at the end of the day. Additionally, women and children are uniquely impacted by the criminal justice system, and the system needs to address their unique needs.
• Our criminal justice system must be focused on redemption and rehabilitation. Making sure formerly incarcerated individuals have the opportunity to be productive members of our society is not only the right thing to do, it will also grow our economy.
• No one should be profiteering off of our criminal justice system.

Biden calls for the immediate passage of Congressman Bobby Scott’s SAFE Justice Act, an evidence-based, comprehensive bill to reform our criminal justice system “from front-end sentencing reform to back-end release policies.” The Biden Plan will also go further. Biden will take bold action to reduce our prison population, create a more just society, and make our communities safer, by:

• Preventing crime and providing opportunities for all.
• Eliminating racial disparities and ensuring fair sentences.
• Offering second chances.
• Reducing violence in our communities and supporting survivors of violence.

PREVENTING CRIME AND PROVIDING OPPORTUNITIES FOR ALL 

Preventing crime is the best way to make our communities safer and reduce incarceration.

Evidence tell us that certain life experiences are strongly correlated with an increased likelihood of future incarceration.

• The percentage of girls in our juvenile justice system who have a history of physical or sexual abuse could be as high as 80 or 90%.
• Roughly 1 out of every 4 children in foster care will interact with the criminal justice system just two years after exiting foster care.
• Incarcerated individuals have lower literacy levels than individuals not involved in the criminal justice system.
• Too many people with mental health or substance use disorders end up incarcerated.

We have to address these underlying factors to provide opportunities for all and prevent crime and incarceration.

Focusing on addressing these underlying factors is not just the right thing to do, it is also good for our communities and our economy. It costs the federal government about $100 per day to hold someone in federal prison. And that dollar amount doesn’t begin to capture “the true cost of incarceration” – emotional and financial – on families whose loved ones are incarcerated. This dollar amount doesn’t capture the ways in which mass incarceration can tear apart the fabric of a community. And, it doesn’t capture the economic impact of removing incarcerated individuals from the labor force.

The Biden Plan will shift our country’s focus from incarceration to prevention. As president, Biden will:

• Create a new $20 billion competitive grant program to spur states to shift from incarceration to prevention. To accelerate criminal justice reform at the state and local levels, Biden will create a new grant program inspired by a proposal by the Brennan Center. States, counties, and cities will receive funding to invest in efforts proven to reduce crime and incarceration, including efforts to address some of the factors like illiteracy and child abuse that are correlated with incarceration. In order to receive this funding, states will have to eliminate mandatory minimums for non-violent crimes, institute earned credit programs, and take other steps to reduce incarceration rates without impacting public safety.
• Invest in educational opportunity for all. To truly create opportunity and address one of the key underlying drivers of crime, President Biden will ensure that no child’s future is determined by their zip code, parents’ income, race, or disability. He’ll start by making pre-K available to every three- and four-year-old. He’ll triple funding for Title I, the federal program funding schools with a high percentage of students from low-income families. This will eliminate the funding gap between white and non-white districts, and rich and poor districts. Biden will also make sure every high school student graduates with either advanced credits or an industry credential in their pocket. And, he’ll make community college free for all qualified students. Read Joe Biden’s full Plan for Educators, Students, and our Future.
• Expand federal funding for mental health and substance use disorder services and research. People experiencing mental health problems and substance use disorders should have access to affordable, quality care long before their situations escalate and they interact with the criminal justice system. The Biden Plan will expand health insurance coverage so more Americans have access to treatment, ensure enforcement of mental health parity laws, and expand funding for mental health services. In addition, Biden will double the number of psychologists, guidance counselors, nurses, social workers, and other health professionals in our schools so our kids get the mental health care they need.
• Get people who should be supported with social services – instead of in our prisons – connected to the help they need. Too often, those in need of mental health care or rehabilitation for a substance use disorder do not get the care that they need. Instead, they end up having interactions with law enforcement that lead to incarceration. The same is true for homeless individuals. That’s not fair to those individuals, and it’s not fair to police officers. To change the nature of these interactions, the Biden Administration will fund initiatives to partner mental health and substance use disorder experts, social workers, and disability advocates with police departments. These service providers will train police officers to better de-escalate interactions with people in severe emotional distress before they become violent. They’ll also help police officers learn how to better approach individuals with certain disabilities, like those with autism or who are deaf, so misunderstanding does not lead to incarceration. And, these service providers will respond to calls with police officers so individuals who should not be in the criminal justice system are diverted to treatment for addiction or mental health problems, or are provided with the housing or other social services they may need.

ELIMINATING RACIAL DISPARITIES AND ENSURING FAIR SENTENCES 

We need to confront racial and income-based disparities in our justice system and eliminate overly harsh sentencing for non-violent crimes. As president, Biden will:

• Expand and use the power of the U.S. Justice Department to address systemic misconduct in police departments and prosecutors’ offices. Using authority in legislation spearheaded by Biden as senator, the Obama-Biden Justice Department used pattern-or-practice investigations and consent decrees to address circumstances of “systemic police misconduct” and to “restore trust between police and communities” in cities such as Ferguson. Yet, the Trump Administration’s Justice Department has limited the use of this tool. For example, under the Trump Administration, consent decrees between the Justice Department and police departments must now be signed off on by a political appointee from the Department. And, the Justice Department has set an arbitrary limit on how long such consent decrees can remain in place regardless of whether an end to the agreement is warranted. Under the Biden Administration, the Justice Department will again use its authority to root out unconstitutional or unlawful policing. The Biden Administration will reverse the limitations put in place under President Trump, and Biden will appoint Justice Department leadership who will prioritize the role of using pattern-or-practice investigations to strengthen our justice system. In addition, Biden will push for legislation to clarify that this pattern-or-practice investigation authority can also be used to address systemic misconduct by prosecutors’ offices.
• Establish an independent Task Force on Prosecutorial Discretion. Law enforcement officials’ decisions regarding when to arrest, when to charge, and what charges to bring are critical decision-points in our criminal justice system. The charges, for example, can dramatically impact not only what sentence someone ends up with but also whether they are compelled to take a plea bargain. The Biden Administration will create a new task force, placed outside of the U.S. Department of Justice, to make recommendations for tackling discrimination and other problems in our justice system that results from arrest and charging decisions.
• Invest in public defenders’ offices to ensure defendants’ access to quality counsel. To create a fairer criminal justice system, we must ensure that individuals who cannot afford counsel have quality representation. And, access to counsel should be available starting at the moment someone appears before a judge. But, right now, defenders’ resources and support are too decentralized and too hard to access. And, as Vice President Biden knows from his own experience leaving a law firm to be a public defender, the wage disparity for prosecutors and defenders limits the ability of defenders’ offices to recruit the best and brightest. As president, Biden will expand the Obama-Biden effort to expand resources for public defenders’ offices.
• Eliminate mandatory minimums. Biden supports an end to mandatory minimums. As president, he will work for the passage of legislation to repeal mandatory minimums at the federal level. And, he will give states incentives to repeal their mandatory minimums.
• End, once and for all, the federal crack and powder cocaine disparity. The Obama-Biden Administration successfully narrowed the unjustified disparity between crack and powder cocaine sentences. The Biden Administration will eliminate this disparity completely, as then-Senator Biden proposed in 2007. And, Biden will ensure that this change is applied retroactively.
• Decriminalize the use of cannabis and automatically expunge all prior cannabis use convictions. Biden believes no one should be in jail because of cannabis use. As president, he will decriminalize cannabis use and automatically expunge prior convictions. And, he will support the legalization of cannabis for medical purposes, leave decisions regarding legalization for recreational use up to the states, and reschedule cannabis as a schedule II drug so researchers can study its positive and negative impacts.
• End all incarceration for drug use alone and instead divert individuals to drug courts and treatment. Biden believes that no one should be imprisoned for the use of illegal drugs alone. Instead, Biden will require federal courts to divert these individuals to drug courts so they receive treatment to address their substance use disorder. He’ll incentivize states to put the same requirements in place. And, he’ll expand funding for federal, state, and local drug courts.
• Expand other effective alternatives to detention. The Biden Administration will also take an evidence-based approach to increase federal funding for other alternatives-to-detention courts and related programs for individuals convicted of non-violent crimes, such as veterans courts and youthful offender courts.
• Eliminate the death penalty. Over 160 individuals who’ve been sentenced to death in this country since 1973 have later been exonerated. Because we cannot ensure we get death penalty cases right every time, Biden will work to pass legislation to eliminate the death penalty at the federal level, and incentivize states to follow the federal government’s example. These individuals should instead serve life sentences without probation or parole.
• Use the president’s clemency power to secure the release of individuals facing unduly long sentences for certain non-violent and drug crimes. President Obama used his clemency power more than any of the 10 prior presidents. Biden will continue this tradition and broadly use his clemency power for certain non-violent and drug crimes.
• End the criminalization of poverty. 
  • End cash bail: Cash bail is the modern-day debtors’ prison. The cash bail system incarcerates people who are presumed innocent. And, it disproportionately harms low-income individuals. Biden will lead a national effort to end cash bail and reform our pretrial system by putting in place, instead, a system that is fair and does not inject further discrimination or bias into the process.
  • Stop jailing people for being too poor to pay fines and fees: Some people end up unable to escape our justice system because of the very fines and fees that the system levies. Biden will use the grantmaking power of the federal government to incentivize the end of policies that incarcerate people for failing to pay fines and fees. He’ll also target policies to revoke driver’s licenses for unpaid parking or speeding tickets. And, he’ll help individuals incarcerated for six months or longer get a true fresh start by incentivizing states to wipe clean any outstanding traffic fines or fees that would prevent them from obtaining a license. These license-related reforms will not apply to licenses revoked for driving while intoxicated, reckless driving, or other serious driving violations.
• Stop corporations from profiteering off of incarceration. Biden will end the federal government’s use of private prisons, building off an Obama-Biden Administration’s policy rescinded by the Trump Administration. And, he will make clear that the federal government should not use private facilities for any detention, including detention of undocumented immigrants. Biden will also make eliminating private prisons and all other methods of profiteering off of incarceration – including diversion programs, commercial bail, and electronic monitoring – a requirement for his new state and local prevention grant program. Finally, Biden will support the passage of legislation to crack down on the practice of private companies charging incarcerated individuals and their families outrageously high fees to make calls.
• Provide for the unique needs of incarcerated women. Women inherently have different basic health care needs than incarcerated men. Biden will condition receipt of federal criminal justice grants on adequate provision of primary care and gynecological care for women, including care for pregnant women. The Biden Administration will also review the efficacy of programs that allow non-violent offenders who are primary care providers for their children to serve their sentences through in-home monitoring.
• Ensure humane prison conditions. Biden believes no act can justify the inhumane treatment of an individual in the hands of the government. As president, Biden will call for an overhaul of inhumane prison practices. He’ll start by ending the practice of solitary confinement, with very limited exceptions such as protecting the life of an imprisoned person. And, he’ll require states to fix environmental health problems in prisons, such as a lack of clean water and clean air.
• Encourage states to collect sufficient data so we can make evidence-based criminal justice policies and eliminate disparities. Data is a powerful tool to shine light on and spur action to address biases in our criminal justice system, but we have insufficient data to fully understand these biases. For example, the vast majority of states do not collect and report information regarding the ethnicity of individuals who interact with the criminal justice system. This leads to a lack of information regarding how Latinx are impacted by the system. The Biden Administration will encourage states to add information regarding ethnicity to their criminal justice data collection.

OFFERING SECOND CHANCES

Biden believes in redemption. After incarcerated individuals serve their time, they should have the opportunity to fully reintegrate into society, earn a good living, and participate in our democracy as our fellow citizens. It will not only benefit them, it will benefit all of society. It is also our best strategy to reduce recidivism.

President Biden will:

• Set a national goal of ensuring 100% of formerly incarcerated individuals have housing upon reentry. If incarcerated individuals do not find housing upon reentry, that lack of housing can be completely destabilizing and limit their likelihood of successfully staying out of the criminal justice system and fulfilling their potential. Biden will work toward a goal of ensuring 100% of formerly incarcerated individuals – at the federal and state level – have housing upon release. He’ll start by directing the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development to only contract with entities that are open to housing individuals looking for a second chance. And, he’ll expand funding for transitional housing, which has been drastically cut under the Trump Administration.
• Expand access to mental health and substance use disorder treatment, as well as educational opportunities and job training for individuals during and after incarceration. Jails are not the preferred approach for rehabilitation. That’s why the Biden Administration will expand the use of drug courts and other diversion programs, as described above. But, when individuals end up incarcerated and are experiencing mental health problems or a substance use disorder, they should have access to adequate treatment. And, all incarcerated individuals should have the opportunity to pursue education and skills training so they can more easily find employment after their release. Incarcerated individuals should have the opportunity to learn to read, earn a GED, or learn a new trade while imprisoned. The Biden Administration will expand funding for all of these programs and services, during and after incarceration.
• Eliminate existing barriers preventing formerly incarcerated individuals from fully participating in society. There are numerous provisions existing in federal, state, and local laws that prohibit formerly incarcerated individuals or individuals on probation from accessing resources they need to pursue their second chance. Biden will direct his Cabinet to pursue a comprehensive review to identify these barriers. Then, he will work to eliminate these barriers through executive action, when authorized, and through legislation. For example, Biden will eliminate barriers keeping formerly incarcerated individuals from accessing public assistance such as SNAP, Pell grants, and housing support. He will streamline the process for giving individuals on probation or parole for non-violent offenses access to Job Corps. The Biden Administration will incentivize states to automatically restore voting rights for individuals convicted of felonies once they have served their sentences. And, the Biden Administration will expand on the Obama-Biden Administration’s “ban the box” policy by encouraging further adoption of these policies at the state and local level. This effort will not include any automatic restoration of firearms rights.

REDUCING VIOLENCE AND SUPPORTING SURVIVORS OF VIOLENCE

We should pursue evidence-based measures to root out persistent violent crime. Violent offenders need to be held accountable, and survivors need to have access to support to deal with the physical, psychological, and financial consequences of violence.

President Biden will:

• Counter the rise in hate crimes. The number of hate crimes in the United States reached a five-year high in 2016, and then went up another 17% in 2017. Biden will tackle the rise in hate crimes through moral leadership that makes clear such vitriol has no place in the United States. And, in the Biden Administration, the Justice Department will prioritize prosecuting hate crimes.
• Reinvigorate community-oriented policing. Policing works best when officers are out of their cruisers and walking the streets, engaging with and getting to know members of their communities. But in order to do that, police departments need resources to hire a sufficient number of officers. Biden spearheaded the Community Oriented Policing Services (COPS) program, which authorized funding both for the hiring of additional police officers and for training on how to undertake a community policing approach. However, the program has never been funded to fulfill the original vision for community policing. Biden will reinvigorate the COPS program with a $300 million investment. As a condition of the grant, hiring of police officers must mirror the racial diversity of the community they serve. Additionally, as president, Biden will establish a panel to scrutinize what equipment is used by law enforcement in our communities.
• Defeat the National Rifle Association – again. In the months ahead, Biden will also detail his plan to tackle the public health epidemic of gun violence in America, starting with universal background checks and bans on assault weapons and high-capacity magazines. Biden’s plan to reduce gun violence will address not only mass shootings but also daily acts of gun violence that don’t make national headlines. Biden has defeated the National Rifle Association on the national stage twice before. As president, he will defeat the NRA again.
• Reduce violence against women. As the original author of the Violence Against Women Act, Biden will work to reauthorize and continue to strengthen the Act, accelerating progress in decreasing violence against women and girls and providing survivors with support. He’ll put forward a detailed plan in the months ahead.
• Support survivors of violence, communities experiencing violence, and first responders by addressing the impacts of trauma. Violence causes ripples of trauma throughout our communities, impacting not just the victims of violence but also their communities and first responders. And, violence can have a traumatic impact on a generation. Fear of school shootings is having a noticeable impact on the mental health of Gen Z. In addition to expanding funding for traditional mental health treatment and doubling the number of mental health professionals in our schools, Biden will take three key actions to address the trauma caused by violence. First, he will fund a demonstration project to help schools pursue non-traditional approaches to healing trauma, such as art and sports. Second, he will direct the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services to undertake a comprehensive review of all federal programs to identify how they can be more trauma-informed and support survivors of violence. Third, Biden will work to raise the funding cap for the Victims of Crime Act programs and replace with direct funding any lost revenue for the program due to proposals in this package. The Victims of Crime Act programs provide financial support to help victims of crimes pay for expenses including medical and dental costs, counseling, lost wages, and temporary lodging expenses that result from the crime.

Economy

BIDEN PLAN FOR STRENGTHENING WORKER ORGANIZING, COLLECTIVE BARGAINING, AND UNIONS

Strong unions built the great American middle class. Everything that defines what it means to live a good life and know you can take care of your family – the 40 hour work week, paid leave, health care protections, a voice in your workplace – is because of workers who organized unions and fought for worker protections. Because of organizing and collective bargaining, there used to be a basic bargain between workers and their employers in this country that when you work hard, you share in the prosperity your work created.

Today, however, there’s a war on organizing, collective bargaining, unions, and workers. It’s been raging for decades, and it’s getting worse with Donald Trump in the White House. Republican governors and state legislatures across the country have advanced anti-worker legislation to undercut the labor movement and collective bargaining. States have decimated the rights of public sector workers who, unlike private sector workers, do not have federal protections ensuring their freedom to organize and collectively bargain. In the private sector, corporations are using profits to buy back their own shares and increase CEOs’ compensation instead of investing in their workers and creating more good-quality jobs. The results have been predictable: rising income inequality, stagnant real wages, the loss of pensions, exploitation of workers, and a weakening of workers’ voices in our society.

Biden is proposing a plan to grow a stronger, more inclusive middle class – the backbone of the American economy – by strengthening public and private sector unions and helping all workers bargain successfully for what they deserve.

As president, Biden will:

• Check the abuse of corporate power over labor and hold corporate executives personally accountable for violations of labor laws;
• Encourage and incentivize unionization and collective bargaining; and
• Ensure that workers are treated with dignity and receive the pay, benefits, and workplace protections they deserve.

This plan is a critical addition to Biden’s proposals to ensure all workers have access to quality, affordable health care; to guarantee all workers are able to send their children to quality public schools and have access to universal pre-kindergarten; to provide education and training beyond high school, including federally Registered Apprenticeships; to support a clean energy revolution that creates millions of unionized middle-class jobs; and to meet our commitment to invest first in American workers and ensure that labor is at the table to negotiate every trade deal. In the months ahead, Biden will continue to outline in further detail his related proposals, including on issues related to pensions, starting with passing the Butch Lewis Act; infrastructure investments and project labor agreements; and workplace equality.

CHECK THE ABUSE OF CORPORATE POWER OVER LABOR

President Trump and Republican leadership think this country was built by CEOs and hedge fund managers, but they’re wrong. Joe Biden knows that our country was built by hard-working Americans. While we could survive without Wall Street and investment banks, our entire economy would collapse without electricians to keep our lights on, auto workers on the line building our cars, drivers who deliver all things we need for our daily lives to our markets, firefighters, ambulance drivers, service workers, educators, and millions more.

Yet employers steal about $15 billion a year from working people just by paying workers less than the minimum wage. On top of that, workers experience huge losses in salary caused by other forms of wage theft, like employers not paying overtime, forcing off-the-clock work, and misclassifying workers. At the same time, these companies are raking in billions of dollars in profits and paying CEOs tens and hundreds of millions of dollars.

In addition, employers repeatedly interfere with workers’ efforts to organize and collectively bargain. In nearly all union campaigns, corporations run a campaign against the union. Three in four employers hire anti-union consultants, spending approximately $1 billion each year on these efforts. Corporations fire pro-union workers in one of every three union campaigns and about half of corporations threaten to retaliate against workers during union campaigns. Even workers who successfully are able to form a union are later impeded by corporations who bargain in bad faith. About half of newly organized groups of workers do not have a contract a year later and one in three remain without a contract two years after a successful union election.

Biden will ensure employers respect workers’ rights. Specifically, he will:

• Hold corporations and executives personally accountable for interfering with organizing efforts and violating other labor laws. Biden strongly supports the Protecting the Right to Organize Act’s (PRO Act) provisions instituting financial penalties on companies that interfere with workers’ organizing efforts, including firing or otherwise retaliating against workers. Biden will go beyond the PRO Act by enacting legislation to impose even stiffer penalties on corporations and to hold company executives personally liable when they interfere with organizing efforts, including criminally liable when their interference is intentional.
• Aggressively pursue employers who violate labor laws, participate in wage theft, or cheat on their taxes by intentionally misclassifying employees as independent contractors. As president, Biden will put a stop to employers intentionally misclassifying their employees as independent contractors. He will enact legislation that makes worker misclassification a substantive violation of law under all federal labor, employment, and tax laws with additional penalties beyond those imposed for other violations. And, he will build on efforts by the Obama-Biden Administration to drive an aggressive, all-hands-on-deck enforcement effort that will dramatically reduce worker misclassification. He will direct the U.S. Department of Labor to engage in meaningful, collaborative enforcement partnerships, including with the National Labor Relations Board (NLRB), the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission, the Internal Revenue Service, the Justice Department, and state tax, unemployment insurance, and labor agencies. And, while Trump has weakened enforcement by sabotaging the enforcement agencies and slashing their investigator corps, Biden will fund a dramatic increase in the number of investigators in labor and employment enforcement agencies to facilitate a large anti-misclassification effort.
• Ensure federal dollars do not flow to employers who engage in union-busting activities, participate in wage theft, or violate labor law. Biden will institute a multi-year federal debarment for all employers who illegally oppose unions, building on debarment efforts pursued in the Obama-Biden Administration. Biden will also restore and build on the Obama-Biden Administration’s Fair Pay and Safe Workplaces executive order, which Trump revoked, requiring employers’ compliance with labor and employment laws be taken into account in determining whether they are sufficiently responsible to be entrusted with federal contracts. He will ensure federal contracts only go to employers who sign neutrality agreements committing not to run anti-union campaigns. He also will only award contracts to employers who support their workers, including those who pay a $15 per hour minimum wage and family sustaining benefits. The tax dollars of hard-working families should not be used to damage the standard of living of those same families.
• Penalize companies that bargain in bad faith. Too many employers pretend to bargain with unions (“surface bargaining”) with no intent of reaching an agreement. Biden will give the NLRB the necessary power to force any employer found to be bargaining in bad faith back to the negotiating table, as called for in the PRO Act. And, he will require those companies to pay a penalty, in addition to making workers whole for the time the company stalled negotiations.

ENCOURAGE AND INCENTIVIZE UNION ORGANIZING AND COLLECTIVE BARGAINING

Unions and collective bargaining are essential tools for growing and sustaining a stronger, more inclusive middle class. 16 million workers in the United States are union members or are in a job that provides them union representation. More than six in ten of those individuals are women and/or people of color. Union workers earn roughly 13% more than non-union workers on a similar job site. They also experience drastically lower rates of labor standards violations, like employers engaging in wage theft or failing to meet safety and health requirements.

But today, union members make up just 10.5% of the American workforce. That’s down from 35% in the 1950s. It is no coincidence that this decline has occurred at the same time as rising income inequality. When workers are blocked from organizing and engaging in collective bargaining, stagnant wages and a declining middle class are the predictable result.

Joe Biden believes the federal government should not only defend workers’ right to organize and bargain collectively, but also encourage collective bargaining. That’s the mission put forward by the National Labor Relations Act, signed into law in 1935, which states that “encouraging the practice and procedure of collective bargaining” is part of the “policy of the United States.”

Toward that end, President Biden will:

• Make it easier for workers who choose to unionize to do so. Today, workers face an uphill battle of anti-union intimidation and intense employer opposition when trying to organize a union. And, too many employers are able to “run out the clock” on negotiating an initial collective bargaining agreement. Biden strongly supports the provisions of the PRO Act that address union organizing, as well as additional aggressive remedies that will:
• ban employers’ mandatory meetings with their employees, including captive audience meetings in which employees are forced to listen to anti-union rhetoric;
• reinstate and codify into law the Obama-Biden Administration’s “persuader rule” requiring employers to report not only information communicated to employees, but also the activities of third-party consultants who work behind the scenes to manage employers’ anti-union campaigns;
• codify into law the Obama-Biden era’s NLRB rules allowing for shortened timelines of union election campaigns; and
• stop employers from stalling initial negotiations with newly formed unions.

A co-sponsor of the original Employee Free Choice Act, Biden supports workers choosing to form a union if a majority signs authorization cards empowering a union to represent them. He will go beyond the PRO Act by allowing workers to use this process, called “card check,” as an initial option for forming a union, not merely an option granted when the employer has illegally interfered in the election process.

• Provide a federal guarantee for public sector employees to bargain for better pay and benefits and the working conditions they deserve. Public sector unions provide the voice that workers – including educators, social workers, firefighters, and police officers – need to ensure they can serve their communities. And, public sector unions have been and continue to be an essential pathway to the middle class for workers of color and women, who disproportionately work in the public sector. Yet, in many states across the country, public sector workers do not have the right to bargain collectively. In states such as Iowa, Wisconsin, Florida, Michigan, and Indiana, these rights are increasingly under attack. As president, Biden will establish a federal right to union organizing and collective bargaining for all public sector employees, and make it easier for those employees who serve our communities to both join a union and bargain. He will do so by fighting for and signing into law the Public Safety Employer Employee Cooperation Act and Public Service Freedom to Negotiate Act. He will work to ensure public sector workers, including public school educators, have a greater voice in the decisions that impact their students and their working conditions. He will also strongly encourage states to pursue expanded bargaining rights for state licensed and contracted workers, including child care workers and home health care workers. And, he will look for federal solutions that will protect these workers’ rights to organize and bargain collectively. Finally, he will reinstate the Obama-Biden rule, which the Trump Administration has since reversed, making it easier for independent-provider home care workers to join a union.
• Ban state laws prohibiting unions from collecting dues or comparable payments from all workers who benefit from union representation that unions are legally obligated to provide. Currently more than half of all states have in place these so-called “right to work” laws, which in fact deprive workers of their rights. These laws exist only to deprive unions of the financial support they need to fight for higher wages and better benefits. As president, Biden will repeal the Taft-Hartley provisions that allow states to impose “right to work” laws.
• Create a cabinet-level working group that will solely focus on promoting union organizing and collective bargaining in the public and private sectors. As president, Biden will create a cabinet-level working group that includes representatives from labor. In the first 100 days of the Administration, the working group will deliver a plan to dramatically increase union density and address economic inequality. The group will consider whether there are very specific areas where the federal government could waive preemption of the National Labor Relations Act to allow cities and states to pursue innovative ways to increase union organizing and collective bargaining without undermining current workers protections, like allowing for neutrality agreements and card check. The group will also be tasked with working with unions and trade associations to further explore the expansion of sectoral bargaining, where all competitors in an industry are engaged in collective bargaining with a single or multiple unions.
• Ensure workers can bargain with the employer that actually holds the power, including franchisors, and ensure those employers are accountable for guaranteeing workplace protections. During the Obama-Biden Administration, the NLRB issued the landmark Browning-Ferris Industries decision. If allowed to stand, this decision would allow unions to collectively bargain with the employer that actually controls their wages, benefits and working conditions — which is often not the staffing agency or the franchisee, but a large corporation or franchisor like McDonald’s. The Trump Administration and Trump’s handpicked NLRB majority proposed reversing this decision. As president, Biden will enact legislation codifying the Browning-Ferris Industries joint employer definition into law, as called for in the PRO Act, and restoring the broad definition of joint employment to wage and hour law.
• Ensure that workers can exercise their right to strike without fear of reprisal. The right of workers to withhold their labor, or to strike, is fundamental to balancing power in the workplace. But too many workers risk reprisal, punishment, or termination when they seek to bring pressure on employers by participating in strikes, picket lines, and boycotts. Low wage workers face especially high barriers to exercising their right to strike. They often have too few resources to sustain long strikes, and instead require short, periodic strikes, or “intermittent strikes,” to be able to bring pressure to their employer. Under current law, these types of strikes are not sufficiently protected. And, because low-wage workers often do not have specialized skills, they are more often “permanently replaced” – or functionally fired – while striking. Workers are also often limited in the pressure they can exert on employers because of restrictions on boycotting “secondary” businesses that have influence over their employer. These secondary boycotts are essential for promoting workers’ voice. For example, after tomato growers unsuccessfully led strikes of their employer at the turn of the century, they successfully boycotted Taco Bell and other fast-food giants who bought the tomatoes to gain better wages and working conditions. Biden has supported secondary boycotts since he entered public service, and has long supported banning “permanent replacement” of workers. As president, Biden will fight for passage of the PRO Act to protect intermittent strikes, ban permanent strike replacements, and remove the ill-conceived ban on secondary boycotts once and for all.
• Empower the National Labor Relations Board to fulfill its intended purpose of protecting workers. Congress created the National Labor Relations Board (NLRB) to encourage union organizing, support collective bargaining, and protect workers’ rights. The Obama-Biden Administration appointed officials to the NLRB who supported workers’ right to organize and collective bargain, and made critically important decisions such as ensuring that workers could organize in micro-units. Trump has undermined this progress and the intent of the NLRB by appointing board members with long histories of anti-union activities. As president, Biden will appoint members to the NLRB who will protect, rather than sabotage, worker organizing, collective bargaining, and workers’ rights to engage in concerted activity whether or not they belong to a union.
• Reinstate and expand protections for federal employees. The federal government should serve as a role model for employers to treat their workers fairly. Yet, Trump has gutted the ability of federal employees to collectively bargain, stripped them of their union representation, and made it easier to fire federal employees without “just cause.” On Biden’s first day in office, he will restore federal employees’ rights to organize and bargain collectively, and will direct his agencies to bargain with federal employee unions over non-mandatory subjects of bargaining.
• Expand long overdue rights to farmworkers and domestic workers. When Congress extended labor rights and protections to workers, farmworkers and domestic workers – who are disproportionately immigrants and people of color – were left out. Still today, millions of these workers are not fully protected under federal labor law. As president, Biden will support legislation, including the Fairness for Farmworkers Act and Domestic Workers’ Bill of Rights, that expands federal protections to agricultural and domestic workers, ensuring that they too have the right to basic workplace protections and to organize and collectively bargain. And, through the Domestic Workers’ Bill of Rights, Biden will ensure domestic workers have a voice in the workplace through a wage and standards board.
• Extend the right to organize and bargain collectively to independent contractors. Some workers are correctly classified as independent contractors, but are not very different from employees. They bring only their labor, and perhaps a small amount of capital investment, to the organization with which they do business. These workers lack individual bargaining power and, as a result, are at grave risk of exploitation by big business. Biden supports modifying antitrust law and guaranteeing that these independent contractors can organize and bargain collectively for their mutual protection and benefit. 

ENSURE THAT ALL WORKERS ARE TREATED WITH DIGNITY AND RECEIVE THE PAY, BENEFITS, AND WORKPLACE PROTECTIONS THEY DESERVE

During the Great Depression, Franklin Delano Roosevelt ushered in labor protections and established the safety net for a reason. The excesses of business threatened the very fabric of our community in the Roaring Twenties, as children slaved away in factories and workers labored for poverty wages. Basic protections like the minimum wage and overtime pay allowed workers to earn their fair share.

But it has been far too long since we have increased those standards. Today’s corporate culture treats workers as a means to an end and institutes policies to suppress wages.

As president, Biden will ensure that workers receive the pay and dignity they deserve. He will:

• Increase the federal minimum wage to $15. As Vice President, Biden helped get state and local laws increasing the minimum wage across the finish line – including in New York State – and has supported eliminating the tipped minimum wage. He firmly believes all Americans are owed a raise, and it’s well past time we increase the federal minimum wage to $15 across the country. This increase would include workers who aren’t currently earning the minimum wage, like the farmworkers who grow our food and domestic workers who care for our aging and sick and for those with disabilities. As president, Biden will also support indexing the minimum wage to the median hourly wage so that low-wage workers’ wages keep up with those of middle income workers. 
• Invest in communities by widely applying and strictly enforcing prevailing wages. The prevailing wage, or the wage earned by the median worker in the same occupation in the same region, is an essential mechanism for securing middle class jobs. Taxpayer dollars should always be used to build the middle class, not to foster wage-cutting competition among employers in the construction or service industries. When President Obama put Vice President Biden in charge of the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act (ARRA), Biden made sure that Davis-Bacon Act and Service Contract Act standards were strictly enforced, requiring that the prevailing wage be paid to construction workers and service workers on all projects funded by ARRA. As president, Biden will build on this success by ensuring that every federal investment in infrastructure and transportation projects or service jobs is covered by prevailing wage protections.
• Stop employers from denying workers overtime pay they’ve earned. The Obama-Biden Administration fought to extend overtime pay to over 4 million workers  and protect nearly 9 million from losing it. The Trump Administration reversed this progress, implementing a new rule that leaves millions of workers behind. Since Trump walked away from protecting these middle-class workers, they have lost over $2.2 billion in foregone overtime wages. As president, Biden will ensure workers are paid fairly for the long hours they work and get the overtime they have earned.
• Ensure workers in the “gig economy” and beyond receive the legal benefits and protections they deserve. Employer misclassification of “gig economy” workers as independent contractors deprives these workers of legally mandated benefits and protections. Employers in construction, service industries, and other industries also misclassify millions of their employees as independent contractors to reduce their labor costs at the expense of these workers. This epidemic of misclassification is made possible by ambiguous legal tests that give too much discretion to employers, too little protection to workers, and too little direction to government agencies and courts. States like California have already paved the way by adopting a clearer, simpler, and stronger three-prong “ABC test” to distinguish employees from independent contractors. The ABC test will mean many more workers will get the legal protections and benefits they rightfully should receive. As president, Biden will work with Congress to establish a federal standard modeled on the ABC test for all labor, employment, and tax laws.
• Eliminate non-compete clauses and no-poaching agreements that hinder the ability of employees to seek higher wages, better benefits, and working conditions by changing employers. In the American economy, companies compete. Workers should be able to compete, too. But at some point in their careers, 40% of American workers have been subject to non-compete clauses. If workers had the freedom to move to another job, they could expect to earn 5% to 10% more – that’s an additional $2,000 to $4,000 for a worker earning $40,000 each year. These employer-driven barriers to competition are even imposed within the same company’s franchisee networks. For example, large franchisors like Jiffy Lube have no-poaching policies preventing any of their franchisees from hiring workers from another franchisee. As president, Biden will work with Congress to eliminate all non-compete agreements, except the very few that are absolutely necessary to protect a narrowly defined category of trade secrets, and outright ban all no-poaching agreements.
• Put an end to unnecessary occupational licensing requirements. While licensing is important in some occupations to protect consumers, in many occupations licensing does nothing but thwart economic opportunity. If licensed workers choose to move to new states for higher-paying jobs, they often have to get certified all over again. As president, Biden will build on the Obama-Biden Administration’s efforts to incentivize states to reduce unnecessary licensing requirements and to ensure licenses are transferable from one state to the next.
• Increase workplace safety and health. No one should get sick, injured, or die simply because they went to work. Every worker has the right to return home from work safely. But Trump has attempted to weaken several occupational and safety regulations established during the Obama-Biden Administration. For example, he rolled back regulations requiring companies to report their workplace injuries so they are disclosed to the public. He removed the restrictions on line speeds in pork plants, making meatpacking jobs even more dangerous. He reduced the number of Occupational and Safety Health Administration (OSHA) investigators and safety enforcement efforts, despite the fact that OSHA inspections reduce injuries. As president, Biden will reinstate these critical safety protections and ensure all appointments to committees and advisory boards under OSHA intimately understand the consequences of not having functional safety standards in place. He will direct OSHA to substantially expand its enforcement efforts. He will increase the number of investigators in OSHA and the Mine Safety Health and Administration (MSHA). He will also direct OSHA, the U.S. Department of Agriculture, MSHA, and other relevant agencies to develop comprehensive strategies for addressing the most dangerous hazards workers encounter in the modern workplace.
• Ensure workers can have their day in court by ending mandatory arbitration clauses imposed by employers on workers. Sixty million workers have been forced to sign contracts waiving their rights to sue their employer and nearly 25 million have been forced to waive their right to bring class action lawsuits or joint arbitration. These contracts require employees to use individual, private arbitrations when their employer violates federal and state laws. Biden will enact legislation to ban employers from requiring their employees to agree to mandatory individual arbitration and forcing employees to relinquish their right to class action lawsuits or collective litigation, as called for in the PRO Act.
• Expand protections for undocumented immigrants who report labor violations. When undocumented immigrants are victims of serious crimes and help in the investigation of those crimes, they become eligible for U Visas. The Obama-Biden Administration expanded the U Visa program to certain workplace crimes. As president, Biden will further extend these protections to victims of any workplace violations of federal, state, or local labor law by securing passage of the POWER Act. And, a Biden Administration will ensure that workers on temporary visas, including guest teachers, are protected so that they are able to exercise the labor rights to which they are entitled.

THE BIDEN PLAN TO ENSURE THE FUTURE IS “MADE IN ALL OF AMERICA” BY ALL OF AMERICA’S WORKERS

Joe Biden will mobilize the talent, grit, and innovation of the American people and the full power of the federal government to bolster American industrial and technological strength and ensure the future is “made in all of America” by all of America’s workers. Biden believes that American workers can out-compete anyone, but their government needs to fight for them.

Biden does not accept the defeatist view that the forces of automation and globalization render us helpless to retain well-paid union jobs and create more of them here in America. He does not buy for one second that the vitality of U.S. manufacturing is a thing of the past. U.S. manufacturing was the Arsenal of Democracy in World War II, and must be part of the Arsenal of American Prosperity today, helping fuel an economic recovery for working families.

The American story has always been deeply rooted in our ability to reinvent ourselves in the face of new challenges. At key moments in our history, the federal government, private sector, and above all American workers and working families have mobilized to unleash eras of innovation and shared prosperity. This partnership propelled us to the moon, to transformative treatments for HIV/AIDS and other diseases, to the creation of the internet, and more. But President Trump has denied science, under-funded research and development, and implemented policies that encourage more manufacturing to move overseas.

If we make smart investments in manufacturing and technology, give our workers and companies the tools they need to compete, use taxpayer dollars to buy American and spark American innovation, stand up to the Chinese government’s abuses, insist on fair trade, and extend opportunity to all Americans, many of the products that are being made abroad could be made here today. And, if we do these things with an unwavering commitment to bolstering American industrial strength, which we will power using clean energy that we also harvest here at home, we will also lead in making the cutting-edge products and services of tomorrow. Biden will do more than bring back the jobs lost due to COVID-19 and Trump’s incompetence, he will create millions of new manufacturing and innovation jobs throughout all of America.

These will be high-quality, high-skill, safe jobs with the choice to join a union — jobs that will grow a stronger, more inclusive middle class. Biden will include in the economic recovery legislation he sends to Congress a series of policies to build worker power to raise wages and secure stronger benefits. This legislation will make it easier for workers to organize a union and bargain collectively with their employers by including the Protecting the Right to Organize (PRO) Act, card check,  union and bargaining rights for public service workers, and a broad definition of “employee” and tough enforcement to end the misclassification of workers as independent contractors. It will also go further than the PRO Act by holding company executives personally liable when they interfere with organizing efforts.

Donald Trump’s main manufacturing and innovation strategy is trickle-down economics that works for corporate executives and Wall Street investors, but not working families. He gave huge tax cuts to the largest multinationals with no requirement that they invest in the United States or favor U.S. jobs over offshoring. He pursued a trade strategy that prioritizes access for big multinational banks to China’s market but has done next to nothing to curb Chinese government trade abuses that hurt U.S. workers. The results have been predictable:

• The Trump tax cut encouraged offshoring and investment overseas – not in the United States. Foreign investment was outpacing domestic investment.
• In the first 18 months of Trump’s presidency, the rate of federal contractors offshoring jobs more than doubled.
• In 2018, stock buybacks were at record highs and corporate tax payments were at record lows.
• In 2019, U.S. manufacturing was in recession, and Trump’s much vaunted China trade strategy ended up contributing to a decline in American manufacturing exports.

Biden’s comprehensive manufacturing and innovation strategy will marshall the resources of the federal government in ways that we have not seen since World War II. Together, the following six lines of effort will remake American manufacturing and innovation so that the future is made in America by all of America’s workers:

1. BUY AMERICAN. Make “Buy American” Real and Make a $400 billion Procurement Investment that together with the Biden clean energy and infrastructure plan will power new demand for American products, materials, and services and ensure that they are shipped on U.S.-flagged cargo carriers.
2. MAKE IT IN AMERICA. Retool and Revitalize American Manufacturers, with a particular focus on smaller manufacturers and those owned by women and people of color, through specific incentives, additional resources, and new financing tools.
3. INNOVATE IN AMERICA. Make a New $300 Billion Investment in Research and Development (R&D) and Breakthrough Technologies — from electric vehicle technology to lightweight materials to 5G and artificial intelligence — to unleash high-quality job creation in high-value manufacturing and technology.
4. INVEST IN ALL OF AMERICA. Ensure Investments Reach All of America so we draw on the full talents and invest in the potential of all our communities and workers. America is not at full strength when investments, venture capital, educational opportunities and paths to good jobs are limited by race, zip code, gender, gender identity, sexual orientation, disability, religion or national origin. Biden will ensure that the major public investments in his plan — procurement, R&D, infrastructure, training, and education — reach all Americans across all states and regions, including urban and rural communities, with historic investments in communities of color and an emphasis on small businesses.
5. STAND UP FOR AMERICA. Pursue a Pro-American Worker Tax and Trade Strategy to fix the harmful policies of the Trump Administration and give our manufacturers and workers the fair shot they need to compete for jobs and market share.
6. SUPPLY AMERICA. Bring Back Critical Supply Chains to America so we aren’t dependent on China or any other country for the production of critical goods in a crisis.

In addition to bringing back the jobs lost this year, Joe Biden’s plan to ensure the future is made in all of America will help create at least 5 million new jobs in manufacturing and innovation.

BUY AMERICAN:  MAKE “BUY AMERICAN” REAL AND MAKE A HISTORIC PROCUREMENT INVESTMENT IN AMERICAN PRODUCTS, SERVICES,  SUPPLY CHAINS, AND TRANSPORTATION OF GOODS

Biden will use the government’s purchasing power to Buy American, boosting U.S. industries through a historic procurement investment he is announcing today and an ambitious extension of his infrastructure and clean energy plans that he will announce soon.

Make Buy American Real

Biden starts with a pretty basic idea – when we spend taxpayer money, we should buy American products and support American jobs. Almost 90 years ago, Congress passed the Buy American Act to advance this basic idea. But we have never fully lived up to it.

For decades, big corporations and special interests have fought for loopholes that redirect taxpayer dollars to foreign companies. The result: tens of billions of taxpayer dollars each year go to support foreign jobs and to bolster foreign industries. In 2018 alone, the Department of Defense (DOD) spent $3 billion on foreign construction contracts, leaving American steel and iron out in the cold, and nearly $300 million on foreign engines and vehicles instead of buying from American companies and putting Americans to work.

Trump likes to talk about Buy American – but his actions have made matters worse: 

• During the first 18 months of his presidency, the annual rate at which major federal contractors offshored jobs more than doubled.
• On his watch, government contracts awarded directly to foreign companies are up 30%.
• Our military has become more reliant on foreign suppliers, increasing DOD foreign contracts 12%.
• His corporate tax cut is handing taxpayer money to big companies that are still offshoring their production.

Biden will make a national commitment to Buy American – and make this promise real, not just rhetoric. He will:

• Tighten domestic content rules. Today, loopholes in the law allow products to be stamped “made in America” for purposes of federal procurement even if barely 51% of the materials used to produce them are domestically made. Biden will tighten these rules to require more legitimate American content — so when we deem something made in America, it reflects the work and output of American workers.
• Crack down on waivers to Buy American requirements. Too often, Buy American operates like a suggestion, not a requirement. Procurement officers within federal Agencies can waive Buy American rules without explanation or scrutiny. Biden will close these waiver loopholes. First, he will establish a transparent process so that any time a federal contractor requests a waiver based on a claim that something can’t be made in America, it will be published on a website for all potential bidders and relevant stakeholders (like labor unions) to see. Second, he will use expanded Manufacturing Extension Partnerships together with new efforts to identify firms — particularly small businesses and those owned by women and people of color — that have the capability to fill these procurement needs, and provide direct support so that they can raise their hand and have a shot at stepping up to make it here. Biden successfully deployed this approach through the Transportation Department during the Recovery Act, and will extend it to all of government as President.
• End false advertising. Biden will also crack down on companies that label products as Made in America even if they’re coming from China or elsewhere. For example, a company selling deployment bags to active-duty troops falsely claimed its products were Made in America, when in reality they came from China. And when an American competitor filed a complaint with the Federal Trade Commission, the Trump Administration imposed no penalties.
• Extend Buy American to other forms of government assistance. For example, when the government is investing in research and development, it should be supporting manufacturing and sourcing in America. No more “invent it here, make it there.” Taxpayer-funded research investments in the 20th century laid the foundation for MRI technologies, yet some of the companies directly benefiting from these innovations are moving MRI production to China. If companies benefit from taxpayer-funded research that leads to new products and profits, those products should be made in the U.S. or the company should reimburse the government for its support. The days of taxpayer benefits going to companies that seek to outsource jobs or avoid paying their fair share of taxes are over.

• Strengthen and enforce Buy America. Like Buy American, Buy America provisions – which require that all of the steel, iron, and manufactured products used in transportation projects are melted, mined, and manufactured in the U.S. – are critical for the U.S. manufacturing industry. As part of its historic investment in infrastructure, Biden will strengthen and enforce Buy America.
• Update the trade rules for Buy American: Biden will work with allies to modernize international trade rules and associated domestic regulations regarding government procurement to make sure that the U.S. and allies can use their own taxpayer dollars to spur investment in their own countries. 
• Ship American. The U.S.-flag Merchant Marine fleet and the men and women who operate U.S.-flag ships are crucial to America’s national security, our international trade relationships, and economic development. For this reason, Biden has been a consistent and strong advocate for the Jones Act and its mandate that only U.S.-flag vessels carry cargo between U.S. ports. He will take steps to ensure American cargo is carried on U.S.-flag ships, leading to additional demand for American-made ships and U.S. merchant mariners.

Make A Historic Procurement Investment

Ensuring that our existing taxpayer dollars support American jobs is a crucial first step, but to truly rebuild our industrial base, we need to go further – targeting more federal purchases and more R&D investment to unleash American industry and innovation going forward.

In this time of crisis, Biden will invest $400 billion in his first term in additional federal purchases of products made by American workers, with transparent, targeted investments that unleash new demand for domestic goods and services and create American jobs. This will be the largest mobilization of public investments in procurement, infrastructure and R&D since WWII.

History has shown that when the government commits to make significant purchases in targeted, tradable sectors, it positions U.S. manufacturers to create good American jobs by supplying our own communities and selling more products to the rest of the world. But outside the context of war, we have not historically used our federal purchasing power to aggressively promote U.S. national interests.

…

JOE BIDEN’S PROPOSALS TO SET UP SUPPORT FOR DESERVING SMALL BUSINESSES

Here’s what Joe Biden thinks we should do:

1. Establish a True Small Business Fund: Congressional Democrats secured a set-aside of $60 billion in funds for smaller lenders and community-based financial institutions, which are frequently best positioned to get resources into the hands of deserving small businesses in vulnerable communities.  Joe Biden is calling on the Trump administration to go even further as it implements the PPP.  The Trump administration should reserve fully half of all the new PPP funds for small businesses with 50 employees or less, so the bigger and more sophisticated aren’t able to win in a first-come, first-served race. We should make sure we serve the mom-and-pop shops — beauty salons, barbershops, diners, local auto body shops. Back on April 3, Joe Biden asked the administration to “produce a weekly dashboard to show which small businesses are accessing loans – to make sure that the program isn’t leaving out communities, minority- and women-owned businesses, or the smallest businesses.” They have not done so. It is unacceptable to have a small-business program that is leaving minority business owners out in the cold, or that firms with fewer than 20 employees received only about 20% of the money – even though they make up about one third of payroll. Small non-profits—including churches, mosques, and synagogues— should also be eligible for this fund. The Trump administration can do this if it makes it a priority.  The country will be watching.
2. No Unjust Enrichment: Keep Well-Off Business Owners from Using Any Program to Unjustly Enrich Themselves: Our emergency programs should be designed to keep small business owners and their workers whole during the crisis – not to make well-off business owners better off than they would be with no crisis. Unfortunately, there is a very real risk of high-paid business owners suffering little revenue harm seeking to have loans forgiven that are for more than the losses they have suffered. This is just wrong. Joe Biden would expedite loans with less unnecessary paperwork to hard-hit businesses, and never punish firms or banks for good-faith mistakes. But Biden would also make clear that no business owner should be receiving more than their lost revenue – and that there should be heightened scrutiny of certain types of small businesses – consulting, accounting, legal, tax advice, hedge funds – and where owners and executives are making above $500,000.  He is calling on the Trump administration to embrace this approach in implementing the next round of funding.
3. Make Sure That the Program’s Terms Actually Help Small Businesses. Joe Biden would also support further rule changes to the PPP that would ensure deserving small businesses get all the help they need for as long as they need, including:

• Providing a guarantee that every qualifying small business will get relief, rather than capping the fund in a way that forces small firms to compete against one another.
• Authorizing more generous loans that allow for small businesses in need to both keep workers on payroll and cover fixed costs for the duration of the crisis. It’s no use paying for payroll if a small business can’t keep the lights on.
• Extending the eight-week limitation so that payroll forgiveness continues for the duration of the crisis (in early April, Biden called upon the administration to “immediately re-engage Congress to allow for small business loans that can keep people on the payroll for far longer than eight weeks”), and there should be flexibility to allow businesses to decide when the covered period begins.
• Establishing look-back audit mechanisms to police against abuse based on a review of net business income.

Join Rural Americans for Biden

Education

Biden Plan for K-12 Education

At a forum with teachers in Houston, Texas, Vice President Biden is outlining a plan that 1) provides educators the support and respect they need and deserve, and 2) invests in all children from birth, so that regardless of their zip code, parents’ income, race, or disability, they are prepared to succeed in tomorrow’s economy.

As president, Biden will:

Support our educators by giving them the pay and dignity they deserve.
Invest in resources for our schools so students grow into physically and emotionally healthy adults, and educators can focus on teaching.
Ensure that no child’s future is determined by their zip code, parents’ income, race, or disability.
Provide every middle and high school student a path to a successful career.
Start investing in our children at birth.
Providing Educators the Support and Respect They Need and Deserve
Educators deserve a partner in the White House. With President Joe Biden and First Lady Jill Biden, they’ll get two. Dr. Biden has worked as an educator for more than 30 years. She and Joe understand that, for educators, their profession isn’t just what they do; it is who they are.

Educators – teachers, teachers’ aides, and everyone who supports our kids at school, from the bus drivers to the secretaries to the school nurses – answer a call to service. They help our children learn and grow into successful adults. For so many young people, knowing they have a teacher and school community believing in and fighting for them can make all the difference.

But while educating is rewarding, it is also challenging. Many educators across the country are experiencing stagnant wages, slashed benefits, growing class sizes, and fewer resources for their students. Too many teachers have to work second jobs to make ends meet for their families. And, far too often, teachers and school personnel have to take on additional responsibilities that go far beyond the classroom. Educators end up spending their own money on school supplies, mentoring and coaching new teachers, trying to fill in as social workers, and so much more. Teachers should be supported with resources and shouldn’t have to take on all of these responsibilities on their own.

Over the last year we have witnessed educators around the country – in states from West Virginia to Arizona to Kentucky – heroically organize walk-outs and other actions to stand up not just for their own wages and benefits, but also for the resources they need to serve their students. Educators shouldn’t have to fight so hard for resources and respect.

President Biden will support our educators by giving them the pay and dignity they deserve.

Make sure teachers receive a competitive wage and benefits. In 2018, public school teachers made 21.4 percent less than workers with similar education and experience. And public school teachers’ average weekly wage hasn’t increased since 1996. Teachers and school personnel do some of the most important and hardest work, but too often they aren’t rewarded. As President, Biden will correct this wrong. Biden will triple funding for Title I, the federal program funding schools with a high percentage of students from low-income families, and require districts to use these funds to offer educators competitive salaries and make other critical investments prior to directing the funds to other purposes. Dramatically increasing Title I funding in order to give teachers a raise will allow school districts and educators to decide what the biggest need is for their communities instead of using a one-size-fits-all approach. And, it will ensure that states which have been treating their teachers fairly but still have unmet needs for Title I schools can benefit from these funds.
Invest in teacher mentoring, leadership, and additional education. We need more opportunities for highly effective teachers to remain in the classroom and advance in their careers. The Biden Administration will help school districts create opportunities for teachers to lead beyond the classroom. Teachers will be able to serve as mentors and coaches to other teachers and as leaders of professional learning communities, and will be compensated for that additional work they take on. These funds will also be used to help teachers who choose to earn an additional certification in a high-demand area – like special education or bilingual education – while they are still teaching do so without accumulating debt.
Help teachers and other educators pay off their student loans. Teachers shouldn’t have to worry about how they are going to make their student loan payments while they are busy educating the next generation. Biden will see to it that the existing Public Service Loan Forgiveness Program is fixed, simplified, and actually helps teachers.
President Biden will invest in resources for our schools so students grow into physically and emotionally healthy adults, and educators can focus on teaching.

Double the number of psychologists, guidance counselors, nurses, social workers, and other health professionals in our schools so our kids get the mental health care they need. One in five children in the U.S. experience mental health problems. Yet, too many of our children are not getting the mental health care they need from a trained professional. We need mental health professionals in our schools to help provide quality mental health care, but we don’t have nearly enough. The current school psychologist to student ratio in this country is roughly 1,400 to 1, while experts say it should be at most 700 to 1. That’s a gap of about 35,000 to 60,000 school psychologists. Teachers too often end up having to fill the gap, taking away from their time focusing on teaching. President Biden will make an unprecedented investment in school mental health professionals in order to double the number of psychologists, guidance counselors, nurses, social workers, and other health professionals employed in our schools, and partner with colleges to expand the pipeline of these professionals.
Bring needed support for students and parents into our public schools. When parents are working hard to make ends meet, it can be difficult if not impossible for them to navigate various family needs like after-school care, health and social services, and adult education courses. When students are habitually sick because they don’t have access to preventive care, or can’t see the board at the front of the room because they haven’t been to the eye doctor, learning becomes exponentially more difficult. But in many neighborhoods, educators, parents, and community members have come up with a solution: community schools. Community schools work with families, students, teachers and community organizations to identify families’ unmet needs and then develop a plan to leverage community resources to address these needs in the school building, turning schools into community hubs. Biden will expand this model, providing this wraparound support for an additional 300,000 students and their families.
Make sure teachers and students can work and learn in safe and healthy environments. Public school facilities received a grade of D+ from the American Society of Civil Engineers. In fact, each year the U.S. underfunds school infrastructure by $46 billion, resulting in thousands of schools that are outdated, unsafe, unfit, and – in some cases – making kids and educators sick. President Biden will include in federal infrastructure legislation funding specifically for improving public school buildings. First and foremost, these funds will be used to address health risks. Additional funds will be used to build cutting-edge, energy-efficient, innovative schools with technology and labs to prepare our students for the jobs of the future.
Defeat the National Rifle Association – again – in order to make our schools safer. Parents shouldn’t have to worry about whether their kids will come home from school, and students shouldn’t have to sacrifice themselves for their friends days before graduation. We cannot let gun violence become an acceptable part of American life. Biden knows that arming teachers isn’t the answer; instead, we need rational gun laws. As President, he will secure passage of gun legislation to make our students safer, and he knows he can do it because he’s defeated the National Rifle Association twice before. He’ll begin by again championing legislation to ban assault weapons and high-capacity magazines – bans he authored in 1994. In the months ahead, he will release additional proposals to address the gun violence epidemic in our country.

JOE BIDEN’S ROADMAP TO REOPENING SCHOOLS SAFELY

Educators, students, and families have done an incredible job in difficult circumstances during this pandemic. Everyone wants schools to fully reopen for in-person instruction. Creating the conditions to make it happen should be a top national priority. Joe Biden believes that the decision about when to reopen safely should be made by state, tribal, and local officials, based on science and in consultation with communities and tribal governments. It should be made with the safety of students and educators in mind. And, it should be made recognizing that if we do this wrong, we will put lives at risk and set our economy and our country back.

The challenge facing our schools is unprecedented. President Trump has made it much worse. We had a window to get this right. And, Trump blew it. His administration failed to heed the experts and take the steps required to reduce infections in our communities. As a result, cases have exploded. Now our window before the new school year is closing rapidly, and we are forced to grapple with reopening our schools in an environment of much greater risk to educators, students, and their families than there would have been if America had competent leadership.

Over a month ago, Biden identified key steps that Donald Trump needed to take to reopen our schools safely. Trump has taken none of them. In fact, he’s done the opposite. He has threatened to force schools to reopen for in-person instruction without the basic resources they need to keep students, educators, and communities safe. If Trump had actually done his job as President, the decisions facing our schools would look fundamentally different.

Joe Biden has a simple five-step roadmap to support local decision-making on reopening schools safely and to help students whose learning was interrupted:

Get the Virus Under Control: Months into this crisis, infection rates are spiking across the country, personal protective equipment (PPE) is still in short supply, and hospitalizations and deaths are unacceptably high. We have only weeks to go before the school year begins, and we have no plan, no leadership, and no additional resources to fight this crisis. We do not have sufficient testing, adequate contact tracing, or reliable supply chains. It is outrageous that Trump forced educators, parents, and caregivers into this situation. If we want to reopen schools safely, we need to get cases down in states and communities across America. Now. That means mask wearing and appropriate social distancing guidelines that match the virus trajectory in a community. In addition, Biden has laid out comprehensive plans on March 12, April 27, and June 11, among others, to:

• Implement nationwide testing-and-tracing, including doubling the number of drive-through testing sites;
• Establish a sustainable supply chain for PPE, including fully utilizing the Defense Production Act to ensure enough masks for every school in America every day;
• Protect older Americans and others at high risk;
• Provide small businesses with the resources they need to reopen safely.

Set National Safety Guidelines, Empower Local Decision-Making: The Trump Administration’s chaotic and politicized response has left school districts to improvise a thousand hard decisions on their own. Schools need clear, consistent, effective national guidelines, not mixed messages and political ultimatums. Biden would task the U.S. Centers for Disease Control  and other federal agencies with establishing basic, objective criteria to guide state, tribal, and local officials in deciding if and how reopening can be managed safely in their communities, including:

• Decisions on reopening have been tied to the level of risk and degree of viral spread in the community. Biden agrees with the American Academy of Pediatrics, the American Federation of Teachers, the National Education Association, and AASA, the School Superintendents Association, that “schools in areas with high levels of COVID-19 community spread should not be compelled to reopen against the judgement of local experts.”
• Emergency funding needs have been met so that schools have the resources to reconfigure classrooms, kitchens, and other spaces, improve ventilation, and take other necessary steps to make it easier to physically distance and minimize risk of spread.
• Schools have taken necessary precautions to foster a culture of health and safety and protect educators and students, including reducing class size, limiting large gatherings, and providing safe environments for eating.
• Schools have ready access to enough masks and other PPE for every student and educator every day, if they need it.
• Reasonable accommodations have been made for at-risk educators and students, in collaboration with educators, their unions, parents, and caregivers.
• State and local officials have shared a plan for regularly communicating about school decisions and resources with parents, caregivers, educators, and the community.
• The federal government has issued reopening guidelines, free from political interference, in greater detail to answer basic questions that schools have, including: How low does the community infection rate need to be to reopen and at what point should schools shut down again if cases rise? What are safe maximum class sizes? If schools cannot accommodate everyone, who should return to the classroom first? The current lack of clarity is paralyzing for schools.

Provide Emergency Funding for Public Schools and Child Care Providers: Schools

urgently need emergency financial support, but what they have gotten from Trump is bluster and bullying and, worse, threats to further slash their funding. As a result of Trump’s failure to lead, states could face drastic budget shortfalls totalling $555 billion over state fiscal years of 2020-2022. Left unaddressed, these shortfalls could result in significant layoffs. According to one analysis, just a conservative 5% decrease in state education funding would result in the loss of almost 28,000 school positions, including teachers, counselors, social workers, and school psychologists.

As President, Biden will always put our children, educators, and families first. He believes public schools, especially Title I schools – should have all the resources they need to safely return to in-person instruction and support all students. Biden is:

• Calling on Trump and Senate Republicans to pass the education funding in the HEROES Act, which the House passed months ago. This bill includes roughly $58 billion for local school districts to stabilize public education and save jobs. Over four months ago, Biden called for a renewable fund for state, tribal, and local governments to help prevent budget shortfalls and protect that relief from exactly the kind of political brinkmanship we are seeing from Trump and Republicans leaders today. It is past time to get it done.
• Calling on the Congress to pass a separate emergency package to ensure schools have the additional resources they need to adapt effectively to COVID-19. School officials estimate that districts will need about $30 billion to put in place the changes needed to reopen safely. This package should include funding for child care providers and public schools — particularly Title I schools and Indian schools — for personal protective equipment; public health and sanitation products; custodial and health services; and alterations to building ventilation systems, classrooms, schedules, class size, and transportation. And, an additional roughly $4 billion is needed to upgrade technology and broadband. Biden has previously announced that, as President, he will ensure schools have the resources to double the number of psychologists, counselors, nurses, social workers, and other health professionals in schools so our kids get the mental health care they need. That’s more important now than ever before, as kids grapple with the stress and trauma of our economic and public health crisis.

Ensuring High-Quality Learning during the COVID-19 Pandemic: We are continuing to learn how to best support students, educators, and their families through this challenging time. Biden would mobilize a large-scale U.S. Department of Education effort to work with practitioners to develop, adopt, and share the latest tools and best practices to ensure high-quality learning during this pandemic. This effort would include:

• Delivering high-quality remote and hybrid learning with a special emphasis on students with disabilities, English-language learners, and students who do not have access to specific technology, such as broadband and devices. This includes dedicated time and resources for our educators to pursue professional development opportunities tailored to the unique circumstances of this crisis.
• Creating a Safer Schools Best Practices Clearinghouse to help schools and child care providers across the country and around the world share approaches, protocols, and tools for reopening safely.
• Providing tools and resources for parents and other caregivers to help them make informed decisions on sending their children to school, help their children cope with the stress of this pandemic, and assist them with their children’s remote learning.
• Ensuring tailored remote teaching assignments and educational plans for educators and students who are at greater risk to COVID-19 or live with a family member who is.
• Working with the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and the National Institutes of Health to share with educators and families evolving scientific insights into how COVID-19 affects children. Biden has called for scaling up COVID-19 pediatric research partnerships to address glaring gaps in our knowledge.

Closing the COVID-19 Educational Equity Gap: Despite the best efforts of educators, students, and families, this crisis, coupled with long-standing racial inequities, has led many students, especially low-income students and students of color, to struggle and fall behind. New research shows that some students could even lose an entire year of academic gains. As President, Biden would:

• Direct a White House-led initiative to identify evidence-based policy solutions that address gaps in learning, mental health, social and emotional well-being, and systemic racial and socioeconomic disparities in education that the pandemic has exacerbated. Biden would invite participation from a dedicated group of health experts, including mental health professionals and neuroscientists; educators, including early educators, and their unions; school technology practitioners and experts; civil rights advocates; Indian education experts; foundations and the private sector; and families, students, and community advocates. Biden would request its recommendations on an accelerated time frame in order to provide guidance to states, tribal, and local governments as quickly as possible.
• Launch a COVID-19 Educational Equity Gap Challenge Grant to encourage states and tribal governments – in partnership with the education and broader community – to develop bold plans that adopt evidence-based policy recommendations and give all of our students the support they need to succeed.
• Support community schools. Community schools work with families, students, teachers and community organizations to identify families’ unmet needs and then develop a plan to leverage community resources to address these needs in the school building, turning schools into community hubs. They provide holistic services like health and nutrition, mental health, and adult education– services that are especially critical during and after COVID-19 to address the social, emotional, academic, and health needs of students in a comprehensive way. Biden will provide resources to expand this model.

THE BIDEN PLAN FOR EDUCATION BEYOND HIGH SCHOOL

Joe Biden is running for president to rebuild the backbone of the United States – the middle class – and this time make sure everyone has a chance to come along. In today’s increasingly globalized and technology-driven economy, 12 years of education is no longer enough for American workers to remain competitive and earn a middle class income. Roughly 6 in 10 jobs require some education beyond a high school diploma. And, because technology continues to change, American workers – whether they have an industry-recognized credential, an associate’s degree, a bachelor’s degree, or a PhD – will need opportunities to continue to learn and grow their skills for career success and increased wages in the 21st century economy.

But for too many, earning a degree or other credential after high school is unaffordable today. For others, their education saddles them with so much debt it prevents them from buying a home or saving for retirement, or their parents or grandparents take on some of the financial burden.

Biden is proposing a bold plan for education and training beyond high school that will give hard-working Americans the chance to join or maintain their place in the middle class, regardless of their parents’ income or the color of their skin. President Biden will:

• Invest in community colleges and training to improve student success and grow a stronger, more prosperous, and more inclusive middle class.
• Strengthen college as the reliable pathway to the middle class, not an investment that provides limited returns and leaves graduates with mountains of debt they can’t afford.
• Support colleges and universities that play unique and vital roles in their communities, including Historically Black Colleges and Universities and Minority-Serving Institutions.

All of these proposals will be implemented in partnership with states as well as school faculty and staff. Educators must play a key role in decisions affecting teaching and learning.

Of course, increasing the quality and affordability of post-secondary education system alone is not enough to make sure our middle class succeeds. This plan builds on Vice President Biden’s comprehensive plan to invest in our children’s education from birth through 12th grade. And, in the months ahead, Biden will also outline in further detail his proposals to make sure there are quality jobs ready for our workers.

INVEST IN COMMUNITY COLLEGES AND TRAINING TO IMPROVE STUDENT SUCCESS AND GROW A STRONGER, MORE PROSPEROUS, AND MORE INCLUSIVE MIDDLE CLASS

Dr. Jill Biden, a current community college professor, refers to community colleges as America’s best kept secret. They are a proven, high-quality tool for providing hard-working Americans access to education and skills and a pathway to the middle class. In fact, today in the United States there are an estimated 30 million quality jobs, with an average salary of $55,000, that don’t require a bachelor’s degree. Every year, millions of Americans attend community colleges to get the credentials they need to obtain these jobs. And, community colleges offer affordable, quality ways for students to complete the first two years of a four-year degree.

Part of what makes community colleges so extraordinary is that, working with limited resources, they have figured out how to provide a high-quality, cost-effective education to students often juggling additional responsibilities, such as jobs or child care. But as a country, we haven’t invested enough in making sure community colleges can reach all the Americans who could benefit from their programs, or improve their quality and completion rates.

The Biden Administration will build on community colleges’ success and unleash their full potential to grow a stronger, more inclusive middle class by:

• Providing two years of community college or other high-quality training program without debt for any hard-working individual looking to learn and improve their skills to keep up with the changing nature of work. In 2015, President Obama and Vice President Biden proposed to make two years of community college tuition-free for hard-working students. Since then, Vice President Biden and Dr. Biden have championed progress toward this goal, and hundreds of state and local College Promise programs have expanded access to free two-year or four-year college educations. As president, Biden will build on this progress by enacting legislation to ensure that every hard-working individual, including those attending school part-time and DREAMers (young adults who came to U.S. as children), can go to community college for up to two years without having to pay tuition. Individuals will also be able to use these funds to pursue training programs that have a track record of participants completing their programs and securing good jobs. Importantly, this initiative will not just be for recent high school graduates; it will also be available to adults who never had the chance to pursue additional education beyond high school or who need to learn new skills. And, students who do want a bachelor’s degree could then transfer to a four-year school, including to Historically Black Colleges and Universities and Minority-Serving Institutions that play vital roles in their communities. This plan will be a federal-state partnership, with the federal government covering 75% of the cost and states contributing the remaining obligation. The federal government will cover up to 95% of the cost for Indian Tribes operating community colleges serving low-income students.
• Creating a new grant program to assist community colleges in improving their students’ success. The Biden Administration will support community colleges implementing evidence-based practices and innovative solutions to increase their students’ retention and completion of credentials. Reforms could include academic and career advising services; dual enrollment; credit articulation agreements; investing in wages, benefits, and professional development to recruit and retain faculty, including teacher residencies; and improvements to remediation programs. The Biden plan will also help community colleges around the country scale successful programs to help a larger number of students.
• Tackling the barriers that prevent students from completing their community college degree or training credential. There are too many Americans who don’t complete their education or training programs not because of a lack of will, but because of other responsibilities they are juggling, such as a job to pay their bills or caring for children. Often these students and their families also face housing and food insecurity. The Biden Administration’s community college initiative will be a first-dollar program, meaning that students will be able to use their Pell grants, state aid, and other aid to help them cover expenses beyond tuition and fees. In addition, the Biden plan will give states financial incentives to foster collaboration between community colleges and community-based organizations to provide wraparound support services for students, especially veterans, single parents, low-income students, students of color, and students with disabilities who may face unique challenges. Wraparound support services can range from public benefits and additional financial aid to cover textbook and transportation costs that often keep students from staying enrolled, to child care and mental health services, faculty mentoring, tutoring, and peer support groups. And, Biden will establish a federal grant program to help community colleges create emergency grant programs for students who experience an unexpected financial challenge that threatens their ability to stay enrolled.
• Make a $50 billion investment in workforce training, including community-college business partnerships and apprenticeships. In 2014, President Obama asked Vice President Biden to develop a national strategy for reforming our nation’s workforce training programs designed to prepare “ready-to-work Americans with ready-to-be-filled jobs.” Building on the successful models championed through that initiative, President Biden will make an investment of $50 billion in high-quality training programs. These funds will create and support partnerships between community colleges, businesses, unions, state, local, and tribal governments, universities, and high schools to identify in-demand knowledge and skills in a community and develop or modernize training programs – which could be as short as a few months or as long as two years – that lead to a relevant, high-demand industry-recognized credential. These funds will also exponentially increase the number of apprenticeships in this country through strengthening the Registered Apprenticeship Program and partnering with unions who oversee some of the best apprenticeship programs throughout our nation, not watering down the quality of the apprenticeship system like President Trump is proposing.
• Invest in community college facilities and technology. Biden will invest $8 billion to help community colleges improve the health and safety of their facilities, and equip their schools with new technology that will empower their students to succeed in the 21st century.

STRENGTHEN COLLEGE AS A RELIABLE PATHWAY TO THE MIDDLE CLASS

Updated March 31, 2020

We have a student debt crisis in this country, with roughly more than 44 million American individuals now holding a total of $1.5 trillion in student loans. One in five adults who hold student loans are behind on payments, a disproportionate number of whom are black. Thus, student debt both exacerbates and results from the racial wealth gap.

This challenge is also intergenerational. Almost one in ten Americans in their 40s and 50s still hold student loan debt. But, college debt has especially impacted Millennials who pursued educational opportunities during the height of the Great Recession and now struggle to pay down their student loans instead of buying a house, opening their own business, or setting money aside for retirement.

There are several drivers of this problem. The cost of higher education has skyrocketed, roughly doubling since the mid-1990s. States have dramatically decreased investments in higher education, leaving students and their families with the bill. And, too often individuals have been swindled into paying for credentials that don’t provide value to graduates in the job market. As president, Biden will address all of these challenges.

Biden’s plan to make two years of community college without debt will immediately offer individuals a way to become work-ready with a two-year degree or an industry certification. It will also halve their tuition costs for obtaining a four-year degree, by earning an associate’s degree and then transferring those credits to a four-year college or university. And, as a federal-state partnership, it will ensure states both invest in community colleges and give states some flexibility to also invest in college readiness or affordability at four-year institutions. In addition, President Biden will:

• Make public colleges and universities tuition-free for all families with incomes below $125,000. Biden has long said that when it comes to public education in America, we’re starting too late and ending too soon — and that if we were building the public education system in America today it would extend from pre-k, starting with 3 and 4 year olds through ensuring 16 years of education is affordable. Biden has added to his education beyond high school agenda by adopting Senator Sanders’ proposal to make public colleges and universities tuition-free for all students whose family incomes are below $125,000. This proposal, part of Senator Sanders and Congresswoman Pramila Jayapal’s College for All Act of 2017, will help roughly 8 out of every 10 families. 
• Target additional financial support to low-income and middle-class individuals by doubling the maximum value of Pell grants, significantly increasing the number of middle-class Americans who can participate in the program. Pell grants help 7 million students a year afford college, but they have not kept up with the rising cost of college. In the 1970s, Pell grants covered roughly 70 to 80 percent of the cost of a four-year degree at a public institution; today, that percentage has been cut in more than half, to roughly 30 percent. Biden will double the maximum value of the Pell grant, a level of investment experts say is necessary to close the gap between the rich and poor so that everyone has the opportunity to receive an education beyond high school, and will automatically increase the value based on inflation. Doubling the maximum value of Pell grants will increase the grant value for individuals already eligible for Pell and, given the program’s formula for determining eligibility, expand the benefits of Pell to more middle class Americans. As president, Biden will also take care of young immigrants by ensuring DREAMers are eligible for financial aid if they meet other requirements for that aid. And, he will restore formerly incarcerated individuals’ eligibility for Pell.
• More than halve payments on undergraduate federal student loans by simplifying and increasing the generosity of today’s income-based repayment program. Under the Biden plan, individuals making $25,000 or less per year will not owe any payments on their undergraduate federal student loans and also won’t accrue any interest on those loans. Everyone else will pay 5% of their discretionary income (income minus taxes and essential spending like housing and food) over $25,000 toward their loans. This plan will save millions of Americans thousands of dollars a year. After 20 years, the remainder of the loans for people who have responsibly made payments through the program will be 100% forgiven. Individuals with new and existing loans will all be automatically enrolled in the income-based repayment program, with the opportunity to opt out if they wish. In addition to relieving some of the burden of student debt, this will enable graduates to pursue careers in public service and other fields without high levels of compensation. Biden will also change the tax code so that debt forgiven through the income-based repayment plan won’t be taxed. Americans shouldn’t have to take out a loan to pay their taxes when they finally are free from their student loans.
• Make loan forgiveness work for public servants. Public servants do the hard work that is essential to our country’s success – protecting us, teaching our children, keeping our streets clean and our lights on, and so much more. But the program designed to help these individuals serve without having to worry about the burden of their student loans – the Public Service Loan Forgiveness Program – is broken. Biden will create a new, simple program which offers $10,000 of undergraduate or graduate student debt relief for every year of national or community service, up to five years. Individuals working in schools, government, and other non-profit settings will be automatically enrolled in this forgiveness program; up to five years of prior national or community service will also qualify. Additionally, Biden will fix the existing Public Service Loan Forgiveness program by securing passage of the What You Can Do For Your Country Act of 2019. Biden will ensure adjunct professors are eligible for this loan forgiveness, depending on the amount of time devoted to teaching.
• Create a “Title I for postsecondary education” to help students at under-resourced four-year schools complete their degrees. The Biden Administration will establish a new grant program to support under-resourced four-year schools that serve large numbers of Pell-eligible students. The funds will be used to foster collaboration between colleges and community-based organizations to provide wraparound support services for students, especially veterans, single parents, low-income students, students of color, and students with disabilities who may face unique challenges. Wraparound support services can range from public benefits and additional financial aid to cover textbook and transportation costs that often keep students from staying enrolled, to child care and mental health services, faculty mentoring, tutoring, and peer support groups. And, Biden will ensure that these funds can be used to help colleges create emergency grant programs for students who experience an unexpected financial challenge that threatens their ability to stay enrolled.
• Create seamless pathways between high school, job training, community college, and four-year programs to help students get their degrees and credentials faster. The Biden Administration will provide grants to states that work to accelerate students’ attainment of credentials, including bachelor’s degrees, while still ensuring quality and accountability. For example, some communities have adopted the early college model, allowing students to begin earning credits towards an associate’s degree while still in high school. And, in some areas students can be dual enrolled in the community college and the four-year program they wish to complete. Biden will challenge more communities to expand on these accelerated pathways and create a seamless transition between high school, community college, other job training, and four-year programs, enabling students to obtain an associate’s or bachelor’s degree in less time. Approaches to accelerating degree attainment include guided pathways that provide a sequence of classes for a specific area of study; shifting toward a 12-month academic calendar; better aligning high school, community college, and four-year college courses; providing college credits for quality, degree-related on-the-job training; and offering degree-related paid internships for course credit. Read more about Joe Biden’s plan for education from birth through 12th grade here.
• Prioritize the use of work-study funds for job-related and public service roles. Biden will work to reform federal work study programs to ensure that more of these funds place students in roles where they are either learning skills valuable for their intended careers, or contributing to their communities by mentoring students in K-12 classrooms and community centers.
• Stop for-profit education programs from profiteering off of students. Students who started their education at for-profit colleges default on their student loans at a rate three times higher than those who start at non-profit colleges. These for-profit programs are often predatory – devoted to high-pressure and misleading recruiting practices and charging higher costs for lower quality education that leaves graduates with mountains of debt and without good job opportunities. The Biden Administration will require for-profits to first prove their value to the U.S. Department of Education before gaining eligibility for federal aid. The Biden Administration will also return to the Obama-Biden Borrower’s Defense Rule, forgiving the debt held by individuals who were deceived by the worst for-profit college or career profiteers.  Finally, President Biden will enact legislation eliminating the so-called 90/10 loophole that gives for-profit schools an incentive to enroll veterans and servicemembers in programs that aren’t delivering results.
• Crack down on private lenders profiteering off of students and allow individuals holding private loans to discharge them in bankruptcy. In 2015, the Obama-Biden Administration called for Congress to pass a law permitting the discharge of private student loans in bankruptcy. As president, Biden will enact this legislation. In addition, the Biden Administration will empower the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau – established during the Obama-Biden Administration – to take action against private lenders who are misleading students about their options and do not provide an affordable payment plan when individuals are experiencing acute periods of financial hardship.
• Support and protect post-9/11 GI benefits for veterans and qualified family members. Veterans and their family members served our country and as a nation, we must maintain our commitment to GI benefits. The Obama-Biden Administration took groundbreaking action to ensure that veterans and their family members were empowered to make informed decisions regarding their education and, in turn, ensure that programs educating them met high quality standards. President Biden will build and convene coalitions of experts and advocates to continue this work. He’ll also strengthen the GI Bill Comparison Tool and School Feedback Tool to put an end to post-secondary institutions’ predatory practices.

SUPPORT COLLEGES AND UNIVERSITIES THAT PLAY UNIQUE AND VITAL ROLES IN THEIR COMMUNITIES

Historically Black Colleges and Universities (HBCUs), Tribal Colleges And Universities (TCUs), Hispanic-serving Institutions (HSIs), Asian American And Native American Pacific Islander-serving Institutions (AANAPISIs), Alaska Native-serving Institutions and Native Hawaiian-serving Institutions (ANNHs), Predominantly Black Institutions (PBIs), and Native American-serving Nontribal Institutions (NASNTIs) serve a disproportionate number of students of color and low-income students, yet are severely under-resourced, especially when compared to other colleges and universities.

This makes HBCUs and MSIs’ contributions even more impressive. HBCUs, for example, disproportionately educate first-generation and low-income students. In Vice President Biden’s home state of Delaware, the HBCU Delaware State University graduates nearly half of the state’s black undergraduate students.

As president, Biden will take steps to rectify the funding disparities faced by HBCUs, TCUs, and Minority-Serving Institutions (MSIs) so that the United States can benefit from their unique strengths. Students at HBCUs, TCUs, and MSIs will benefit from Biden’s proposals to double Pell grants, slash the income-based repayment of loans to 5% of income, and provide free tuition for students at all community colleges, including those that are MSIs. In addition, Biden will invest over $70 billion in these colleges and universities to:

• Make HBCUs, TCUs, and under-resourced MSIs more affordable for their students. The Biden plan will invest $18 billion in grants to these four-year schools, equivalent to up to two years of tuition per low-income and middle class student, including DREAMers and students who transfer to a four-year HBCU, TCU, or MSI from a tuition-free community college. He will then invest additional funds in private, non-profit HBCUs, TCUs, and under-resourced MSIs so they are not undermined by the Biden proposal to make four-year public colleges and universities tuition-free. Schools must invest in lowering costs, improving retention and graduation rates, and closing equity gaps year over year for students of color.
• Invest in the diverse talent at HBCUs, TCUs and MSIs to solve the country’s most pressing problems. The Biden Administration will invest $10 billion to create at least 200 new centers of excellence that serve as research incubators and connect students underrepresented in fields critical to our nation’s future – including fields tackling climate change, globalization, inequality, health disparities, and cancer – to learning and career opportunities. These funds will provide additional work study opportunities and incentivize state, private, and philanthropic dollars for these centers. Biden will also boost funding for agricultural research at land-grant universities, many of which are HBCUs and TCUs, as outlined in his Plan for Rural America. As president, Biden will also dedicate additional and increased priority funding streams at federal agencies for grants and contracts for HBCUs and MSIs. And, he will require any federal research grants to universities with an endowment of over $1 billion to form a meaningful partnership and enter into a 10% minimum subcontract with an HBCU, TCU, or MSI.
• Build the high tech labs and facilities and digital infrastructure needed for learning, research, and innovation at HBCUs, TCUs, and MSIs. Biden will invest $20 billion in infrastructure for HBCUs, TCUs, and MSIs to build the physical research facilities and labs urgently needed to deliver on the country’s research and development, to update and modernize deteriorating facilities, including by strengthening the Historic Preservation program, and to create new space for increasing enrollments, especially at HSIs. While schools will be able to use these funds to upgrade the digital infrastructure, Biden will also support TCUs and other institutions in rural areas by investing $20 billion in rural broadband infrastructure and tripling funding to expand broadband access in rural areas. Additionally, as president, Biden will ensure all HBCUs, TCUs, and MSIs have access to low-cost federal capital financing programs and will work with states to ensure they can take advantage of these programs. And, he will work to incentivize further public, private, and philanthropic investments in school infrastructure.
• Provide support to continuously improve the value of HBCUs, TCUs, and MSIs by investing $10 billion in programs that increase enrollment, retention, completion, and employment rates. These programs may include partnerships with both high schools, other universities, and employers; evidence-based remedial courses; academic and career advising services; and investing in wages, benefits, and professional development and benefits to recruit and retain faculty, including teacher residencies. Additionally, Biden will incentivize states, private, and philanthropic dollars to invest in these programs, while ensuring schools that do not receive matches increase their competitiveness.
• Expand career pathways for graduates of HBCUs, TCUs, and MSIs in areas that meet national priorities, including building a diverse pipeline of public school teachers. Biden will invest $5 billion in graduate programs in teaching, health care, and STEM and will develop robust internship and career pipelines at major research agencies, including Department of Energy National Laboratories, National Institutes of Health, National Science Foundation, and the Department of Defense.
• Triple and make permanent the capacity-building and student support for HBCUs, TCUs, and MSIs in Title III and Title V of the Higher Education Act. These funds serve as a lifeline to under-resourced HBCUs, TCUs, and MSIs year over year, ensuring that the most vulnerable students have the support they need to succeed. The Biden Administration will make permanent $750 million per year in Title III and Title V funding, which will provide a dedicated revenue stream of $7.5 billion over the first ten years.
• Reduce disparities in funding for HBCUs, TCUs, and MSIs. Biden will require federal agencies and states to publish reports of their allocation of federal funding to colleges and universities. When inequities exist between HBCUs, TCUs, and MSIs and similar non-HBCU, TCU, MSI colleges, federal agencies and states will be required to publish robust rationale and show improvements in eliminating disparities year over year. To ensure funding is more equitably distributed among HBCUs, TCUs, and MSIs, the Biden Administration will require that competitive grant programs make similar universities compete against each other, for example, ensuring that HBCUs only compete against HBCUs. And, President Biden will require higher education accreditors to provide increased transparency in their processes.

Additionally, Biden recognizes the critical role low-endowment private colleges and universities play in providing educational opportunities and jobs in many rural communities. As president, he will establish an innovation competitive grant fund for these institutions, giving them additional funds to invest in increasing graduation rates; closing ethnic, racial, and income disparities; and increasing career outcomes for low-income students, students of color, first-generation students, and students with disabilities.

THE BIDEN PLAN FOR MOBILIZING AMERICAN TALENT AND HEART TO CREATE A 21ST CENTURY CAREGIVING AND EDUCATION WORKFORCE

Joe Biden has taken care of aging parents, and he’s been a single parent. Biden knows how hard it is to raise a family and to care for a sick family member. And, he knows how hard it is for millions of Americans who are just trying to make ends meet.

The pandemic has laid bare just how hard it is for people in this country to find access to quality caregiving they need for themselves, or to juggle the responsibilities of working and also caring for family members. People in nursing homes have been hit especially hard by the coronavirus, shining a bright light on the fact that many would prefer to be in a home or community based setting. And, many parents are struggling to find child care while they go to their essential jobs, or find themselves as 24/7 caregivers trying to keep their children safe and learning while working remotely. Other parents are caring for their kids, while worrying about how they will make ends meet after having hours cut or losing their jobs. And, at the same time, professional caregivers have either lost their jobs or continue to work while putting their lives at risk without sufficient pay and benefits. President Trump’s failure to take action to control the coronavirus has worsened all of these challenges facing families across the country.

Even before the pandemic, our country was experiencing a caregiving crisis. Some care needs were going untended. Other care needs were filled by Americans serving as unpaid caregivers lacking the financial support or respite care they needed, and sometimes putting their careers on hold. Often, families made caregiving decisions that came with great financial, professional, physical and emotional costs. Caregivers and early childhood educators – disproportionately women of color – have been underpaid, unseen, and undervalued for far too long.

Biden believes that if we truly want to reward work in this country, we have to ease the financial burden of care that families are carrying, and we have to elevate the compensation, benefits, training and education opportunities for certification, and dignity of caregiving workers and educators.

Biden’s economic recovery plan won’t just build back our economy to the way it was before, but build it back better – including by building a robust 21st century caregiving and education workforce. As a first step, Biden will immediately provide states, tribal, and local governments with the fiscal relief they need to keep workers employed and keep vital public services running, including direct care and child care services.

Once we are able to move from relief to recovery, Biden will make substantial investments in the infrastructure of care in our country — to make child care more affordable and accessible for working families, and to make it easier for aging relatives and loved ones with disabilities to have quality, affordable home- or community-based care. And, he is proposing to give caregiving workers and early childhood educators a raise and stronger benefits, treating them as the professionals they are.

These steps will mean families will be able to afford better, more productive care and early education for their loved ones. They will also have a significant jobs impact: This plan, combined with Biden’s proposal to provide families with up to 12 weeks of paid family and medical leave, will put 3 million Americans to work in new care and education jobs, and increase overall employment by about 5 million after taking into account the economic impacts of increased labor force participation after unpaid caregivers – disproportionately women – are freed up to pursue paid careers if they so choose.

Biden will:

• Expand access to a broad array of long-term services and supports in local settings, including through closing the gaps in Medicaid for home- and community-based services and establishing a state innovation fund for creative, cost effective direct care services.
• Ensure access to high-quality, affordable child care and offer universal preschool to three-and four-year olds through greater investment, expanded tax credits, and sliding-scale subsidies.
• Build safe, energy-efficient, developmentally appropriate child care facilities, including in workplaces, so that parents and guardians never again have to search in vain for a suitable child care option.
• Treat caregivers and early childhood educators with respect and dignity, and give them the pay and benefits they deserve, training and career ladders to higher-paying jobs, the choice to join a union and bargain collectively, and other fundamental work-related rights and protections.

The plan will cost $775 billion over 10 years and will be paid for by rolling back unproductive and unequal tax breaks for real estate investors with incomes over $400,000 and taking steps to increase tax compliance for high-income earners.

This plan builds on Biden’s proposals to support informal caregivers – family members or loved ones who do this work unpaid, including a $5,000 tax credit for informal caregivers, Social Security credits for people who care for their loved ones, and professional and peer support for caregivers of wounded, injured, or ill active duty service members and veterans.

EXPAND ACCESS TO DIGNIFIED CARE FOR OLDER AMERICANS AND THOSE WITH DISABILITIES

Biden will help ease the financial burden on families caring for aging relatives and loved ones with disabilities and reduce unnecessary and costly hospitalizations, while providing people who need care with better, more dignified services and supports that meet their specific needs and personal choices.

Biden will allocate $450 billion to give more people the choice to receive care at home or in supportive community situations, or to have that choice for their loved ones. He will help states offer cost-effective options for affordable primary and preventive care, and affordable support services like help with meals, transportation, home safety, and quality day programs for older Americans. This commitment will reduce health expenditures, help more Americans avoid unnecessary and expensive hospitalizations, and result in an expansion of the caregiving and community health workforce by roughly 1.5 million jobs. Specifically, Biden will:

• Eliminate the current waitlist for home and community services under Medicaid. Approximately 800,000 people are on the waitlist for home and community care under Medicaid. It can take as many as five years for these individuals to get the services they badly need. Biden will increase Medicaid funding to states, the District of Columbia, and outlying territories to pay for the full cost of ensuring these 800,000 individuals and families receive long-term services and supports in the most appropriate setting, with the support of qualified care providers. Following the elimination of the current waiting list, states will be given a choice to convert their current home and community based care services waivers into a new state plan option with an enhanced federal match. This will enable states to make home and community-based services more available to people in need.
• Establish a long-term services and supports innovation fund to help expand home- and community-based alternatives to institutional care. Biden believes we must move aggressively to eliminate the institutional bias that pervades our public programs. A Biden Administration will dedicate substantial resources to this fund to help states and locally based entities test innovative models that expand home- and community-based alternatives to institutional care. These could include approaches that provide care while allowing individuals to retain independence, such as day programs and respite services that enable unpaid caregivers to work, alternative home and community models that coordinate or directly provide care, and Medicaid buy-in models. For example, the CAPABLE (Community Aging in Place-Advancing Better Living for Elders) Program provides home repairs and modifications to help create safer, more functional home environments for older adults. An initial trial in Baltimore found about $3,000 in program costs yielded more than $20,000 in savings. The pilot is now being tested in 27 cities in 16 states. Successful, cost-effective approaches to long-term care will be scaled up nationally. This fund will be administered by the Center for Medicare and Medicaid Innovation, which was established by the Affordable Care Act to support innovations that improve health care while constraining costs.
• Improve caregiving and health outcomes in our nation’s most underserved communities by adding 150,000 community health workers. Addressing our nation’s caregiving challenges also requires investing more in communities that suffer from significant racial health disparities driven by chronic underfunding and systemic racial discrimination. Biden will more than triple the number of community health workers – often workers of color serving the communities where they live – who are part of a national effort to both prevent and treat chronic conditions in underserved, economically-disadvantaged urban and rural communities. He will do this by providing direct grant funding, as well as adding community health worker services as an optional benefit for states under Medicaid. Community health solutions can lead to better health outcomes, allow people to live with more independence, and ease caregiving challenges through a focus on prevention and care coordination, reducing unnecessary and expensive hospitalization. And, in times of a health crisis, they can be repurposed to quickly fill basic public health needs. Repeated studies from across the country, including North Carolina and Philadelphia, have shown that investments in community-based health care and health workers save money by reducing hospitalizations and costly treatments that could have been avoided or better managed, while also improving health and improving career ladders for workers, with annual savings of up to $2,290 per beneficiary. A recent study revealed that every dollar spent on community health workers would yield $2.47 in savings.
• Fill additional gaps in the nation’s health care infrastructure that impact families’ caregiving responsibilities.
  • Address the opioid epidemic and substance use disorders by training 35,000 workers to provide critical support. Today, we have a shortage of workers to help Americans experiencing substance use disorders. Biden will increase funding and training for workers to provide counseling, care, and peer support for these individuals.
  • Engage in a national strategy to recruit, retain and empower nursing professionals. Biden will fully and rapidly implement the CARES Act which allocated nearly $1 billion over four years to address nursing burnout, faculty recruitment and retention, and increase nursing workforce diversity. A Biden administration will provide additional funding to ensure we are building up the training, clinical and educational capacity to welcome – not turn away – the qualified individuals interested in nursing education and training, bolstering the nursing profession for years to come.
  • Create tens of thousands of jobs providing care to veterans by filling severe occupational shortages and vacant positions at almost every U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs facility. Biden will remove existing hiring and pay barriers that make it difficult to replace valued employees once they depart. These investments will ensure we fulfill our sacred obligation to provide high-quality care to our veterans.
  • Provide resources for Indian Health Service to create new health care jobs. The Indian Health Service (IHS) has been underfunded for decades, and does not have enough doctors or nurses to provide necessary care for American Indians and Alaska Natives. Biden has called for dramatically increasing funding for Indian Health Service – and making it mandatory – allowing IHS to recruit, train, and pay health professionals.
  • Create a Public Health Jobs Corps. In partnership with state and local governments, and in consultation with unions, Biden will mobilize at least 100,000 additional Americans with support from trusted local organizations in communities most at risk across the country to perform culturally competent approaches to identify people at risk of contracting or spreading infectious diseases, including COVID-19; staff social isolation hotlines (similar to the data-informed model of the Crisis Text Line); provide COVID-19 vaccinations to immunize the population as quickly as possible; and conduct local outreach efforts to support people who are at high risk of COVID-19, especially low and moderate-income families, communities of color, and older adults. Beyond the current pandemic, those who enter the U.S. Public Health Jobs Corps will be positioned to take on jobs as community health workers and other jobs that help build longer term health infrastructure — including fighting the opioid epidemic and addressing social determinants of health.

It is also just too hard to figure out how to get care when you need it. As part of his proposal, Biden will work with states to set up a simpler way for Americans searching for caregiving help to go online, find out what financial support they might be eligible for based on their income, and identify potential caregivers.

MAKE HIGH-QUALITY CHILD CARE AFFORDABLE AND PRESCHOOL UNIVERSAL

The pandemic has highlighted what has always been true: child care and early learning are essential to many Americans, providing a nurturing environment for children to learn and grow and allowing parents and guardians the choice to pursue careers and contribute to the economy while supporting their families. The pandemic has also reminded parents around the country just how valuable caregivers and educators are – and how challenging and important their jobs are.

Even before the pandemic, millions of parents struggled to find a space for their child in a quality care and educational setting, keeping parents – primarily mothers – out of the workforce or causing them to settle for lower-paying jobs that allowed them time to provide their own child care. And now, many more parents are worrying how they will educate and care for their children while they work, while schools and child care providers are facing extreme financial challenges and uncertainty. Many child care facilities have lost much of their revenues and are struggling to pay their bills and stay afloat. Providers who already operate on extremely thin margins are spending money on personal protective equipment and cleaning supplies to keep children and early childhood educators safe, while facing falling revenues as they serve fewer children to make it easier to physically distance. If they don’t get help soon, a sizable portion of child care providers might have to close their doors permanently and as many as half of all child care slots could disappear. The danger of a radical decline in the child care sector will increase the challenges parents face as they seek to return to work, make it harder for the economy to recover, and force many early childhood educators – who are disproportionately women of color – out of their jobs.

President Trump has failed to effectively respond to the caregiving crisis for months, while exacerbating it by letting the virus continue to spread. He should immediately work with Congress to provide emergency relief to save child care centers and family child care providers and support child care workers. This urgent action is critical to investing in the care and education of our youngest children and ensuring that parents and guardians have the support they need to return to work when it is safe to do so.

Beyond addressing the pandemic-driven child care crisis, Biden will build our child care infrastructure back better for the long-term, including by making high-quality child care affordable and preschool universal for three- and four-year-olds. His plan will cultivate the potential of young children, provide parents – primarily mothers – with career opportunities and economic security, create an additional 1.5 million new, good, early education jobs, and improve the existing jobs for the essential workers who educate our young children. Biden will:

• Provide all 3- and 4-year-olds access to free, high-quality pre-kindergarten, laying a strong foundation for children and saving parents thousands of dollars a year on child care costs. Students who enter kindergarten school-ready are nearly two times more likely to master basic skills by age 11, and high-quality preschool is critical to this preparation. One study found students who enter kindergarten school-ready are also less likely to repeat a grade and are more likely to graduate from high school. And studies show that high-quality preschool reduces the school readiness gap caused by systemic racism. So parents and guardians can choose what works for them, Biden will partner with states to provide a mixed delivery system that includes public school systems, child care centers and family child care providers, and Head Start.
• Offer low-income and middle-class families an up to $8,000 tax credit to help pay for child care. Families will get back as a tax credit as much as half of their spending on child care for children under age 13, up to a total of $8,000 for one child or $16,000 for two or more children. The tax credit will be refundable, meaning that families who don’t owe a lot in taxes will still benefit, and Biden will actively work with child care experts to explore ways to make it advanced, so cash-strapped families can immediately benefit from the credit. The full 50% reimbursement will be available to families making less than $125,000 a year. And, all families making between $125,000 and $400,000 will receive a partial credit ensuring that in no case will they get less under the Biden plan than they are eligible for today.
• Provide access to affordable, high-quality child care on a sliding scale for low-income and middle-class families who would prefer this option over the tax credit for young children. For young children ages 0-5, Biden will adopt the child care program envisioned in Senator Murray and Congressman Bobby Scott’s bipartisan Child Care for Working Families Act. He will:
  • Save families money by helping them with child care costs. Biden will partner with states to provide sliding scale subsidies so that the cost of child care for low-income and middle-class families will be based on what they can afford. For children under the age of 5, no family earning below 1.5 times the median income in their state will have to pay more than 7% of their income for quality care, which was the affordable child care benchmark set by the Obama-Biden Administration. A typical family will pay no more than $45 per week. For the most-hard pressed working families, such early childcare costs would be fully covered, saving these families about $200 per week. Biden will also set aside a portion of the funds for tribes to expand access to quality child care for Native children, as well as for outlying areas including U.S. territories.
  • Invest in quality child care standards and a well-trained and well-compensated child care workforce. The quality of care matters: nearly all of brain development happens before a child turns three-years-old. For low-income children, every dollar invested in high-quality child care can result in a $7.30 return with lifetime impacts for children, as they grow up healthier, do better in school, and earn more over the course of their lifetimes. Biden will ensure families have access to the quality care their children need by working in partnership with states to ensure providers meet rigorous quality standards. These standards will include a developmentally appropriate curriculum, small class sizes, and support positive interactions between educators and children that promote children’s socio-emotional development. He will also provide funding reflective of the true cost of quality care. Recognizing that quality begins with supporting the early childhood workforce, Biden will invest in strategies to retain and grow the pool of diverse, talented early childhood educators and give them the time, resources and support – like coaches, training and education opportunities for certification, and financial stability – that they need to provide children an excellent education.
  • Expand access to care that works for working parents. Biden will provide incentives for providers to fill critical child care shortages, including in the early mornings, evenings, and weekends, and in many rural communities that have few providers today. He will offer bonus payments to providers who operate during nontraditional hours and create a Child Care Growth and Innovation fund that will provide grants to programs filling essential needs, including expanding access to high-quality care for families with high barriers to care. He will also ensure all families will be able to choose high-quality child care that works for them, whether a child care center, home-based care with a family child care provider, or an informal arrangement with a friend, family member, or neighbor. And, Biden will build on the Obama-Biden Administration’s efforts to ensure Early Head Start is an option for families that will benefit from comprehensive family support and child development resources, including through doubling Early Head Start-Child Care Partnerships.

• Ensure families with school-aged children have expanded access to after-school, weekend, and summer care. Biden will expand Child Care Development Block Grant subsidies to increase the number of school-aged children up to age 13 in low-income families who can benefit from the program. Low- and middle-income families will also be able to take advantage of Biden’s expanded, refundable tax credit to help cover after-school, weekend, and summer care costs. And Biden will expand support for community schools, which often provide before, after-school, and summer learning opportunities, and increase funding for after-school programs, community centers, and extracurriculars to keep children safe, learning, and having fun when school is not in session. This includes expanding the 21st Century Community Learning Centers that provide critical enrichment opportunities for school-aged children.
• Invest in child care and other wraparound services at community colleges, so parents don’t have to choose between their own education and their children. One in four community college students is a parent — and these parents are disproportionately students of color, and over half are Black women — yet most colleges do not offer child care. It can be hard for many of these parents to graduate while juggling an extra job to pay their bills or caring for their children. Biden will provide funds for states, the District of Columbia, and outlying territories to invest in wraparound services at community colleges, which could include child care for students’ children, while also creating new jobs for early childhood educators in the process.
• Make sure more military children have access to the quality child care Department of Defense provides. Biden will fully fund installation-based child care facilities and expand awareness of the U.S. Department of Defense fee assistance program, as supported by leading advocates for military families, so that military spouses can more easily pursue their education and careers and tap into respite care to relieve the stresses of deployments, and members of our military can rest easier knowing their children are well cared for.

Not only will these investments create jobs for new early educators, Biden’s plan to support our public schools will also create new jobs by tripling Title I funding, fully-funding IDEA, funding community schools, and doubling the number of psychologists, counselors, nurses, social workers, and other health professionals in our schools so our kids get the mental health care they need.

BUILD SAFE CHILD CARE FACILITIES

Our nation faced a massive shortage of child care facilities before the pandemic, and the shortage has only intensified since then. One survey found that, even before COVID-19 hit, 43% of parents had difficulty locating child care, and many more struggled to find convenient, affordable care. This shortage stresses parents and guardians, hurts family pocketbooks, and disadvantages children in areas with insufficient child care options.

Biden will address this shortage by accelerating the construction and renovation of safe and developmentally appropriate child care facilities in communities and in workplaces, so parents do not have to search in vain for a suitable child care option. Specifically, Biden will create a new child care construction tax credit to encourage businesses to build child care facilities at places of work. Employers will receive 50% of the first $1 million of construction costs per facility, so that employees can enjoy the peace of mind and convenience that comes with on-site child care. At the same time, he’ll make direct investments in building new child-care facilities and upgrading existing facilities around the country that are not accessible for people with disabilities, or safe or developmentally appropriate for young children who are especially vulnerable to environmental contaminants like lead and mold, and to safety hazards like electrical outlets. If his tax credit is fully utilized, and coupled with direct investments, these policies will lead to tens of thousands of new child care facilities across the country.

All infrastructure investments will require high standards for the quality of the facilities, including ensuring they are healthy, energy efficient, climate resilient, developmentally appropriate places to learn and accessible for children with disabilities. And, they will require high labor standards for the people who build the facilities, creating thousands of middle-class construction jobs with a choice to join a union.

REWARD CAREGIVERS AND EDUCATORS WITH THE BENEFITS AND PROTECTIONS THEY DESERVE

While we rely on our nation’s caregivers and educators to play essential roles in the lives of our loved ones, their current pay and benefits are abysmal. Caregivers and early childhood educators — who are disproportionately women and people of color — are poorly compensated. Direct support professionals and child care workers earn on average less than $12 an hour and $25,000 annually. This low pay contributes to extremely high rates of turnover in the care workforce, which hurts these workers and those for whom they care.

Biden will maintain and grow a diverse, talented care and education workforce by providing increased pay and benefits, and access to collective bargaining, training and education, and career ladders. He will ensure these workers receive:

• Increased pay. No one should have to work more than one job to make ends meet. Biden will ensure caregivers and early childhood educators receive a raise, and get the pay they deserve, including by setting standards for the funding allocated under this plan. And, there is no reason an educator teaching toddlers should be making less than a similarly qualified kindergarten educator — Biden will also ensure early childhood educators in child care settings and public schools receive similar pay and benefits to elementary school teachers if they have similar qualifications and experience.
• Benefits they have earned. Benefits include affordable health care through their jobs or Biden’s new public option, federally-provided paid family and medical leave for up to 12 weeks, up to 7 days of paid sick leave, and affordable child care for their own children.
• Stronger legal protections and the choice to join a union and collectively bargain. Biden will work to ensure all workers – including direct support workers and early childhood educators – have an effective, meaningful way to unionize and collectively bargain, whether they work in a center- or home-based setting. He will make it easier to organize by signing the Protecting the Right to Organize (PRO) Act and providing local and state government workers with bargaining rights, fully restoring collective bargaining to federal government workers, and also improving the conditions of many care jobs by signing into law the Domestic Workers’ Bill of Rights.
• Training and career ladders. Home care workers and early educators deserve opportunities for quality training and education and meaningful credentials so they can earn higher wages, develop rewarding and lasting careers, and stay in their jobs for longer, critical ingredients to delivering high-quality care and education. Biden will expand opportunities for these workers to earn needed credentials by investing in high quality training and education programs that lead to a certificate, as well as ongoing, job-embedded training and professional development through programs like labor-management training and registered apprenticeships. He will work with employers, unions and worker organizations, community colleges, the public workforce system, and organizations representing older Americans and people with disabilities and early childhood educators to modernize and develop new training programs for these jobs. Critically, he’ll provide funding for states to hire coaches for early childhood educators to continuously help them deliver high-quality learning experiences. And, he will create opportunities for these workers to further upskill, while building a pipeline of diverse early educators and health workers, through his plan for Education Beyond High School.

Environment

The Biden Plan for Climate Change

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From coastal towns to rural farms to urban centers, climate change poses an existential threat – not just to our environment, but to our health, our communities, our national security, and our economic well-being. It also damages our communities with storms that wreak havoc on our towns and cities and our homes and schools. It puts our national security at risk by leading to regional instability that will require U.S military-supported relief activities and could make areas more vulnerable to terrorist activities.

Vice President Biden knows there is no greater challenge facing our country and our world. Today, he is outlining a bold plan – a Clean Energy Revolution – to address this grave threat and lead the world in addressing the climate emergency.

Biden believes the Green New Deal is a crucial framework for meeting the climate challenges we face. It powerfully captures two basic truths, which are at the core of his plan: (1) the United States urgently needs to embrace greater ambition on an epic scale to meet the scope of this challenge, and (2) our environment and our economy are completely and totally connected.

If we can harness all of our energy and talents, and unmatchable American innovation, we can turn this threat into an opportunity to revitalize the U.S. energy sector and boost growth economy-wide. We can create new industries that reinvigorate our manufacturing and create high-quality, middle-class jobs in cities and towns across the United States. We can lead America to become the world’s clean energy superpower. We can export our clean-energy technology across the globe and create high-quality, middle-class jobs here at home.  Getting to a 100% clean energy economy is not only an obligation, it’s an opportunity. We should fully adopt a clean energy future, not just for all of us today, but for our children and grandchildren, so their tomorrow is healthier, safer, and more just.

As president, Biden will lead the world to address the climate emergency and lead through the power of example, by ensuring the U.S. achieves a 100% clean energy economy and net-zero emissions no later than 2050.

The Biden Plan will:

Ensure the U.S. achieves a 100% clean energy economy and reaches net-zero emissions no later than 2050. On day one, Biden will sign a series of new executive orders with unprecedented reach that go well beyond the Obama-Biden Administration platform and put us on the right track. And, he will demand that Congress enacts legislation in the first year of his presidency that: 1) establishes an enforcement mechanism that includes milestone targets no later than the end of his first term in 2025, 2) makes a historic investment in clean energy and climate research and innovation, 3) incentivizes the rapid deployment of clean energy innovations across the economy, especially in communities most impacted by climate change.
Build a stronger, more resilient nation. On day one, Biden will make smart infrastructure investments to rebuild the nation and to ensure that our buildings, water, transportation, and energy infrastructure can withstand the impacts of climate change.  Every dollar spent toward rebuilding our roads, bridges, buildings, the electric grid, and our water infrastructure will be used to prevent, reduce, and withstand a changing climate. As President, Biden will use the convening power of government to boost climate resilience efforts by developing regional climate resilience plans, in partnership with local universities and national labs, for local access to the most relevant science, data, information, tools, and training.
Rally the rest of the world to meet the threat of climate change. Climate change is a global challenge that requires decisive action from every country around the world. Joe Biden knows how to stand with America’s allies, stand up to adversaries, and level with any world leader about what must be done. He will not only recommit the United States to the Paris Agreement on climate change – he will go much further than that. He will lead an effort to get every major country to ramp up the ambition of their domestic climate targets. He will make sure those commitments are transparent and enforceable, and stop countries from cheating by using America’s economic leverage and power of example. He will fully integrate climate change into our foreign policy and national security strategies, as well as our approach to trade.
Stand up to the abuse of power by polluters who disproportionately harm communities of color and low-income communities. Vulnerable communities are disproportionately impacted by the climate emergency and pollution. The Biden Administration will take action against fossil fuel companies and other polluters who put profit over people and knowingly harm our environment and poison our communities’ air, land, and water, or conceal information regarding potential environmental and health risks. The Biden plan will ensure that communities across the country from Flint, Michigan to Harlan, Kentucky to the New Hampshire Seacoast have access to clean, safe drinking water. And he’ll make sure the development of solutions is an inclusive, community-driven process.
Fulfill our obligation to workers and communities who powered our industrial revolution and subsequent decades of economic growth. This is support they’ve earned for fueling our country’s industrial revolution and decades of economic growth. We’re not going to leave any workers or communities behind.

Health Care

Joe Biden plan for Health Care

On March 23, 2010, President Obama signed the Affordable Care Act into law, with Vice President Biden standing by his side, and made history. It was a victory 100 years in the making. It was the conclusion of a tough fight that required taking on Republicans, special interests, and the status quo to do what’s right. But the Obama-Biden Administration got it done.

Today, the Affordable Care Act is still a big deal. Because of Obamacare, over 100 million people no longer have to worry that an insurance company will deny coverage or charge higher premiums just because they have a pre-existing condition – whether cancer or diabetes or heart disease or a mental health challenge. Insurance companies can no longer set annual or lifetime limits on coverage. Roughly 20 million additional Americans obtained the peace of mind that comes with health insurance. Young people who are in transition from school to a job have the option to stay covered by their parents’ plan until age 26.

But, every day over the past nine years, the Affordable Care Act has been under relentless attack.

Immediately after its passage, Congressional Republicans began trying again and again to repeal it. Following the lead of President Trump, Republicans in Congress have only doubled down on this approach since January 2017. And, since repeal through Congress has not been working, President Trump has been unilaterally doing everything he can to sabotage the Affordable Care Act. Now, the Trump Administration is trying to get the entire law – including protections for people with pre-existing conditions – struck down in court.

As president, Biden will protect the Affordable Care Act from these continued attacks. He opposes every effort to get rid of this historic law – including efforts by Republicans, and efforts by Democrats. Instead of starting from scratch and getting rid of private insurance, he has a plan to build on the Affordable Care Act by giving Americans more choice, reducing health care costs, and making our health care system less complex to navigate.

For Biden, this is personal. He believes that every American has a right to the peace of mind that comes with knowing they have access to affordable, quality health care. He knows that no one in this country should have to lay in bed at night staring at the ceiling wondering, “what will I do if she gets breast cancer?” or “if he has a heart attack?” “Will I go bankrupt?” He knows there is no peace of mind if you cannot afford to care for a sick child or a family member because of a pre-existing condition, because you’ve reached a point where your health insurer says “no more,” or because you have to make a decision between putting food on the table and going to the doctor or filling a prescription.

In the coming months, Joe Biden will build on today’s plan by rolling out his proposals to tackle some of our greatest public health challenges – from reducing gun violence to curing devastating diseases as we know them like cancer, Alzheimer’s, diabetes, and addiction.

THE BIDEN PLAN TO PROTECT & BUILD ON THE AFFORDABLE CARE ACT

I. GIVE EVERY AMERICAN ACCESS TO AFFORDABLE HEALTH INSURANCE

From the time right before the Affordable Care Act’s key coverage-related policies went into effect to the last full year of the Obama-Biden Administration, 2016, the number of Americans lacking health insurance fell from 44 million to 27 million – an almost 40% drop. But President Trump’s persistent efforts to sabotage Obamacare through executive action, after failing in his efforts to repeal it through Congress, have started to reverse this progress. Since 2016, the number of uninsured Americans has increased by roughly 1.4 million.

As president, Biden will stop this reversal of the progress made by Obamacare. And he won’t stop there. He’ll also build on the Affordable Care Act with a plan to insure more than an estimated 97% of Americans. Here’s how:

• Giving Americans a new choice, a public health insurance option like Medicare. If your insurance company isn’t doing right by you, you should have another, better choice. Whether you’re covered through your employer, buying your insurance on your own, or going without coverage altogether, the Biden Plan will give you the choice to purchase a public health insurance option like Medicare. As in Medicare, the Biden public option will reduce costs for patients by negotiating lower prices from hospitals and other health care providers. It also will better coordinate among all of a patient’s doctors to improve the efficacy and quality of their care, and cover primary care without any co-payments. And it will bring relief to small businesses struggling to afford coverage for their employees.

• Increasing the value of tax credits to lower premiums and extend coverage to more working Americans. Today, families that make between 100% and 400% of the federal poverty level may receive a tax credit to reduce how much they have to pay for health insurance on the individual marketplace. The dollar amount of the financial assistance is calculated to ensure each family does not have to pay more than a certain percentage of their income on a silver (medium generosity) plan. But, these shares of income are too high and silver plans’ deductibles are too high. Additionally, many families making more than 400% of the federal poverty level (about $50,000 for a single person and $100,000 for a family of four), and thus not qualifying for financial assistance, still struggle to afford health insurance. The Biden Plan will help middle class families by eliminating the 400% income cap on tax credit eligibility and lowering the limit on the cost of coverage from 9.86% of income to 8.5%. This means that no family buying insurance on the individual marketplace, regardless of income, will have to spend more than 8.5% of their income on health insurance. Additionally, the Biden Plan will increase the size of tax credits by calculating them based on the cost of a more generous gold plan, rather than a silver plan. This will give more families the ability to afford more generous coverage, with lower deductibles and out-of-pocket costs.

• Expanding coverage to low-income Americans. Access to affordable health insurance shouldn’t depend on your state’s politics. But today, state politics is getting in the way of coverage for millions of low-income Americans. Governors and state legislatures in 14 states have refused to take up the Affordable Care Act’s expansion of Medicaid eligibility, denying access to Medicaid for an estimated 4.9 million adults. Biden’s plan will ensure these individuals get covered by offering premium-free access to the public option for those 4.9 million individuals who would be eligible for Medicaid but for their state’s inaction, and making sure their public option covers the full scope of Medicaid benefits. States that have already expanded Medicaid will have the choice of moving the expansion population to the premium-free public option as long as the states continue to pay their current share of the cost of covering those individuals. Additionally, Biden will ensure people making below 138% of the federal poverty level get covered. He’ll do this by automatically enrolling these individuals when they interact with certain institutions (such as public schools) or other programs for low-income populations (such as SNAP).Learn more about how Biden’s plan for health care benefits communities of color >>

II. PROVIDE THE PEACE OF MIND OF AFFORDABLE, QUALITY HEALTH CARE AND A LESS COMPLEX HEALTH CARE SYSTEM

Today, even for people with health insurance, our health care system is too expensive and too hard to navigate. The Biden Plan will not only provide coverage for uninsured Americans, it will also make health care more affordable and less complex for all.

The plan’s elements described above will help reduce the cost of health insurance and health care for those already insured in the following ways:

• All Americans will have a new, more affordable option. The public option, like Medicare, will negotiate prices with providers, providing a more affordable option for many Americans who today find their health insurance too expensive.

• Middle class families will get a premium tax credit to help them pay for coverage. For example, take a family of four with an income of $110,000 per year. If they currently get insurance on the individual marketplace, because their premium will now be capped at 8.5% of their income, under the Biden Plan they will save an estimated $750 per month on insurance alone. That’s cutting their premiums almost in half. If a family is covered by their employer but can get a better deal with the 8.5% premium cap, they can switch to a plan on the individual marketplace, too.

• Premium tax credits will be calculated to help more families afford better coverage with lower deductibles. Because the premium tax credits will now be calculated based on the price of a more generous gold plan, families will be able to purchase a plan with a lower deductible and lower out-of-pocket spending. That means many families will see their overall annual health care spending go down.

The Biden Plan has several additional proposals aimed directly at cutting the cost of health care and making the health care system less complex to navigate. The Biden Plan will:

• Stop “surprise billing.” Consumers trying to lower their health care spending often try to choose an in-network provider. But sometimes patients are unaware they are receiving care from an out-of-network provider and a big, surprise bill. “Surprise medical billing” could occur, for example, if you go to an in-network hospital but don’t realize a specialist at that hospital is not part of your health plan. The Biden Plan will bar health care providers from charging patients out-of-network rates when the patient doesn’t have control over which provider the patient sees (for example, during a hospitalization).

• Tackle market concentration across our health care system. The concentration of market power in the hands of a few corporations is occurring throughout our health care system, and this lack of competition is driving up prices for consumers. The Biden Administration will aggressively use its existing antitrust authority to address this problem.

• Lower costs and improve health outcomes by partnering with the health care workforce. The Biden Administration will partner with health care workers and accelerate the testing and deployment of innovative solutions that improve quality of care and increase wages for low-wage health care workers, like home care workers.

III. STAND UP TO ABUSE OF POWER BY PRESCRIPTION DRUG CORPORATIONS

Too many Americans cannot afford their prescription drugs, and prescription drug corporations are profiteering off of the pocketbooks of sick individuals. The Biden Plan will put a stop to runaway drug prices and the profiteering of the drug industry by:

• Repealing the outrageous exception allowing drug corporations to avoid negotiating with Medicare over drug prices. Because Medicare covers so many Americans, it has significant leverage to negotiate lower prices for its beneficiaries. And it does so for hospitals and other providers participating in the program, but not drug manufacturers. Drug manufacturers not facing any competition, therefore, can charge whatever price they choose to set. There’s no justification for this except the power of prescription drug lobbying. The Biden Plan will repeal the existing law explicitly barring Medicare from negotiating lower prices with drug corporations.

• Limiting launch prices for drugs that face no competition and are being abusively priced by manufacturers. Through his work on the Cancer Moonshot, Biden understands that the future of pharmacological interventions is not traditional chemical drugs but specialized biotech drugs that will have little to no competition to keep prices in check. Without competition, we need a new approach for keeping the prices of these drugs down. For these cases where new specialty drugs without competition are being launched, under the Biden Plan the Secretary of Health and Human Services will establish an independent review board to assess their value. The board will recommend a reasonable price, based on the average price in other countries (a process called external reference pricing) or, if the drug is entering the U.S. market first, based on an evaluation by the independent board members. This reasonable price will be the rate Medicare and the public option will pay. In addition, the Biden Plan will allow private plans participating in the individual marketplace to access a similar rate.

• Limiting price increases for all brand, biotech, and abusively priced generic drugs to inflation. As a condition of participation in the Medicare program and public option, all brand, biotech, and abusively priced generic drugs will be prohibited from increasing their prices more than the general inflation rate. The Biden Plan will also impose a tax penalty on drug manufacturers that increase the costs of their brand, biotech, or abusively priced generic over the general inflation rate.

• Allowing consumers to buy prescription drugs from other countries. To create more competition for U.S. drug corporations, the Biden Plan will allow consumers to import prescription drugs from other countries, as long as the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services has certified that those drugs are safe.

• Terminating pharmaceutical corporations’ tax break for advertisement spending. Drug corporations spent an estimated $6 billion in 2016 alone on prescription drug advertisements to increase their sales, a more than four-fold increase from just $1.3 billion in 1997. The American Medical Association has even expressed “concerns among physicians about the negative impact of commercially driven promotions, and the role that marketing costs play in fueling escalating drug prices.” Currently, drug corporations may count spending on these ads as a deduction to reduce the amount of taxes they owe. But taxpayers should not have to foot the bill for these ads. As president, Biden will end this tax deduction for all prescription drug ads, as proposed by Senator Jeanne Shaheen.

• Improving the supply of quality generics. Generics help reduce health care spending, but brand drug corporations have succeeded in preserving a number of strategies to help them delay the entrance of a generic into the market even after the patent has expired. The Biden Plan supports numerous proposals to accelerate the development of safe generics, such as Senator Patrick Leahy’s proposal to make sure generic manufacturers have access to a sample.

IV. ENSURE HEALTH CARE IS A RIGHT FOR ALL, NOT A PRIVILEGE FOR JUST A FEW

Joe Biden believes that every American – regardless of gender, race, income, sexual orientation, or zip code – should have access to affordable and quality health care. Yet racism, sexism, homophobia, transphobia, and other forms of discrimination permeate our health care system just as in every other part of society. As president, Biden will be a champion for improving access to health care and the health of all by:

• Expanding access to contraception and protect the constitutional right to an abortion. The Affordable Care Act made historic progress by ensuring access to free preventive care, including contraception. The Biden Plan will build on that progress. Vice President Biden supports repealing the Hyde Amendment because health care is a right that should not be dependent on one’s zip code or income. And, the public option will cover contraception and a woman’s constitutional right to choose. In addition, the Biden Plan will:
  • Reverse the Trump Administration and states’ all-out assault on women’s right to choose. As president, Biden will work to codify Roe v. Wade, and his Justice Department will do everything in its power to stop the rash of state laws that so blatantly violate the constitutional right to an abortion, such as so-called TRAP laws, parental notification requirements, mandatory waiting periods, and ultrasound requirements.
  • Restore federal funding for Planned Parenthood. The Obama-Biden administration fought Republican attacks on funding for Planned Parenthood again and again. As president, Biden will reissue guidance specifying that states cannot refuse Medicaid funding for Planned Parenthood and other providers that refer for abortions or provide related information and reverse the Trump Administration’s rule preventing Planned Parenthood and certain other family planning programs from obtaining Title X funds.
  • Just as the Obama-Biden Administration did,President Biden will rescind the Mexico City Policy (also referred to as the global gag rule) that President Trump reinstated and expanded. This rule currently bars the U.S. federal government from supporting important global health efforts – including for malaria and HIV/AIDS – in developing countries simply because the organizations providing that aid also offer information on abortion services.

• Reducing our unacceptably high maternal mortality rate, which especially impacts people of color. Compared to other developed nations, the U.S. has the highest rate of deaths related to pregnancy and childbirth, and we are the only country experiencing an increase in this death rate. This problem is especially prevalent among black women, who experience a death rate from complications related to pregnancy that is more than three times higher than the rate for non-Hispanic white women. California came up with a strategy that halved the state’s maternal death rate. As president, Biden will take this strategy nationwide.

• Defending health care protections for all, regardless of gender, gender identity, or sexual orientation. Before the Affordable Care Act, insurance companies could increase premiums merely due to someone’s gender, sexual orientation, or gender identity. Further, insurance companies could increase premiums or deny coverage altogether due to someone’s HIV status. Yet, President Trump is trying to walk back this progress. For example, he has proposed to once again allow health care providers and insurance companies to discriminate based on a patient’s gender identity or abortion history. President Biden will defend the rights of all people – regardless of gender, sexual orientation, gender identity – to have access to quality, affordable health care free from discrimination.

• Doubling America’s investment in community health centers. Community health centers provide primary, prenatal, and other important care to underserved populations. The Biden Plan will double the federal investment in these centers, expanding access to high quality health care for the populations that need it most.

• Achieving mental health parity and expanding access to mental health care. As Vice President, Biden was a champion for efforts to implement the federal mental health parity law, improve access to mental health care, and eliminate the stigma around mental health. As President, he will redouble these efforts to ensure enforcement of mental health parity laws and expand funding for mental health services.

In the months ahead, Biden will put forward additional plans to tackle health challenges affecting specific communities, including access to health care in rural communities, gun violence, and opioid addiction.

SUPPORTING HEALTH, NOT REWARDING WEALTH

Joe Biden believes in rewarding work, not just wealth – and investing in hard-working Americans’ health, not protecting the most privileged Americans’ wealth. Warren Buffett said it best when he stated that he should not pay a lower tax rate than his secretary.

The Biden Plan will make health care a right by getting rid of capital gains tax loopholes for the super wealthy. Today, the very wealthy pay a tax rate of just 20% on long-term capital gains. According to the Joint Committee on Taxation, the capital gains and dividends exclusion is the second largest tax expenditure in the entire tax code: $127 billion in fiscal year 2019 alone. As President, Biden will roll back the Trump rate cut for the very wealthy and restore the 39.6% top rate he helped restore when he negotiated an end to the Bush tax cuts for the wealthy in 2012. Biden’s capital gains reform will close the loopholes that allow the super wealthy to avoid taxes on capital gains altogether. The Biden plan will assure those making over $1 million will pay the top rate on capital gains, doubling the capital gains tax rate on the super wealthy.

Immigration

THE BIDEN PLAN FOR SECURING OUR VALUES AS A NATION OF IMMIGRANTS

It is a moral failing and a national shame when a father and his baby daughter drown seeking our shores. When children are locked away in overcrowded detention centers and the government seeks to keep them there indefinitely. When our government argues in court against giving those children toothbrushes and soap. When President Trump uses family separation as a weapon against desperate mothers, fathers, and children seeking safety and a better life. When he threatens massive raids that would break up families who have been in this country for years and targets people at sensitive locations like hospitals and schools. When children die while in custody due to lack of adequate care.

Trump has waged an unrelenting assault on our values and our history as a nation of immigrants.

It’s wrong, and it stops when Joe Biden is elected president.

Unless your ancestors were native to these shores, or forcibly enslaved and brought here as part of our original sin as a nation, most Americans can trace their family history back to a choice–a choice to leave behind everything that was familiar in search of new opportunities and a new life. Joe Biden understands that is an irrefutable source of our strength. Generations of immigrants have come to this country with little more than the clothes on their backs, the hope in their heart, and a desire to claim their own piece of the American Dream. It’s the reason we have constantly been able to renew ourselves, to grow better and stronger as a nation, and to meet new challenges. Immigration is essential to who we are as a nation, our core values, and our aspirations for our future. Under a Biden Administration, we will never turn our backs on who we are or that which makes us uniquely and proudly American. The United States deserves an immigration policy that reflects our highest values as a nation.

Today, our immigration system is under greater stress as a direct result of Trump’s misguided policies, even as he has failed to invest in smarter border technology that would improve our cargo screening.

His obsession with building a wall does nothing to address security challenges while costing taxpayers billions of dollars. Most contraband comes in through our legal ports of entry. It’s estimated that nearly half of the undocumented people living in the U.S. today have overstayed a visa, not crossed a border illegally. Families fleeing the violence in Central America are voluntarily presenting themselves to border patrol officials. And the real threats to our security–drug cartels and human traffickers–can more easily evade enforcement efforts because Trump has misallocated resources into bullying legitimate asylum seekers. Trump fundamentally misunderstands how to keep America safe because he cares more about governing through fear and division than common sense solutions.

Trump’s policies are also bad for our economy. For generations, immigrants have fortified our most valuable competitive advantage–our spirit of innovation and entrepreneurship. Research suggests that “the total annual contribution of foreign-born workers is roughly $2 trillion.” Key sectors of the U.S. economy, from agriculture to technology, rely on immigration. Working-age immigrants keep our economy growing, our communities thriving, and country moving forward.

The challenges we face will not be solved by a constitutionally dubious “national emergency” to build a wall, by separating families, or by denying asylum to people fleeing persecution and violence. Addressing the Trump-created humanitarian crisis at our border, bringing our nation together, reasserting our core values, and reforming our immigration system will require real leadership and real solutions. Biden is prepared on day one to deliver both.

As president, Biden will forcefully pursue policies that safeguard our security, provide a fair and just system that helps to grow and enhance our economy, and secure our cherished values. He will:

Take urgent action to undo Trump’s damage and reclaim America’s values
Modernize America’s immigration system
Welcome immigrants in our communities
Reassert America’s commitment to asylum-seekers and refugees
Tackle the root causes of irregular migration
Implement effective border screening

The Biden Commitment to a Fair and Humane Immigration System

Joe Biden understands the pain felt by every family across the U.S. that has had a loved one removed from the country, including under the Obama-Biden Administration, and he believes we must do better to uphold our laws humanely and preserve the dignity of immigrant families, refugees, and asylum-seekers.

The Obama-Biden Administration strongly supported the bipartisan comprehensive immigration solution that passed the Senate in 2013 and which would have put our country’s immigration policies on a much stronger footing. When the Republican House refused to even bring that bill to a vote, the Administration took action to fundamentally change the course of our nation’s immigration policies, offering relief and stability to hundreds of thousands of undocumented immigrants who contribute to our communities every single day.

As Vice President, Biden championed the creation and expansion of the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals (DACA) program; the Deferred Action for Parents of Americans (DAPA) program; the Central American Minors program, which allowed parents with legal status in the U.S. to apply to bring their children up from Central America to live with them; and the creation of a White House task force to support new Americans and help them integrate into their new homes and communities.

In a departure from their predecessors, the Obama-Biden administration took steps to prioritize enforcement resources on removing threats to national security and public safety, not families. It also issued guidance designed to end mass work-place raids and to prevent enforcement activities at sensitive locations such as schools, hospitals, and places of worship.

Critically, the Obama-Biden administration recognized that irregular migration from the Northern Triangle countries of Central America cannot be effectively addressed if solutions only focus on our southern border. The better answer lies in addressing the root causes that push desperate people to flee their homes in the first place: violence and insecurity, lack of economic opportunity, and corrupt governance. As Vice President, Biden spearheaded the administration’s efforts in El Salvador, Guatemala, and Honduras–bringing high-level attention to these issues and securing bipartisan support for a $750 million aid package to help the Northern Triangle countries implement critical, concrete reforms. These efforts were beginning to deliver results and reduce migration rates until Trump froze the majority of the funding, began his campaign to terrorize immigrants and assault the dignity of the Latino community, and created the current humanitarian crisis at our border with his irresponsible and inhumane policies.

As president, Biden will finish the work of building a fair and humane immigration system–restoring the progress Trump has cruelly undone and taking it further. He will secure our border, while ensuring the dignity of migrants and upholding their legal right to seek asylum. He will enforce our laws without targeting communities, violating due process, or tearing apart families. He will ensure our values are squarely at the center of our immigration and enforcement policies.
Take Urgent Action to Undo Trump’s Damage and Reclaim America’s Values

The next president will need to take urgent action to end the Trump Administration’s draconian policies, grounded in fear and racism rather than fact, work to heal the wounds inflicted on immigrant communities, and restore America’s moral leadership. As president, Biden will move immediately to ensure that the U.S. meets its responsibilities as both a nation of laws and a nation of immigrants.

…

Infrastructure

THE BIDEN PLAN TO INVEST IN MIDDLE CLASS COMPETITIVENESS

Joe Biden is running for president to rebuild the middle class—and this time make sure everyone comes along. Toward that end, Biden is calling for a transformational investment in our country’s infrastructure and future: $1.3 trillion over ten years, to equip the American middle class to compete and win in the global economy, to move the U.S. to net-zero greenhouse gas emissions, and to ensure that cities, towns, and rural areas all across our country share in that growth.

MAKE UNPRECEDENTED INVESTMENTS IN OUR INFRASTRUCTURE TO BOLSTER THE COMPETITIVENESS OF THE MIDDLE CLASS 

Our nation’s infrastructure is literally crumbling. It is unacceptable that one in five miles of our highways are in “poor condition,” that tens of millions of Americans lack access to high-speed broadband, and that our public schools have repeatedly earned a D+ grade from the American Society of Civil Engineers. We are the world’s richest nation, but rank just 10th in the overall quality of our infrastructure, according to the World Economic Forum.

During his 2016 presidential campaign, President Trump said he’d change that. He has been promising an infrastructure plan since his earliest days in office and keeps holding “Infrastructure Weeks”—but has failed to actually deliver results. Instead, Trump has focused on privatizing construction projects to benefit his wealthy friends, leaving communities across the country suffering and our nation falling behind.

Biden will revitalize America’s infrastructure and make us more competitive with the rest of the world, while also creating and sustaining quality, middle-class jobs at home. Every one of Biden’s investments in infrastructure will further the following three goals:

• Create good, union jobs that expand the middle class. American workers should build American infrastructure and manufacture all the materials that go into it, and all of these workers must have the option to join a union and collectively bargain. Building on his plan to strengthen worker organizing, collective bargaining, and unions, President Biden will propose infrastructure legislation that incorporates labor provisions contained in Senator Merkley’s Good Jobs for 21st Century Energy Act, adopting all basic labor protections, ensuring that all investments meet Davis-Bacon wage guidelines, and banning anti-worker provisions like forced arbitration and the overuse of temporary staffing agencies. He will require federally funded projects to source materials in the U.S., to employ workers trained in registered apprenticeship programs, and to prioritize Project Labor and Community Workforce Agreements in federal procurement procedures. Biden’s proposal will make sure that national infrastructure investments create millions of middle-class jobs, benefiting union and non-union workers across industries. 
• Build resilient infrastructure and reduce greenhouse gas emissions. We’ve already felt the devastating impacts of climate change—from raging wildfires to more frequent and more severe hurricanes to unprecedented floods. Every federal dollar spent on rebuilding our infrastructure during the Biden Administration will be used to prevent, reduce, and withstand the impacts of this climate crisis. If we transform our modes of transportation and the sources of energy that power them, we can make real progress toward reducing our greenhouse gas emissions. For that reason, Biden will invest in expanded public transit systems, giving more Americans an affordable, efficient way to get around without their cars. He will help state and local governments plan for the widespread adoption of electric cars, and will coordinate and invest in the construction of a national electric-vehicle charging network to power them. Biden will also push to build a national high-speed rail network; to accelerate the development of low-carbon aviation and shipping technology; and to fortify our infrastructure to withstand the effects of climate change. And, he will give homeowners and businesses new incentives to retrofit their buildings to reduce their carbon footprints. Across these efforts, Biden will also work with state and local governments and the private sector to modernize our nation’s electric grid, making it smarter, more resilient, and ready to meet the changing needs of a net-zero greenhouse-gas-emissions economy. The impacts of climate change will continue to vary by region, and the people living in each area must be part of developing the solutions to best address their unique challenges.
• Revitalize communities in every corner of the country so that no one is left behind.  Whether in our biggest cities or our smallest towns, too many low-income communities are bearing the brunt of our nation’s decaying infrastructure. Biden will boost federal investments in those neighborhoods to ensure that every American has access to clean drinking water, well-paved roads, high-speed broadband, safe schools, and affordable housing.

TRANSPORTATION

Highways, Roads, & Bridges

• Jump-start the repair of our highways, roads, and bridges. Almost 20% of our roads are in poor condition, and there is a backlog of hundreds of billions of dollars of investment. Americans in cities lose more than 8.8 billion hours to traffic each year—an average 54 hours a year per commuter. Biden will propose to immediately spend $50 billion over the first year of his Administration to kickstart the process of repairing our existing roads, highways, and bridges. In addition to sending these funds to states, some of the dollars will go directly to cities and towns that own and run most of our roads. Biden will also expedite permitting, so that projects can break ground faster.
• Make American roads the world’s safest. The federal government must lead the way in making our streets and highways safer. Under President Biden, the U.S. Department of Transportation will work with cities around the country to build “complete streets,” designed to help drivers, pedestrians, cyclists, and others safely share the road. Biden will also work with Congress to increase federal funding for key safety initiatives like the Highway Safety Improvement Program; and to encourage state and local governments to explore new technologies that can reduce accidents, including “smart” pavement, vehicle-to-infrastructure communication, connected intersections, and other infrastructure-related innovations. 
• Invest in historically marginalized communities and bring everyone to the table for transportation planning. Biden’s pledge to bring Americans together will be reflected in his Administration’s approach to infrastructure. Not only will he make unprecedented investments in rebuilding and connecting historically underserved areas to better transportation options, he will make sure that our highway, road, transit, and air systems never again divide us. As president, Biden will emphasize a robust public engagement process in planning all new transportation projects. He will create a new Community Restoration Fund, specifically for neighborhoods where historic transportation investments cut people off from jobs, schools, and businesses. And, he will work to make sure towns and cities directly receive a portion of existing federal transportation investments.
• Pair new infrastructure investments with new training programs. To help develop the workforce that will build the new backbone of our country, Biden will work with Congress and the U.S. Department of Labor to fund new Apprenticeship Readiness Programs that specifically target veterans, women, and communities of color to enter the construction trades and that are connected to Registered Apprenticeships.  Additionally, Biden will work to further support community colleges that have articulation agreements with Registered Apprenticeship Programs. This, in conjunction with promoting Project Labor and Community Workforce Agreements, will ensure that infrastructure investments are paired with public and private investments in Pre-Apprenticeship training and other recruitment strategies that support the Registered Apprenticeship system, promote meaningful construction careers, and will ensure that the benefits of these investments are broadly shared. This effort will also develop a diverse and local workforce that will strengthen communities as we rebuild our physical infrastructure.
• Stabilize the Highway Trust Fund. The Highway Trust Fund has for far too long been grossly underfunded. Biden will ensure new revenues are secured to stabilize the Highway Trust Fund in order to build roads, bridges, and public transportation projects.

Rail

• Spark the second great railroad revolution. Two centuries ago, the first great railroad expansion drove our industrial revolution. Today, the U.S. is lagging behind Europe and China in rail safety and speed. A 21st-century passenger rail system that connects people across our nation is essential to our competitiveness, to reducing greenhouse gas emissions, and to giving more Americans the freedom and flexibility to travel. Biden will make sure that America has the cleanest, safest, and fastest rail system in the world—for both passengers and freight. As president, he will invest in high-speed rail. He’ll start by putting the Northeast Corridor on higher speeds and shrinking the travel time from D.C. to New York by half – and build in conjunction with it a new, safer Hudson River Tunnel. He will make progress toward the completion of the California High Speed Rail project. He will expand the Northeast Corridor to the fast-growing South. Across the Midwest and the Great West, he will begin the construction of an end-to-end high speed rail system that will connect the coasts, unlocking new, affordable access for every American. A Biden Administration will also support freight projects, including a truck and rail-transit bridge linking Oregon to Washington State, and Chicago’s CREATE project, which has the potential to halve transit times for goods moving across the country. Overall, Biden’s rail revolution will reduce pollution, connect workers to good jobs, slash commute times, and spur investment in communities that will now be better linked to major metropolitan areas. To speed that work, Biden will tap existing federal grant and loan programs at the U.S. Department of Transportation, and improve and streamline the loan process.
• Electrify the rail system. As president, Biden will work with Amtrak and private freight rail companies to further electrify the rail system, reducing diesel fuel emissions.

Transit and Regional Planning

• Offer tens of millions of Americans new transportation options. Outside major cities, most Americans do not have access to high-quality, reliable public transportation; and within urban areas, it’s often in need of repair. As a result, workers and families rely on cars, which can be a big financial burden, clog roadways, and – along with light-duty trucks – significantly increase U.S. greenhouse gas emissions. As president, Biden will aim to provide all Americans in municipalities of more than 100,000 people with quality public transportation by 2030. To that end, he’ll increase flexible federal investments, helping cities and towns to install light rail networks and to improve existing transit and bus lines. He’ll also help them to invest in infrastructure for pedestrians, cyclists, and riders of e-scooters and other micro-mobility vehicles. And, Biden will work to make sure that new, fast-growing areas are designed and built with public transit in mind. Specifically, he will create a new program that gives rapidly expanding communities the resources to build in public transit options from the start.
• Reduce congestion by working with metropolitan regions to plan smarter growth. Biden will empower city, county, regional, and state leaders to explore new, smarter, climate-friendly strategies to help reduce average commute times and build more vibrant main streets. Specifically, Biden will create a competitive grant program to help leaders rethink and redesign regional transportation systems, to get commuters where they are going safer, faster, and more efficiently. At the same time, Biden will boost highway funding by 10%, and allocate the new funding to states that embrace smart climate design and pollution reduction, incentivizing them to invest in greenhouse gas reduction. States will also be free to use existing highway funding for alternative transportation options.
• Connect workers to jobs. For too many low-income workers, the cost of transportation and time it takes them to commute to work every day are significant barriers. As president, Biden will dedicate an additional $10 billion over 10 years specifically for transit projects that serve high-poverty areas with limited transportation options, so that workers seeking a better life won’t have to spend as much getting to their jobs.

Smart Cities

• Encourage innovation and launch smarter cities. Transportation patterns are changing across the country. New modes of car ownership, the explosive growth of ride-hailing and ride-sharing services, and the rapid adoption of electric scooters and bike-share programs are giving Americans new ways to move. But the biggest disruption lies ahead: self-driving cars. Citizens will benefit if cities can adapt to those new technologies – for example, by reshaping streets to protect cyclists and scooters, connecting transit systems to last-mile solutions like ride-shares and e-scooters, or using real-time data to manage traffic flows. As president, Biden will build on the U.S. Department of Transportation’s Smart City Challenge by launching a yearly $1 billion competitive grant program to help five cities pilot new planning strategies and smart-city technologies that can serve as models for the country. Biden will also direct the Department to work with labor unions to develop a plan to help workers impacted by this automation find high-paying, quality jobs.

Aviation

• Make our airports the best in the world. Aviation and airports are major drivers for the U.S. economy, but our airports are in desperate need of improvement. As president, Biden will double funding for airports through the Federal Aviation Administration’s (FAA) Airport Improvement Program, and launch a new competitive grant program for major airport renovation projects. At the same time, he’ll also make sure that the U.S. maintains the world’s safest aviation system, working with the FAA to fully implement its NextGen technology system, to improve safety, modernize our airspace, and reduce delays and cancellations. Biden will also ensure that U.S. airlines’ operating, repair, and maintenance facilities overseas adhere to our nation’s highest safety standards.

Freight

• Invest in freight infrastructure, including inland waterways, freight corridors, freight rail, transfer facilities, and ports. From early-19th century canals, to late-19th century railroads, to 20th-century highways, innovations in transportation infrastructure have powered our economy, carrying the freight that drives our nation forward. Today, though, our freight system is especially outdated. Freight railroads run through 100-year-old tunnels too small for the shipping containers they should be carrying. Highways and bridges buckle under trucks’ weight, and many ports are too shallow for modern shipping vessels. As president, Biden will change that. He will roughly double funding for key competitive grant programs – like the Better Utilizing Investments to Leverage Development (BUILD) Transportation Discretionary Grants program (formerly known as Transportation Investment Generating Economic Recovery, or TIGER) and Infrastructure For Rebuilding America (INFRA) – from $1.8 billion to $3.5 billion a year. These programs leverage local, state, and private investment, and create innovative transportation models that can be replicated nationwide. Biden will also work closely with American manufacturers to prioritize investments that will improve supply chains and distribution, reduce shipping costs, and boost U.S. exports. And he will also increase funding for the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers by $2.5 billion per year, supporting infrastructure projects to keep goods moving quickly through our ports and waterways. This will include increased federal funding for lock modernization projects on inland waterways.
• Support American port infrastructure. Biden will ensure that all fees collected for the Harbor Maintenance Trust Fund are used to improve and rebuild American ports of entry. And he’ll work with U.S. ports and labor unions to ensure that cargo bound for the U.S. is offloaded in the U.S., and not in Canadian ports to avoid harbor taxes.

RESILIENT INFRASTRUCTURE

• Invest in the resiliency of our infrastructure. Communities around the country are already experiencing the impact of climate change. While the Trump Administration has abdicated global climate leadership, America’s mayors and other local leaders have stepped up to build smarter cities that can withstand storms, floods, heat, wildfires, sea level rise, and more. A Biden Administration will give those communities a true partner in the White House again, advancing their efforts and helping to create new, well-paying jobs to improve climate resiliency and invest in our economic future. As president, Biden will convene top innovators to help design common-sense zoning and building codes, and to help communities build and rebuild before and after natural disasters and other shocks and stresses. Biden will also invest in and help train people for well-paying jobs in climate resiliency industries. These include coastal restoration, resilient infrastructure design, construction and evaluation (for example, building bridges to withstand high winds and roads that don’t wash out during floods), natural solutions (for example, planting trees on a large scale to combat urban heat and its negative health impacts), and technological solutions. These industries have been shown to improve communities’ resilience – and they’re all opportunities for job creation and economic growth.

ENERGY

• Invest in energy infrastructure for a 100% clean energy economy. The transition to a clean energy economy won’t just require new technologies and vehicles, it will entail a major expansion of renewable energy production and a dramatic evolution of our electric grid – not only reducing emissions, but creating millions of new jobs. As president, Biden will partner with utilities and regulators around the country to build a 21st-century power grid, able to distribute clean energy reliably and safely to households and businesses across the United States. Specifically, he will appoint commissioners to the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission who will drive market reforms, like expanding regional electric markets, integrating renewables, building in demand-response, and promoting long-term infrastructure planning to achieve a 100% clean energy economy and net-zero emissions by 2050. The Biden Administration will also work with cities, states, and utilities to install advanced metering equipment; to deploy electric vehicle charging infrastructure; and to upgrade transmission lines to support larger regional electric markets that can distribute renewably-generated electricity from the point of generation to end users. Finally, Biden will work with the U.S. Department of Energy to advance large-scale storage demonstration projects, including pilots that use electric vehicles as mobile energy storage units.
• Make our buildings more energy efficient. As president, Biden will work with Congress to electrify the building sector and increase energy efficiency in a range of ways. For homeowners, he’ll reinstate tax credits for residential energy efficiency. For businesses, he’ll expand tax deductions for energy retrofits, smart metering systems, and other emissions-reducing investments in commercial buildings. His administration will also boost investment in low-income weatherization programs and in key technologies like electric heat pumps; and it will work with local and state governments and the private sector to expand the utilization of Property Assessed Clean Energy (PACE). Biden will also reinstate the solar Investment Tax Credit (ITC), slated to expire in two years; and will construct net-zero-carbon federal buildings, to serve as a model for state and local governments and the private sector. 

WATER

• Replace aging pipes and invest in water infrastructure so every American has clean drinking water. Americans deserve clean, reliable drinking water in their homes. But across the country, pipes and treatment plants are aging into obsolescence, and in places like Flint, Michigan, Merrimack, New Hampshire, and Martin County, Kentucky, drinking water is endangering public health. Biden will double federal investments in clean drinking water and water infrastructure, and focus new funding on low-income rural, suburban, and urban areas that are struggling to replace pipes and treatment facilities – and especially on communities at high risk of lead or other kinds of contamination. In addition, Biden will reduce the matching funds required of local governments that don’t have the taxbase to be able to afford borrowing to repair their water systems.
• Monitor for lead and other contaminants and hold polluters accountable. As president, Biden will require state and local governments to monitor their water systems for lead and other contaminants, and he will provide them with the resources to do so. Biden will also work with the EPA and the Justice Department to hold companies that pollute our waterways accountable, aggressively enforcing existing regulations and prosecuting any violations. Corporations and their executives cannot break the law and expect to get away with it.
• Invest in water technology. New technologies present real opportunities to use existing water resources more efficiently, and to reduce the cost and energy required to generate new water supplies, for example through desalination. As president, Biden will increase federal funding for water technology research and use the convening power of the White House to spur private-sector innovation. 

BROADBAND

• Bring broadband to every American household. In a 21st century economy, Americans need broadband. Without it, students face substantial barriers to doing their homework and the sick and elderly can’t access remote health care. Broadband is a prerequisite for starting a business, working remotely, accessing government resources, and engaging in public debate. But today, more than 21 million Americans still don’t have broadband; and many more can’t afford it. This “digital divide” is particularly wide for low-income, older, and rural Americans, as well as for Americans living on tribal lands. As president, Biden will close the digital divide. First, he will invest $20 billion in rural broadband infrastructure; and triple funding to expand broadband access in rural areas, and to ensure that the work of installing broadband provides high-paying jobs with benefits. Biden will also direct the federal government – especially the U.S. National Telecommunications and Information Administration and the U.S. Department of Agriculture – to support cities and towns that want to build municipally-owned broadband networks. He will encourage competition among providers, to increase speeds and decrease prices in urban, suburban, and rural areas. And to encourage those providers to invest in further extending service to rural communities and tribal areas, Biden will make available key federally-controlled telecom resources, like towers, poles, and rights-of-way. Biden will also work with the FCC to reform its Lifeline program, increasing the number of participating broadband providers, reducing fraud and abuse, and ultimately offering more low-income Americans the subsidies needed to access high-speed internet. Finally, Biden will work with Congress to pass the Digital Equity Act, to help communities tackle the digital divide.

SCHOOLS

• Invest $100 billion to modernize our nation’s schools. American public school facilities received a grade of D+ from the American Society of Civil Engineers. In fact, each year the U.S. underfunds school infrastructure by $46 billion, resulting in schools that are outdated, unsafe, unfit, and – in some cases – making kids and educators sick. In line with the Rebuild America’s Schools Act, backed by the House Education Committee, President Biden will invest $100 billion in improving public school buildings. First and foremost, those funds will be used to address health risks, so that going to school or working at one never makes anyone sick. Additional funds will be used to build cutting-edge, energy-efficient, innovative schools, with technology and labs to prepare our students for the jobs of the future.

In the weeks ahead, Biden will put forward additional policies related to housing.

ENSURE GROWTH IS SHARED BY COMMUNITIES ACROSS THE COUNTRY 

Vice President Biden’s plan will spark a renaissance in cities, towns, and communities that have been forgotten for too long. It will attract private capital to all corners of the country, and provide funds for anchor institutions, including new research centers and hospitals. Biden will make critical investments so that every American has a chance to succeed, no matter their zip code.

A NATIONAL COMMUNITY DEVELOPMENT AND JOBS INITIATIVE

• Expand the New Markets Tax Credit, make the program permanent, and double Community Development Financial Institutions (CDFI) funding. The New Markets Tax Credit has helped draw tens of billions of dollars in new capital to low-income communities, providing tax credits to investors in community development organizations that support everything from supermarkets to real estate projects to manufacturing plants.  Biden will expand the program to provide $5 billion in support every year, and he will make the program permanent so communities can take the credit into account in their long-term planning. As part of his plan to reinvest in communities across the country, including in rural areas, Biden will also double funding for the Community Development Financial Institutions (CDFI) Fund, which supports local, mission-driven financial institutions in low-income areas around the U.S. This builds on Biden’s proposal to support entrepreneurs in small towns and rural areas by expanding both the Rural Microentrepreneur Assistance Program and the number of Rural Business Investment Companies, to help rural businesses attract capital.
• Double funding for the Economic Development Administration, to help underserved communities tap existing federal resources. Billions in federal aid is available for economic development goals like expanding access to broadband, setting up business incubators, and encouraging industry clusters in manufacturing or information technology. But, underserved communities often lack resources to navigate the complex grant application system in the first place. Throughout the Obama-Biden Administration’s work to support the resurgence of places like Detroit, it was clear that helping local leaders apply for federal aid is one of the most important ways to start turning around an economically depressed city. For that reason, Biden will double funding for the Economic Development Administration, an agency within the U.S. Department of Commerce devoted to economic development, and task it with creating a new division devoted to helping underserved communities apply for federal aid. This initiative complements Biden’s proposal for a new White House “StrikeForce” to assist rural communities in persistent poverty, and will help to ensure that every community can seek and receive the federal resources it needs to build a more prosperous economy.
• Create a new Cities Revitalization Fund. Our nation must recommit to revitalizing American cities. As president, Biden will launch a new, $10 billion fund, coordinated through the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development, and focused on creative revitalization projects in distressed cities – like redeveloping post-industrial waterfronts, energizing main street business districts, rehabbing public markets, and building new green public spaces. These communities have missed out on both private capital and necessary government funding for far too long. Under a Biden Administration, they will get the investment they need and deserve.
• Fund anchor institutions in distressed areas. For many communities across the United States, anchor institutions serve as long-standing contributors to economic vitality. These institutions – which include hospitals, colleges and universities, and government administrative offices – can help to provide a reliable source of income and good-paying jobs, even in times of economic downturns; and can support small businesses and middle-class workers. Unfortunately, many communities have no viable anchor institution and miss out on the related economic and social benefits. Biden will create a new fund to support the establishment and revitalization of anchor institutions, with a competitive process to ensure that the most deserving communities win investment.

REVITALIZE MANUFACTURING ACROSS THE COUNTRY 

• Quadruple funding for the Manufacturing Extension Partnership. America’s small manufacturers need help. On the heels of the Trump Administration’s reckless trade wars, our country’s manufacturing sector has been thrown into a full-blown recession. Righting American manufacturing will require smarter, less erratic trade policies – but it also begins with giving small manufacturers the tools they need to succeed. One lifeline for thousands of them is the Manufacturing Extension Partnership, a program designed to provide small manufacturers with the technical expertise needed to compete in a global economy. While President Trump proposed fully cutting this program, Biden will quadruple its funding, to ensure that more small manufacturers can access the technical and business support it provides. 
• Enact a national strategy to develop a low-carbon manufacturing sector in every state, boosting access to new technologies and skills, and helping small and large manufacturers upgrade their capabilities to have both competitive and low-carbon futures. This strategy will connect research universities, community colleges, incubators, manufacturing institutes, employers, unions, and state and local governments – alone or as part of a regional pact – and provide them with significant funding for a place-based plan to build a competitive, localized, low-carbon future in manufacturing. Industries ranging from textiles and machine tools, to metal fabrication or the most advanced manufacturing technologies, will be eligible for funding; and will be motivated to modernize, compete, create jobs, and move to a clean energy future. Allocated tax credits and subsidies will help businesses to upgrade equipment and processes, to invest in expanded or new factories, and to deploy low-carbon technologies – as long as all community stakeholders are included in the process. In cases where states feel that competitive pressures or climate change-related requirements may harm a local economy, Biden’s strategy will preemptively fund a more competitive or low-carbon manufacturing approach. Those preemptive efforts may include new economic strategies, or new federal funding for technology or manufacturing innovation centers. That support can particularly help green economy manufacturers, whether producing batteries for electric vehicles and energy storage, solar panels, or other advanced equipment; and it can also incentivize small manufacturers to use American-made materials, such as iron, steel, and intermediate manufactured products, in their production processes.
• Establish a Manufacturing Communities Tax Credit. The Obama-Biden Administration proposed a $6 billion, three-year initiative to invest in communities that experienced mass layoffs or the closure of a major government institution. As president, Biden will adopt and expand this initiative, providing five years of funding for projects that boost local economic growth.

SPARK ENTREPRENEURSHIP AND SMALL BUSINESS GROWTH IN EVERY COMMUNITY 

• Double down on the State Small Business Credit Initiative. In 2010, the Obama-Biden Administration created the State Small Business Credit Initiative (SSBCI) to support small businesses. The program transfers funds to state small business lending initiatives, driving $10 billion in new lending for each $1 billion in SSBCI funds. Biden will extend the program through 2025 and double its federal funding to $3 billion, driving close to $30 billion of private sector investments to small businesses all told, especially those owned by women and people of color.
• Establish a competitive grant program for new business startups outside of our biggest cities. To help redirect investments to more communities across the country – not just our biggest cities – Biden will enact legislation to provide $5 billion in funding to states with policies to encourage small business startups, for example by supporting the transfer of technology from public universities to the private sector, or by implementing training programs for new entrepreneurs.

Investing in Middle Class Competitiveness, Not Rewarding Wealth

Every cent of Joe Biden’s $1.3 trillion investment in our nation’s infrastructure will be paid for by making sure the super-wealthy and corporations pay their fair share. Specifically, this investment will be offset by revenue raised through reversing the excesses of the Trump tax cuts for corporations; reducing incentives for tax havens, evasion, and outsourcing; ensuring corporations pay their fair share; closing other loopholes in our tax code that reward wealth, not work; and ending subsidies for fossil fuels.

Safety

BIDEN PLAN TO END OUR GUN VIOLENCE EPIDEMIC

Joe Biden knows that gun violence is a public health epidemic. Almost 40,000 people die as a result of firearm injuries every year in the United States, and many more are wounded. Some of these deaths and injuries are the result of mass shootings that make national headlines. Others are the result of daily acts of gun violence or suicides that may not make national headlines, but are just as devastating to the families and communities left behind.

Joe Biden has taken on the National Rifle Association (NRA) on the national stage and won – twice. In 1993, he shepherded through Congress the Brady Handgun Violence Prevention Act, which established the background check system that has since kept more than 3 million firearms out of dangerous hands. In 1994, Biden – along with Senator Dianne Feinstein – secured the passage of 10-year bans on assault weapons and high-capacity magazines. As president, Joe Biden will defeat the NRA again.

Joe Biden also knows how to make progress on reducing gun violence using executive action. After the tragedy at Sandy Hook Elementary School in 2012, President Obama tasked Vice President Biden with developing both legislative proposals and executive actions to make our communities safer. As a result of this effort, the Obama-Biden Administration took more than two dozen actions, including narrowing the so-called “gun show loophole,” increasing the number of records in the background check system, and expanding funding for mental health services.

It’s within our grasp to end our gun violence epidemic and respect the Second Amendment, which is limited. As president, Biden will pursue constitutional, common-sense gun safety policies. Biden will:

Hold gun manufacturers accountable. In 2005, then-Senator Biden voted against the Protection of Lawful Commerce in Arms Act, but gun manufacturers successfully lobbied Congress to secure its passage. This law protects these manufacturers from being held civilly liable for their products – a protection granted to no other industry. Biden will prioritize repealing this protection.

Get weapons of war off our streets. The bans on assault weapons and high-capacity magazines that Biden, along with Senator Feinstein, secured in 1994 reduced the lethality of mass shootings. But, in order to secure the passage of the bans, they had to agree to a 10-year sunset provision and when the time came, the Bush Administration failed to extend them. As president, Biden will:

• Ban the manufacture and sale of assault weapons and high-capacity magazines. Federal law prevents hunters from hunting migratory game birds with more than three shells in their shotgun. That means our federal law does more to protect ducks than children. It’s wrong. Joe Biden will enact legislation to once again ban assault weapons. This time, the bans will be designed based on lessons learned from the 1994 bans. For example, the ban on assault weapons will be designed to prevent manufacturers from circumventing the law by making minor changes that don’t limit the weapon’s lethality. While working to pass this legislation, Biden will also use his executive authority to ban the importation of assault weapons. 

• Regulate possession of existing assault weapons under the National Firearms Act. Currently, the National Firearms Act requires individuals possessing machine-guns, silencers, and short-barreled rifles to undergo a background check and register those weapons with the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives (ATF). Due to these requirements, such weapons are rarely used in crimes. As president, Biden will pursue legislation to regulate possession of existing assault weapons under the National Firearms Act.

• Buy back the assault weapons and high-capacity magazines already in our communities. Biden will also institute a program to buy back weapons of war currently on our streets. This will give individuals who now possess assault weapons or high-capacity magazines two options: sell the weapons to the government, or register them under the National Firearms Act.

• Reduce stockpiling of weapons. In order to reduce the stockpiling of firearms, Biden supports legislation restricting the number of firearms an individual may purchase per month to one.

Keep guns out of dangerous hands. The federal background check system (the National Instant Criminal Background Check System) is one of the best tools we have to prevent gun violence, but it’s only effective when it’s used. Biden will enact universal background check legislation and close other loopholes that allow people who should be prohibited from purchasing firearms from making those purchases. Specifically, he will:

• Require background checks for all gun sales. Today, an estimated 1 in 5 firearms are sold or transferred without a background check. Biden will enact universal background check legislation, requiring a background check for all gun sales with very limited exceptions, such as gifts between close family members. This will close the so-called “gun show and online sales loophole” that the Obama-Biden Administration narrowed, but which cannot be fully closed by executive action alone.

• Close other loopholes in the federal background check system. In addition to closing the “boyfriend loophole” highlighted below, Biden will:

• Reinstate the Obama-Biden policy to keep guns out of the hands of certain people unable to manage their affairs for mental reasons, which President Trump reversed. In 2016, the Obama-Biden Administration finalized a rule to make sure the Social Security Administration (SSA) sends to the background check system records that it holds of individuals who are prohibited from purchasing or possessing firearms because they have been adjudicated by the SSA as unable to manage their affairs for mental reasons. But one of the first actions Donald Trump took as president was to reverse this rule. President Biden will enact legislation to codify this policy.

• Close the “hate crime loophole.” Biden will enact legislation prohibiting an individual “who has been convicted of a misdemeanor hate crime, or received an enhanced sentence for a misdemeanor because of hate or bias in its commission” from purchasing or possessing a firearm.

• Close the “Charleston loophole.” The Charleston loophole allows people to complete a firearms purchase if their background check is not completed within three business days. Biden supports the proposal in the Enhanced Background Checks Act of 2019, which extends the timeline from three to 10 business days. Biden will also direct the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) to put on his desk within his first 100 days as president a report detailing the cases in which background checks are not completed within 10 business days and steps the federal government can take to reduce or eliminate this occurrence.

• Close the “fugitive from justice” loophole created by the Trump Administration. Because of actions by the Trump Administration, records of almost 500,000 fugitives from justice who are prohibited from purchasing firearms were deleted from the background check system. The Biden Administration will restore these records, and enact legislation to make clear that people facing arrest warrants are prohibited from purchasing or possessing firearms.

End the online sale of firearms and ammunitions. Biden will enact legislation to prohibit all online sales of firearms, ammunition, kits, and gun parts.

Create an effective program to ensure individuals who become prohibited from possessing firearms relinquish their weapons. Federal law defines categories of individuals who are prohibited from purchasing or possessing firearms, and the federal background check system is an effective tool for ensuring prohibited persons cannot purchase firearms. But we lack any serious tool to ensure that when someone becomes newly prohibited – for example, because they commit a violent crime – they relinquish possession of their firearms. There are some promising models for how this could be enforced. For example, California has a mandatory process for ensuring relinquishment by any individual newly subject to a domestic violence restraining order. As president, Biden will direct the FBI and ATF to outline a model relinquishment process, enact any necessary legislation to ensure relinquishment when individuals newly fall under one of the federal prohibitions, and then provide technical and financial assistance to state and local governments to establish effective relinquishment processes on their own.

Incentivize state “extreme risk” laws. Extreme risk laws, also called “red flag” laws, enable family members or law enforcement officials to temporarily remove an individual’s access to firearms when that individual is in crisis and poses a danger to themselves or others. Biden will incentivize the adoption of these laws by giving states funds to implement them. And, he’ll direct the U.S. Department of Justice to issue best practices and offer technical assistance to states interested in enacting an extreme risk law.

Give states incentives to set up gun licensing programs. Biden will enact legislation to give states and local governments grants to require individuals to obtain a license prior to purchasing a gun.

Adequately fund the background check system. President Obama and Vice President Biden expanded incentives for states to submit records of prohibited persons into the background checks system. As president, Biden will continue to prioritize that funding and ensure that the FBI is adequately funded to accurately and efficiently handle the NICS system.

Make sure firearm owners take on the responsibility of ensuring their weapons are used safely.

• Put America on the path to ensuring that 100% of firearms sold in America are smart guns. Today, we have the technology to allow only authorized users to fire a gun. For example, existing smart gun technology requires a fingerprint match before use. Biden believes we should work to eventually require that 100% of firearms sold in the U.S. are smart guns. But, right now the NRA and gun manufacturers are bullying firearms dealers who try to sell these guns. Biden will stand up against these bullying tactics and issue a call to action for gun manufacturers, dealers, and other public and private entities to take steps to accelerate our transition to smart guns.

• Hold adults accountable for giving minors access to firearms. Biden supports legislation holding adults criminally and civilly liable for directly or negligently giving a minor access to a firearm, regardless of whether the minor actually gains possession of the firearm.

• Require gun owners to safely store their weapons. Biden will pass legislation requiring firearm owners to store weapons safely in their homes.

Empower law enforcement to effectively enforce our gun laws.

• Prioritize prosecution of straw purchasers. “Straw purchasers” buy a firearm on behalf of an individual who cannot pass a background check. Biden will end those loopholes by enacting a law to make all straw purchases a serious federal crime and ensure the U.S. Justice Department has sufficient resources to prioritize their prosecution.

• Notify law enforcement when a potential firearms purchaser fails a background check. Too often, when prohibited persons attempting to buy a firearm fail a background check, state and local law enforcement is never informed of the attempt. As president, Biden will direct the FBI to set up a process to ensure timely notification of denials to state and local law enforcement, and he’ll support legislation to codify this process. This empowers law enforcement to follow up and ensure prohibited persons do not attempt to acquire firearms through other means.

• Require firearms owners to report if their weapon is lost or stolen. Responsible gun owners have a responsibility to inform law enforcement if their weapon is lost or stolen. Biden will enact legislation to make this the law of the land.

• Stop “ghost guns.” One way people who cannot legally obtain a gun may gain access to a weapon is by assembling a one on their own, either by buying a kit of disassembled gun parts or 3D printing a working firearm. Biden will stop the proliferation of these so-called “ghost guns” by passing legislation requiring that purchasers of gun kits or 3D printing code pass a federal background check. Additionally, Biden will ensure that the authority for firearms exports stays with the State Department, and if needed reverse a proposed rule by President Trump. This will ensure the State Department continues to block the code used to 3D print firearms from being made available on the Internet.

• Reform, fund, and empower the U.S. Justice Department to enforce our gun laws. Biden will direct his Attorney General to deliver to him within his first 100 days a set of recommendations for restructuring the ATF and related Justice Department agencies to most effectively enforce our gun laws. Biden will then work to secure sufficient funds for the Justice Department to effectively enforce our existing gun laws, increase the frequency of inspections of firearms dealers, and repeal riders that get in the way of that work.

• Direct the ATF to issue an annual report on firearms trafficking. This report will provide officials with critical information to better identify strategies for curbing firearms trafficking.

Dedicate the brightest scientific minds to solving the gun violence public health epidemic. In 2013, President Obama issued a memorandum clarifying that a longstanding appropriations rider that prohibited the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) and other federal scientific agencies from using federal dollars to “advocate or promote gun control” does not prohibit those agencies from researching the causes and prevention of gun violence. The National Institutes of Health (NIH) subsequently embarked on funding some of this research, though Republican leadership in Congress refused to appropriate any funds to the CDC for this work. Biden will call for Congress to appropriate $50 million to accelerate this research at the CDC and NIH.

Prohibit the use of federal funds to arm or train educators to discharge firearms. We should be passing rational gun laws, not requiring educators who already have too much on their plates to also protect the safety of their students. Biden supports barring states from using federal dollars to arm or train educators to discharge firearms.

Address the epidemic of suicides by firearms. Biden believes any plan to address the gun violence epidemic must address suicides by firearms, which account for 6 in 10 gun-related deaths but are often left out of the conversation. Many of the policies noted above – including safe storage requirements and extreme risk protection orders – will have a serious impact on efforts to reduce gun violence. But there’s so much more we need to do to support people experiencing suicidal ideation. In the months ahead, Biden will put forward a comprehensive plan to improve access to mental health services.

JOE BIDEN’S 4-POINT PLAN FOR OUR ESSENTIAL WORKERS

Essential workers are providing life-saving medical care, cleaning our hospital rooms, delivering our food and other essential goods, stocking our grocery store shelves, getting us from place to place, keeping our cities’ lights on, and so much more. They have been on the frontlines of this pandemic.

Joe Biden has said since the beginning of this campaign that American workers are the heart and soul of this country— too often, though, we’ve taken these workers and the work they do for granted.

But the coronavirus pandemic has highlighted this critical truth: all across this nation, it’s often our lowest-paid workers who have stepped up during this crisis.

Donald Trump’s foot-dragging and delays have only made it more challenging for workers.

These workers are putting themselves on the line every day. They are essential to our society – in times of crisis and beyond, and deserve not just our thanks and respect, but our support.

Joe Biden has a bold agenda to give these workers the long-term support they deserve — raising wages, guaranteeing quality, affordable health care, providing free tuition for public higher education, and encouraging unionization and collective bargaining.

But these workers can’t wait. They need emergency help now.

Today, Joe Biden is calling on President Trump’s Administration to take four immediate actions to protect and support our essential workers:

(1) Ensure all frontline workers, like grocery store employees, qualify for priority access to personnel protective equipment (PPE) and COVID-19 testing based upon their risk of exposure to the virus, as well as child care assistance, and other forms of emergency COVID-19 support.

(2) Expand access to effective personal protective equipment, including through use of the Defense Production Act.

The Trump Administration should ramp up capacity to produce masks for all frontline workers – from health care workers to grocery store workers – by fully using the Defense Production Act. And, the Trump Administration should fully empower a Supply Commander to coordinate the production and delivery of essential supplies and equipment, including masks, gloves, and other personal protective equipment. The Supply Commander would be tasked with ensuring equitable distribution so that at-risk communities and particularly vulnerable populations are fully taken care of.

(3) Establish and enforce health and safety standards for workplaces.

During the H1N1 epidemic, the Obama-Biden Administration tasked the Occupational Safety and Health Administration (OSHA) and the Center for Disease Control (CDC) with issuing detailed guidance for how employers should protect their workers. Then, OSHA enforced the law based on those guidelines. The Trump Administration has only started enforcement efforts this week and is still refusing to do everything it can and should to protect workers’ health and safety.

The Trump Administration should:

• Immediately release and enforce an Emergency Temporary Standard (“ETS”) to give employers and frontline employees specific, enforceable guidance on what to do to reduce the spread of COVID.
• Finalize a permanent infectious disease standard. After H1N1, the Obama-Biden Administration spent years preparing a new, permanent infectious disease standard, which would have required health facilities and certain other high exposure workplaces to permanently implement infection control programs to protect their workers. It handed it to the Trump Administration, but instead of moving it to rulemaking, it readily shelved it. They should immediately get to work bringing it to conclusion and expanding it to include all relevant workplaces.
• Double the number of OSHA investigators to enforce the law and existing standards and guidelines. Under President Trump, OSHA currently has record low inspectors. Given the exigencies of this crisis, and the need for rigorous enforcement of workplace standards across the country, at least twice the number of inspectors are needed.
• Work closely with state occupational safety and health agencies and state and local governments, and the unions that represent their employees, to ensure comprehensive protections for frontline workers.

(4) Enact premium pay for frontline workers putting themselves at risk.

There is no substitute for ensuring worker safety, but all frontline workers putting their lives on the line should receive premium pay for their work. The Trump Administration should immediately work with Congress to pass a bold premium pay initiative. Under the Senate Democrats’ “Heroes Fund” proposal, the federal government would step in and give essential workers a raise, with additional funding to attract workers to serve as health and home care workers and first responders. This premium pay should be in addition to paid sick leave and care-giving leave for every worker, which Joe Biden called for in his March 12 plan, and $15 minimum wage for all workers.

THE BIDEN PLAN TO END VIOLENCE AGAINST WOMEN

One of the driving forces throughout Joe Biden’s career has been fighting back against abuses of power – whether economic or physical power. That force motivated him to write and champion the Violence Against Women Act of 1994, establish the first-ever White House Advisor on Violence Against Women during the Obama-Biden Administration, and launch a national campaign to change the culture surrounding campus rape and sexual assault.

Earlier this year, a bipartisan coalition in the House of Representatives passed the Violence Against Women Reauthorization Act of 2019 (VAWA 2019), which includes significant, forward-looking improvements and innovations proposed by advocates, survivors, lawyers, experts, prosecutors, and law enforcement who are in the trenches protecting and supporting survivors. Last week, every single Senate Democrat signed on to the Senate version of the House-passed bill. But, Leader McConnell is refusing to bring the bill to the floor in the Senate. There’s no reason the Senate shouldn’t pass this reauthorization now and enact it long before President Biden’s first day in office. But if they don’t, Joe Biden will make enacting the VAWA reauthorization one of his top first 100 day priorities.

In addition, President Joe Biden will build on his strong track record of getting things done by:

• Expanding the safety net for survivors,
• Empowering and protecting our young people,
• Confronting online harassment, abuse and stalking,
• Ensuring justice for survivors,
• Ending the rape kit backlog,
• Addressing the deadly combination of guns and domestic violence,
• Changing the culture that enables sexual violence,
• Supporting the diverse needs of survivors of violence against women,
• Protecting and empowering immigrant women, and
• Leading the global effort to end gender-based violence.

EXPAND THE SAFETY NET FOR SURVIVORS 

As president, Biden will strengthen social supports for survivors of domestic and sexual violence, helping victims secure housing, gain economic stability, and recover from the trauma of abuse. The U.S. Conference of Mayors has identified domestic violence as a top driver of family homelessness, and research points to domestic violence as a key cause of homelessness for many women. And, domestic violence survivors and their children often live in unstable housing conditions, such as with relatives or friends in crowded and potentially exploitative conditions or returning to abusive partners. Research demonstrates that providing flexibility in eligibility, services, and support helps survivors feel safer and rebuild their lives after violence.

The Biden plan will cut through the red tape that can slow down assistance and limit options for survivors. Specifically, Biden will:

• Establish a new coordinated housing initiative. Current federal housing programs are insufficient for meeting the needs of domestic and sexual violence survivors. Biden will bring federal agencies together to create a comprehensive housing grant program tailored to survivors of domestic and sexual violence. This grant program will include flexible funding to support the practical needs of survivors; advocacy with landlords and housing agencies to keep victims in housing; supportive services including legal assistance, child care, and employment training; new permanent housing vouchers; increased funding for the VAWA transitional housing program; and home ownership opportunities.
• Expand access to housing assistance. Biden will strengthen the VAWA housing provisions, for example by making it easier for victims to retain their federal housing subsidy when needed for safety reasons.
• Protect survivors from housing discrimination. The Fair Housing Act protects women from gender discrimination in public and private housing, including survivors who may be unfairly evicted from housing because of domestic violence. The Trump Administration proposed rolling back Fair Housing protections by making it harder to prove disparate impact claims and allowing landlords and banks to use discriminatory practices. The Biden Administration will vigorously enforce the Fair Housing Act. VAWA also protects survivors from discrimination in subsidized housing and allows survivors to transfer to new units if necessary for safety. But red tape makes these provisions challenging to implement. The Biden plan will make it easier for survivors to transfer their housing assistance and move to a new home so that they can be safe.
• Provide cash assistance to survivors to help build safety and security. Survivors of sexual violence and domestic violence often depend on cash assistance to help build a safe and secure livelihood. For example, a recent survey of domestic violence and sexual assault advocates found that nearly 85% thought survivors relied critically on the Temporary Aid for Needy Families program for support. Unfortunately, these programs are insufficient to meet the needs of many survivors. As president, Biden will allocate $5 billion to community organizations to provide cash grants to survivors in need, whether the need is to help pay for day care, transportation to work, or to buy a laptop for a new job.
• Allow survivors to access their retirement savings as they rebuild their lives. The tax code currently allows some employers to offer hardship withdrawals to retirement savers with a pressing need – such as medical expenses or to pay for a funeral. Recovering from domestic violence or sexual assault currently does not qualify as a condition for hardship withdrawals, but Biden would amend the tax code to ensure it does. In addition, Biden will amend the tax code to allow survivors to take a distribution from their retirement savings without the standard penalty – allowing survivors with retirement savings tax-free access to funds to help achieve a safer and more secure life.
• Guarantee paid domestic violence, sexual assault, and stalking safe leave. Biden will work with Congress to reform the Family and Medical Leave Act to provide paid leave for survivors of domestic violence, sexual assault, or stalking who need time to seek physical or mental care, seek counsel, find new housing, or take other action related to the violence they experienced.

EMPOWER AND PROTECT OUR YOUNG PEOPLE

The Biden Administration will help educate and empower young people with the knowledge and tools they need to prevent sexual violence and dating violence, with a focus on online harassment and enforcing Title IX protections. Biden will:

• Expand requirements for comprehensive sexual assault, stalking, and dating violence prevention education on college campuses. Biden will pursue legislation that will require schools to offer and fund peer-facilitated and student-led prevention education (in addition to comprehensive, data-informed, and ongoing prevention education), and mandate schools conduct campus climate surveys on sexual violence and dating violence and then develop a plan to address survey findings.
• Expand survivors’ reporting rights and options on college campuses. The Biden Administration will push for legislation that will require schools to improve reporting practices, including adopting amnesty policies for survivors who were in violation of minor campus policies at the time of their assault (e.g., underage drinking) implementing online, anonymous sexual assault and harassment reporting systems, and establishing agreements with local rape crisis and/or domestic violence centers to provide new reporting options for survivors.
• Strengthen Title IX and Clery Act enforcement. The Trump Administration has rolled back important protections for student survivors by rescinding the Obama-Biden Administration’s 2011 Title IX guidance. Any backstepping on Title IX is unacceptable. The Biden Administration will restore the Title IX guidance for colleges, including the 2011 Dear Colleague letter, which outlined for schools how to fairly conduct Title IX proceedings. Biden will also increase fines imposed on colleges for Clery Act violations, or failing to report statistics about campus safety, as well as develop stronger enforcement protocols to oversee reporting under the U.S. Department of Education.
• Train college administrators and staff how to support victims of sexual assault or other gender-based violence. Through regulatory guidance, Biden will require all administrators and staff who participate in a Title IX investigative process or may interact with a survivor at any point in the reporting process to participate in training on victim-centered, trauma-informed interview techniques. He will also require staff who develop prevention education programs or may interact with a survivor at any point in the reporting process to undergo training on the role of technology in sexual violence, dating violence, stalking, and harassment, an emerging challenge that is too often insufficiently understood.
• Expand prevention and services to public K-12 schools. Sexual assault, harassment, and dating violence don’t only affect college students. Biden will push for legislation, regulatory action, and appropriations so that K-12 public schools provide annual, age-appropriate education on healthy relationships and affirmative consent beginning in elementary school through graduation, and create funding opportunities for after-school programs and youth-serving groups to implement prevention education programs. Biden will also work to create new funding for public K-12 schools to implement Title IX trainings for administrators and staff. And, Biden will make it easier for teens experiencing dating violence and sexual assault to access accommodations, services, and protective measures.

CONFRONT ONLINE HARASSMENT, ABUSE AND STALKING

Technology brings with it new obligations and policy challenges. Nearly half of all Internet users report experiences of harassment or abuse. The Biden Administration will shine a light on the online harassment, stalking, and abuse that now is a too-frequent reality for Americans, particularly for young people and women. Joe Biden recognizes that culture change must extend to our online lives, whether clamping down on “cyber exploitation,” online stalking, or intimate partner digital abuse.

• Convene a National Task Force on Online Harassment and Abuse. As President, Joe Biden will convene a national task force with federal agencies, state leaders, advocates, law enforcement, and technology experts to study rampant online sexual harassment, stalking, and threats, including revenge porn, deepfakes, and the connection between this harassment, mass shootings, extremism and violence against women. The Task Force will be charged with developing cutting-edge strategies and recommendations for how federal and state governments, social media companies, schools, and other public and private entities can tackle this unique challenge. The Task Force will consider platform accountability, transparent reporting requirements for incidents of harassment and response, and best practices.
• Allocate new funding for law enforcement training to tackle online abuse. The Biden Administration will dedicate new funding to federal, state, and local law enforcement officials for investigating and prosecuting online sexual harassment, stalking, and threats while also supporting victims.
• Support federal and state legislation creating a civil and criminal cause of action for unauthorized disclosure of intimate images. Biden supports the Stopping Harmful Image Exploitation and Limiting Distribution (SHIELD) Act, introduced by Senator Harris, which makes the use of “cyber exploitation” a criminal act. He will also support the enactment of federal and state legislation giving victims of “cyber exploitation” a civil cause of action.

ENSURE JUSTICE FOR SURVIVORS

For too many survivors, justice is out of reach. Many are denied the power to sue wrongdoers on their own. An abuser facing criminal charges has an undeniable right to an attorney, but if the victim needs to get a restraining order or battle for custody, they either have to pay for one or find one pro bono, or they are entirely on their own. In addition, workplace contracts often bar workers who experience sexual harassment or assault in the workplace from their day in court. 

As president, Biden will:

• Restore and strengthen VAWA’s civil cause of action for survivors. The original Violence Against Women Act included a revolutionary civil rights remedy that gave victims the power on their own to take their abusers to federal court, call them to account, and win monetary, injunctive, or declaratory relief. State criminal-justice systems often fail survivors. The federal civil rights remedy was designed to supplement state remedies, not displace them. The Supreme Court got it wrong when they overturned the original civil rights remedy. Congress can and must pass an improved and expanded civil rights remedy that fills the gaps the Court found fatal last time, including a demonstrated connection between sexual assault and women’s economic opportunity.
• Support ratification of the Equal Rights Amendment. The U.S. Constitution does not explicitly protect equal rights for women. The Equal Rights Amendment (ERA) would change this, enshrining in our Constitution the principle that all individuals, regardless of sex, are equally protected under the law. This amendment would expand protections for survivors of violence against women who participate in or require access to government programs, and potentially encompass the aims of the expanded civil rights remedy described above. Biden co-sponsored the Equal Rights Amendment nine times and, as president, he will work with advocates across the country to enshrine the ERA in our Constitution.
• Expand access to lawyers. Biden will significantly expand the Legal Assistance for Victims Grant Program in the Violence Against Women Act, and support expanded funding for the Legal Services Corporation to ensure lawyers are available to help domestic violence survivors in civil and criminal proceedings.
• Ensure advocates for every victim. Biden will create a $50 million grant program from the Crime Victims Fund to hire victim advocates so that every survivor of domestic or sexual violence is offered the services of a highly-trained advocate if they want one. Victim advocates based in community organizations or in local law enforcement systems play an invaluable role by giving individualized attention to victims and helping them navigate the process, explore options and access services.
• Ensure workers can have their day in court by ending mandatory arbitration clauses imposed by employers on workers, including for claims of workplace sexual harassment. 60 million American workers have been forced to sign contracts waiving their right to sue their employer and nearly 25 million are forced to waive their right to bring class action lawsuits and joint arbitration. An estimated 57.6% of female workers are forced to sign forced arbitration clauses. These contracts require employees to use individual, private arbitrations when their employer violates federal and state laws – including workplace discrimination and harassment. Forced arbitration proceedings are conducted in private, often by arbitrators selected by the employer. Even worse, forced individual arbitration clauses bar employees with similar grievances from joining together, which would strengthen their claims and sometimes enable them to find lawyers who will represent them. Biden will spearhead legislation to completely eliminate mandatory individual arbitration, including for claims of workplace sexual harassment. By getting rid of mandatory individual arbitration, he will also support employees’ ability to band together in the courts to address their collective issues through class action lawsuits and to bring class claims through arbitration. 

END THE RAPE KIT BACKLOG

Joe Biden has been on the forefront of the fight to harness the power of DNA testing and bring justice and security to victims of sexual violence. In 2002, then-Senator Biden invited a brave survivor, Debbie Smith, to testify in front of the United States Judiciary Committee about her harrowing experience and the cruel and inexcusable rape kit backlog that left her without accountability and closure until several years after her attack. In 2004, he championed the first bill addressing the rape kit backlog at crime labs that was signed into law. In 2015, as Vice President, Biden led the charge to secure the first $41 million in the federal Sexual Assault Kit Initiative to begin addressing the estimated 400,000 untested rape kits that were sitting on shelves in police property rooms across the country.

Over the years, we have learned much more about how these backlogs accrue and what needs to happen to change that. But there are still far too many untested kits. Survivors need to feel confident that when they report a sexual assault, they will be believed, taken seriously, and that the crime will be investigated thoroughly. Joe Biden will invest the resources needed to end this problem through a multidisciplinary approach that improves the law enforcement response, supports survivors, and engages policy makers at every level. Specifically, President Biden will:

• Create Regional Sexual Assault Investigative Training Academies. There is still a striking lack of investigative training for law enforcement and prosecutors in units dedicated to sex crimes despite the extreme complexities of sexual assault investigations. Biden will invest $20 million per year in creating Regional Sexual Assault Investigative Training Academies which will provide cutting-edge, evidence-based and trauma-informed training on investigating and prosecuting sexual assault crimes and offer incentive grants for teams of law enforcement, victim advocates, and prosecutors all over the United States to attend.
• Increase funding for the Sexual Assault Kit Initiative (SAKI) to $100 million annually and ensure that law enforcement training addresses attitudes that lead to the neglect of testing for rape kits. In addition, Biden will require that local law enforcement ensures that SAKI prioritizes the needs of survivors and their recovery when seeking to test old rape kits in order to be eligible for funding. This includes funding for rape crisis centers and advocates to ensure accountability to the survivor-centered model.

CHANGE THE CULTURE THAT ENABLES SEXUAL VIOLENCE 

In 1990, when Biden began working on VAWA, domestic violence was considered a family affair. In recent years, the #MeToo movement has forced a national reckoning on the depth and breadth of sexual harassment and violence in our workplaces, our campuses, and our communities. Biden has long believed that lasting change starts with addressing the culture and engaging everyone to stand up and speak out against harassment and assault. Building on the success of campaigns targeted at young people, the Biden Administration will launch tools like innovative social awareness campaigns to expand the national movement to end rape culture. It’s on all of us to end the violence.

• Launch a new friends and family public awareness campaign: Public education about responding to domestic and sexual violence is essential to the well-being of survivors. Research indicates that many survivors disclose abuse to informal sources, namely family members and friends, and positive responses from these disclosures are associated with fewer symptoms of anxiety, depression, and post-traumatic stress. Biden will launch a new public awareness campaign focusing on what to say and do when someone discloses abuse and how to get that person help. The campaign will also highlight information about evidence-based bystander intervention, including what to do if you witness or become aware of abuse taking place, how to safely intervene, and when to get help.

SUPPORT THE DIVERSE NEEDS OF SURVIVORS OF VIOLENCE AGAINST WOMEN

Each reauthorization of VAWA that Vice President Biden has championed has included an expansion of efforts to support the diverse needs of survivors who are disproportionately affected by violence against women and also often face structural and systemic barriers to accessing justice, safety, and well-being. But, we must do more to meet the needs of women of color, lesbian and bisexual women, transgender individuals, American Indian and Alaska Native women, older women, women with disabilities, and low-income women and survivors impacted at the intersections of underserved populations.

The Biden Administration will push forward work to strengthen and expand VAWA’s reach to women in marginalized communities by:

• Expanding grants to enhance culturally-specific services for victims of sexual assault, domestic violence, dating violence, and stalking program. Since 2005, VAWA has funded a grant program to support targeted, community-driven strategies that include trauma-informed and culturally-specific programs that focus on the development of holistic prevention and intervention services for survivors from racial and ethnic minority communities. The Biden Administration will expand the resources available to scale up these initiatives and integrate a broader array of community-based organizations to address complex community needs in order to expand pathways to safety for survivors and continue to build community leadership to prevent and address domestic violence and sexual assault.
• Making existing federal programs for victims more responsive to the unique needs of different communities. For example, the Biden Administration will recognize that while domestic violence and sexual violence disproportionately impact women and girls, efforts must include improving access to services and support for all survivors, regardless of gender or gender identity. Biden will work to include sexual orientation and gender identity nondiscrimination protections and permanent funding for the National LGBTQ Institute on IPV in the Family Violence Prevention and Services Act (FVPSA) reauthorization. And, his administration will ensure that existing and new housing initiatives for survivors of domestic violence and sexual assault take into account the disproportionate number of women of color survivors impacted by housing insecurity. Finally, Biden will secure an additional $20 million in annual funding toVAWA’s college campus grant for Historically Black Colleges and Universities, Hispanic Serving Institutions, Tribal Colleges, and community colleges to enable them to implement culturally and environmentally-specific prevention and survivor support initiatives.
• Reaffirming Tribal sovereignty to support victims and hold offenders accountable, and expanding federal resources for Alaska Native and American Indian women and girls impacted by violence and abuse. First and foremost, the Biden Administration will prioritize the extension of tribal authority against non-Native abusers for sexual assault, stalking, child violence, and trafficking, as called for in VAWA 2019. The Biden Administration will also make more federal resources available for Tribal domestic violence and sexual assault programs by increasing funding set aside for tribes under the Victims of Crime fund (VOCA). To complement these efforts, the Biden Administration will commit to expanding enrollment for all tribal law enforcement agencies to participate in the Tribal Access Program, a Department of Justice initiative to provide American Indian and Alaska Native police with access to national crime information databases. Currently, the vast majority of federally recognized Tribes participate in the program, which severely hinders a nationally accurate count of violent crimes against Native women and girls. To this end, Biden’s plan supports the proposals to tackle the data gaps fueling the epidemic of missing and murdered Native women and girls outlined under Savanna’s Act. 
• Investing in the well-being of adolescent girls of color to reverse the upward trend of young women impacted by trauma becoming caught in the juvenile justice system — and offering pathways for their justice and healing to reduce their likelihood of experiencing incarceration as adults. The Biden Administration will take action to recognize the disproportionate rates of harsh school discipline practices and juvenile justice responses to adolescent girls of color who are often struggling to cope with trauma, including trauma from sexual abuse, dating violence, or trafficking. These survivors may run away from home to escape an abusive caregiver, or repeatedly miss school due to violence, and rather than being provided trauma-informed counseling, victim advocacy, or other supports, they are punished and thrust into a cycle of justice-system involvement – most of the time for non-violent behavior. As president, Biden will reinvest in the National Girls Initiative of the Department of Justice Office of Juvenile Justice and Delinquency Prevention to support communities and schools to develop gender-specific and trauma-informed prevention and treatment programs and services as alternatives to girls being placed in juvenile detention. To complement the revival of the National Girls Initiative, the Biden plan also expands funding for the VAWA Consolidated Youth Program.
• Strengthen investment in alternative justice approaches. VAWA 2019 allows local jurisdictions to invest in strategies that move beyond a criminal justice approach to reinforce community accountability in response to domestic and sexual violence. The Biden Administration will continue to research and expand the community-based work on alternative pathways for justice.
• Combat the epidemic of violence against transgender women of color. As a direct response to the high rates of homicides of transgender people – particularly transgender women of color – the Biden Administration will push to provide federal funding for local efforts to meet the needs of transgender communities, including employment assistance, housing assistance, leadership development, and other priorities identified by local communities. Specifically, Biden will work to pass the Equality Act, to reduce economic barriers and social stigma, and the LGBTQ Essential Data Act, which would help collect a wide variety of critical data about anti-trans violence and the factors that drive it. He will also direct his Administration to update the FBI’s Uniform Crime Reports Supplementary Homicide Reports (UCR-SHR) to include sexual orientation and gender identity. Currently, theses reports do not include categories for sexual orientation and gender identity, hampering our ability to fully diagnose and measure the extent of violent crimes against transgender, gay, lesbian, and bisexual victims.

In addition, the Biden Administration will pursue the following proposals to support older women, transgender individuals, and women and girls with disabilities who are too often left out of current VAWA programs.

• Commission the Centers for Disease Control to conduct the first-ever national prevalence study on intimate partner and sexual violence on women and men ages 50 and older. This study will include a special focus on the ways older adults are uniquely at risk for abuse as a result of vulnerabilities exacerbated or created by aging.
• Expand the Elder Justice AmeriCorps program to include a dedicated focus on legal advocacy for domestic violence and sexual assault victims, including the sexual abuse of older adults in nursing homes. This partnership between the U.S. Department of Justice and the Corporation for National and Community Service, established by the Obama-Biden Administration, funded a national network of legal aid fellows to prevent and address the abuse of older adults. As president, Biden will continue this important program and emphasize the disproportionate impact of abuse on older women, including sexual assault and late life intimate partner violence.
• Increase funding for communities to build multidisciplinary teams to prevent and address violence against older women, with a focus on investing in rural communities with aging populations. Since 2000, VAWA has funded the Enhanced Training and Services to End Abuse in Later Life Program, which trains criminal justice professionals and non-profit organizations to improve their ability to serve older victims of interpersonal violence. This program also works with states, tribes, and local governments to establish a coordinated community response to violence against victims who are 50 years of age or older. Biden will expand funding for this important program by increasing grant dollars available to communities at a scale that better reflects the increasingly aging population.
• Teach youth with disabilities accessible, developmentally-appropriate lessons on the right to bodily autonomy, consent, and the dynamics of healthy relationships. Experts agree that these core elements are critical for the reduction of risk for abuse of people with disabilities. Unfortunately, most youth with disabilities are never offered the opportunity to learn them. Biden will establish special initiatives through the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention’s Dating Matters and Rape Prevention Education grant programs to support states, territories, tribes, and educational institutions to promote a public health approach to teaching young people these important lessons.
• Help domestic violence and sexual assault programs build their capacity to serve victims with disabilities. Since 2000, VAWA has funded the Training and Services to End Violence Against Women with Disabilities Grant Program, which helps victim services organizations and states, tribes, territories, and local governments modify advocacy programs to be accessible and inclusive of people with disabilities. Biden will expand funding for this vital program in order to better reflect the reality that women with disabilities are victimized by intimate partner and sexual violence at a rate higher than women without disabilities.

PROTECT AND EMPOWER IMMIGRANT WOMEN

Fleeing abuse should never mean risking deportation. In 1994, the Violence Against Women Act created important safeguards to assist immigrants married to abusive spouses who are U.S. citizens or lawful permanent residents by allowing them to self-petition, rather than allowing abusers to maintain control over the victims’ immigration status as a way to keep them trapped in an abusive relationship. Since then, each subsequent reauthorization of VAWA has strengthened protections and support for immigrant victims. VAWA 2000, in conjunction with the passage of the Victims of Trafficking and Violence Protection Act, created two new classes of nonimmigrant visa to protect non-citizens who are the victims of crimes and who agree to cooperate with U.S. law enforcement to investigate and prosecute those crimes. The T-visa permits human trafficking victims to stay in the U.S. and the U-visa ensures that non-citizen victims of multiple categories of crimes (including domestic violence, trafficking, and sexual assault) are able to report violations to authorities without fearing for their legal status.

While Biden continually sought to remove barriers for immigrant women, the Trump Administration continues to place these survivors in jeopardy. Biden will reverse these setbacks and then go further to protect and empower immigrant women who are survivors of domestic violence and abuse.

• Restore asylum eligibility for domestic violence survivors. Under the Biden Administration, the U.S. Department of Justice will reinstate explicit asylum protections —rescinded by the Trump Administration —for domestic violence and sexual violence survivors whose home governments cannot or will not protect them. 
• Increase visas for domestic violence survivors. Under the Trump Administration, there are unacceptable processing delays for adjudicating applications for VAWA self-petitions, U-visas, and T-visas. As president, Biden will end these delays and give victims the security and certainty they need. And, Biden will triple the current cap of 10,000 on U-visas; this cap is insufficient to meet the dire needs of victims and hinders our public safety.
• Push to repeal extreme, anti-immigrant state laws that have a chilling effect on the ability of immigrant domestic violence and sexual assault survivors to seek safety and justice. Some state laws drive victims and witnesses into the shadows and threaten public safety. As documented in a recent national survey, immigrant victims of domestic violence, sexual assault, and trafficking are increasingly afraid to contact police, pursue civil or criminal cases, or go to court to seek safety. This traps victims who either ask for help and risk deportation, retaliation by an abuser, and separation from one’s children, or stay with a violent partner and risk one’s life. As president, Biden will work in partnership with cities, states, nonprofits, and law enforcement to build trust and push for states to repeal the laws that chill the reporting of domestic violence incidents and threaten public safety.

LEAD THE GLOBAL EFFORT TO END GENDER-BASED VIOLENCE

Violence against women and girls of all ages is a global epidemic: from harassment on public transportation in Southeast Asia; to trafficking of women in Eastern Europe; to “honor” killings in the Middle East, South Asia, and elsewhere; to the use of rape as a weapon of war in Darfur and the Democratic Republic of the Congo. One in three women worldwide will experience gender-based violence in her lifetime, and in some countries, that’s true for 70% of women.

Throughout his career, Joe Biden has helped lead U.S. efforts to end this violence regardless of where it occurs. In 2007, then-Senator Biden expanded on his legacy addressing violence against women and girls, with the introduction of the International Violence Against Women Act (IVAWA). IVAWA provided a framework for the United States to address gender-based violence around the world through a comprehensive approach that promoted legal reform, changes in social norms, health and safety, and access to educational and economic opportunities. While IVAWA was never enacted, the Obama-Biden administration used executive action to implement much of the bill and its comprehensive approach to gender-based violence. With a series of State Department strategies and plans on women, peace, and security; adolescent girls; women’s economic empowerment; and gender-based violence, the Administration focused its diplomatic, development, and even military efforts on promoting the health, safety, and empowerment of women and girls around the world.

As powerful as the Obama-Biden Administration’s programs and policies were, one of the best tools the Administration had in persuading other countries to focus on this issue was its own legacy with the Violence Against Women Act, which has given the United States credibility to address gender-based violence on the international stage.

As president, Biden will restore respected U.S. leadership in foreign affairs, leading not just by the example of our power, but by the power of our example. The Biden Administration will return to a government-wide focus on uplifting the rights of women and girls at home and around the world, championing the fundamental human right of all women and girls to live free from violence – a future made more possible in the United States through the Violence Against Women Act.

• Restore American leadership and support multilateral efforts to address sexual violence in conflict. The United States has been a leader in focusing on the need to address sexual violence in conflict, but we have lost our voice under the Trump presidency. President Biden will restore that leadership by engaging with partners around the world at the highest levels working to address this issue. He will bolster women’s ability to participate in and drive peace processes to better prevent sexual violence and to hold accountable those that commit acts of sexual violence in conflict. While President Trump has watered down and threatened to veto UN Security Council resolutions that address sexual violence in conflict, the Biden administration will champion such issues in the Security Council, and offer increased support to the work of the Special Representative to the UN Secretary General for Sexual Violence in Conflict.
• Hold accountable those who perpetrate sexual violence in conflict, starting with ISIS. In 2014, the world watched in horror as ISIS systematically employed sexual violence throughout the territories it seized, including by forcing Yazidi women and girls into sexual slavery. The Obama-Biden Administration forged a global coalition to defeat ISIS, which has been routed from the territory it controlled, but not defeated. ISIS soldiers who committed acts of sexual violence must be held accountable for their crimes.  As president, Biden will provide financial assistance and training for local and international efforts to document cases of ISIS-perpetrated sexual violence; urge the Government of Iraq at the highest levels to prosecute ISIS prisoners for crimes of rape, trafficking-in-persons, and sexual assault and enslavement, as well as crimes of terrorism; and support peacebuilding and development efforts in Iraq to promote women’s inclusion and long-term stability in the country. The Biden Administration will also direct resources toward local groups supporting survivors of sexual violence, including those working to address the social stigma survivors often face and to facilitate their reintegration back into their communities. It will support countries to help create national laws on sexual violence that align with international norms to bringperpetrators of sexual violence to account.
• Address the specific challenges of displaced and migrant women and girls. There are currently more than 70 million people around the world who have been forced from their homes because of conflict. Refugees and displaced women and girls face particular challenges, including decreased opportunities for education, limited access to healthcare (particularly sexual and reproductive healthcare), and increased risk of sexual and gender-based violence, trafficking, and exploitation. President Biden will support diplomatic and development programs to address and prevent conflict around the world, and will require that such programs include a gender-based violence component. He will also ensure that women and girls seeking asylum in the United States because of gender-based violence are given the opportunity to make their case, and that the threat of sexual violence and assault are treated with the seriousness they deserve in adjudication.
• Launch a multi-sectoral effort to confront gender-based violence in Central America. Many of the people seeking asylum on our southern border are women and children fleeing horrific forms of gender-based violence in Central America. They have reason to be afraid; Central America confronts some of the highest rates of femicide (the murder of women because of their gender) in the world. Most of these cases are never investigated. Central American women also face rape and sexual assault by gangs that use sexual violence as a mechanism of control and domestic violence perpetrated by intimate partners. Indigenous women are particularly affected. Progress in the United States since Joe Biden first sponsored the Violence Against Women Act has taught us that any efforts to address this scourge must include many sectors. Biden will spearhead a comprehensive effort in Central America that will include diplomatic pressure on governments to do more to hold perpetrators accountable, training for law enforcement to root out the corruption that enables gender-based violence and teaches the police to effectively investigate these crimes and justice sectors to prosecute them, funding for comprehensive healthcare programs to support survivors of gender-based violence, and support to organizations on the ground who are working to address this issue comprehensively.
• Amplify and elevate the voices of authentic, local women leaders globally. Many of the most powerful efforts to prevent, combat and respond to gender-based violence around the world are local women leaders. For example, earlier this year, some five million Indian women mobilized across Kerala with the support of over 175 organizations to advance gender equality. President Biden will focus on ensuring these powerful local voices lead efforts to combat gender-based violence and advance women’s and girls’ well-being by creating a comprehensive initiative to support and strengthen the influence of women-led civil society organizations that focus on addressing gender-based violence.
• Ensure peacekeepers are trained to prevent conflict-related sexual violence. Peacekeepers have a major role in protecting civilians, after conflict and in countries still at risk of conflict. Tens of thousands of UN peacekeepers (military and police) are deployed globally. Yet, these troops are often ill-prepared to prevent sexual violence and, too often, they have been the perpetrators of crimes against the civilians they are charged to protect, particularly women and girls. President Biden will work with the UN to continue to strengthen peacekeeper performance and accountability. He will work to ensure that peace operations training undertaken by the United States and by other nations includes strong and comprehensive training on protecting against gender-based violence and sexual exploitation and abuse.
• Restore U.S. support for women’s health. Just as the Obama-Biden Administration did, President Biden will rescind the Mexico City Policy (also referred to as the global gag rule) that President Trump reinstated and expanded. This rule currently bars the U.S. federal government from supporting important global health efforts – including those that prevent and respond to gender-based violence – in developing countries simply because the organizations providing that aid also offer information on abortion services. The Trump Administration has also suspended U.S. funding to the United Nations Population Fund (UNFPA) for three consecutive years and allegedly propagated false claims about its work. President Biden will also restore U.S. funding to UNFPA and support its important work in preventing gender-based violence globally, including efforts to end female genital mutilation and cutting, early and forced marriage, and other practices detrimental to the health of women and girls.

Social Security

BIDEN PLAN FOR OLDER AMERICANS

The moral obligation of our time is rebuilding the middle class. The middle class isn’t a number, it’s a value set. And, a key component of that value set is having a steady, secure income as you age so your kids won’t have to take care of you in retirement. This means not only protecting and strengthening Social Security, but also helping more middle-class families grow their savings.

A dignified retirement also means having access to affordable health care and support. Too many Americans – and too many older Americans – cannot afford their prescriptions or their long-term care. Their families are faced with saving for their own retirement or taking care of their aging parents. It’s not right.

Working- and middle-class Americans built this country. And, they deserve to retire with dignity – able to pay for their prescriptions and with access to quality, affordable long-term care.

I. STAND UP TO THE ABUSE OF POWER BY PRESCRIPTION DRUG CORPORATIONS

Too many Americans cannot afford their prescription drugs, and prescription drug corporations are profiteering off of the pocketbooks of sick individuals. The Biden Plan will put a stop to runaway drug prices and the profiteering of the drug industry by:

Repealing the outrageous exception allowing drug corporations to avoid negotiating with Medicare over drug prices. Because Medicare covers so many Americans, it has significant leverage to negotiate lower prices for its beneficiaries. And it does so for hospitals and other providers participating in the program but not drug manufacturers. Drug manufacturers not facing any competition, therefore, can charge whatever price they choose to set. There’s no justification for this except the power of prescription drug lobbying. The Biden Plan will repeal the existing law explicitly barring Medicare from negotiating lower prices with drug corporations.
Limiting launch prices for drugs that face no competition and are being abusively priced by manufacturers. Through his work on the Cancer Moonshot, Biden understands that the future of pharmacological interventions is not traditional chemical drugs, but specialized biotech drugs that will have little to no competition to keep prices in check. Without competition, we need a new approach for keeping the prices of these drugs down. For these cases where new specialty drugs without competition are being launched, under the Biden Plan the Secretary of Health and Human Services will establish an independent review board to assess their value. The board will recommend a reasonable price, based on the average price in other countries (a process called external reference pricing) or, if the drug is entering the U.S. market first, based on an evaluation by the independent board members. This reasonable price will be the rate Medicare and the public option will pay. In addition, the Biden Plan will allow private plans participating in the individual marketplace to access a similar rate.
Limiting price increases for all brand, biotech and abusively priced generic drugs to inflation. As a condition of participation in the Medicare program and public option, all brand, biotech and abusively priced generic drugs will be prohibited from increasing their prices more than the general inflation rate. The Biden plan will also impose a tax penalty on drug manufacturers that increase the costs of their brand, biotech or abusively priced generic over the general inflation rate.
Allowing consumers to buy prescription drugs from other countries. To create more competition for U.S. drug corporations, the Biden Plan will allow consumers to import prescription drugs from other countries, as long as the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services has certified that those drugs are safe.
Terminating pharmaceutical corporations’ tax break for advertisement spending. Drug corporations spent an estimated $6 billion in 2016 alone on prescription drug advertisements to increase their sales, a more than four-fold increase from just $1.3 billion in 1997. The American Medical Association has even expressed “concerns among physicians about the negative impact of commercially driven promotions, and the role that marketing costs play in fueling escalating drug prices.” Currently, drug corporations may count spending on these ads as a deduction to reduce the amount of taxes they owe. But taxpayers should not have to foot the bill for these ads. As president, Biden will end this tax deduction for all prescription drug ads, as proposed by Senator Jeanne Shaheen.
Improving the supply of quality generics. Generics help reduce health care spending, but brand drug corporations have succeeded in preserving a number of strategies to help them delay the entrance of a generic into the market even after the patent has expired. The Biden Plan supports numerous proposals to accelerate the development of safe generics, such as Senator Patrick Leahy’s proposal to make sure generic manufacturers have access to a sample.
II. PROTECT AND STRENGTHEN MEDICARE AS WE KNOW IT AND ENSURE QUALITY, AFFORDABLE HEALTH CARE FOR ALL OLDER AMERICANS

On March 23, 2010, President Obama signed the Affordable Care Act into law, with Vice President Biden standing by his side, and made history. It was a victory 100 years in the making. It was the conclusion of a tough fight that required taking on Republicans, special interests, and the status quo to do what’s right. But the Obama-Biden Administration got it done.

Today, the Affordable Care Act is still a big deal – especially for older Americans. Because of Obamacare, over 100 million people no longer have to worry that an insurance company will deny coverage or charge higher premiums just because they have a pre-existing condition – whether cancer or diabetes or heart disease or a mental health challenge. Insurance companies can no longer set annual or lifetime limits on coverage. The law limited the extent to which insurance companies may charge you higher premiums just because of your age. And, the Affordable Care Act strengthened Medicare by extending the life of the Medicare Trust Fund; giving Medicare beneficiaries access to free recommended preventive services, such as an annual wellness visit; and closing the prescription drug coverage gap, often referred to as the “donut hole.”

But, every day over the past nine years, the Affordable Care Act has been under relentless attack.

…

Veterans

THE BIDEN PLAN TO KEEP OUR SACRED OBLIGATION TO OUR VETERANS

Joe Biden believes that as a nation, we have many obligations, but we have only one truly sacred obligation: to properly prepare and equip our troops when we send them into harm’s way, and to care for them and their families–both while they are deployed and after they return home. As the parents of a son who deployed to Iraq, Joe and Jill Biden understand the gravity of this promise. Our service members ensure our freedoms, our security, and the very future of our country. They are willing to sacrifice everything. Many do. And each of them deserves our respect and enduring gratitude, both while on active duty and after separating from service.

President Trump has repeatedly failed our veterans and ignored this sacred obligation. From the outrage of deporting undocumented veterans without checking their record of military service, to allowing his wealthy Mar-a-Lago friends to drive veterans policy, to pursuing policies designed to privatize and dismantle the Department of Veterans Affairs (VA), Trump neither understands nor respects the idea of “duty, honor, country” that inspires our brave military members to serve and imbues our veterans with pride.

Less than one percent of Americans currently serve in the military, and the other 99 percent of us owe them the secure futures they have earned. As president, Joe Biden will keep faith with our veterans and their families. He will meet our sacred obligation.

Our longest wars have taken their toll, both on our newest generation of veterans and on the system built to support them and previous generations of veterans. According to the most recent census data, there are more than 18 million veterans in the United States, and today’s veterans population has needs that the VA has never before addressed. This is reflected both in the growing interest for “anywhere, anytime” health care service models and in our growing understanding of behavioral health challenges, the harmful impacts of burn pits, environmental toxins, traumatic brain injury, and the devastating epidemic of opioid addiction and suicide. The VA must adapt to meet the ever-evolving needs of the veteran community.

At the same time, the VA continues to struggle with poor organizational performance, staff shortfalls, leadership gaps, and IT systems failures. The integration of a new generation of veterans into the VA system has added a substantial number of veterans eligible for health care and other benefits as overall demand for services has surged, with the combination creating capacity challenges across the system. Too often, the VA’s performance in terms of access, outcomes, cost, and accountability is mixed. There have been both important successes and intolerable failures or gaps in service. Solving these challenges will require a substantial investment in talent, leadership time, budget, and public attention. It’s what we owe our veterans. It is past time to rethink and reinvent a better VA.

There is nothing partisan about improving support for service members, veterans, their families, caregivers, and survivors.  As president, Joe Biden will unite the country and restore the VA as the premier agency for ensuring our veterans’ overall well-being by: 

• Providing Veterans World Class Health Care to Meet Their Specific Needs
• Driving Progress to Eliminate Veterans Homelessness and Bring Down Suicide Rates
• Creating Meaningful Employment and Educational Opportunities
• Improving VA Management and Accountability.

To support the VA mission, a Biden Administration will ensure coordination with the Department of Defense (DoD), Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD), state agencies, and the thousands of non-governmental organizations that support this vital community. It will work faithfully to restore public trust in the VA so that no one in the military community or beyond will ever again question whether the United States of America keeps its promises to those who serve our country.

Providing Veterans World Class Health Care to Meet Their Specific Needs

The Veterans Health Administration serves upwards of 9 million veterans and is responsible for their whole health, physical and mental. Studies have found that health outcomes at VA hospitals are often better than their non-VA counterpart, and more than 90 percent of those who receive their health services through the VA report that they would recommend it to a fellow veteran. As president, Joe Biden will work to ensure that the VA provides the world class health care that our veterans have earned and deserve and sets the example for private sector care.

In the area of mental health, the VA and DoD have done pioneering work to address the specific needs of veterans, deploying innovative treatment solutions such as telehealth and other platforms to address a variety of conditions. The private sector trails the VA in its ability to provide behavioral health services to the nation as a whole, much less to understand the unique needs of veterans.

At the same time, the VA is also struggling with a rapidly deteriorating infrastructure, and many VA facilities are more than 60 years old. Further, across the system, the variance in quality of — and access to — care is unacceptable. As the demand for treatment has increased, the VA must continually strive to improve services and outcomes for veterans, especially in the areas of pain, polytrauma recovery, substance-use disorder (SUD), post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD), traumatic brain injury (TBI), and general behavioral health, in the most effective and cost-efficient way possible.

In addition to protecting and building on the Affordable Care Act with a public option to expand access to quality, affordable health care and lower costs, and commitments to keep rural hospitals open and expand health care delivery models for rural areas, a Biden Administration will:

• Rebuild trust in the Department of Veterans Affairs. During the Obama-Biden Administration, we improved access to health care offerings for veterans in their communities, but there is still more work to do. Private sector points of care were designed to provide care to veterans when it was faster, closer, or offered superior services for a particular veteran’s needs. We must ensure that health care purchased in the community actually improves access and convenience and does not compromise the health of our veterans. President Biden will establish the right balance of VA care and purchased care, region by region, based on veteran needs, existing VA capacity, and availability of market alternatives.
• Conduct a thorough assessment of the staffing needs and requirements across the VA to inform specific hiring initiatives and programs for attracting and retaining medical professionals. This includes ensuring that professionals are working to the full scope of their license and creating incentives to support health care professionals joining the VA workforce.
• Refine and update Community Care Guidelines, ensuring that if a veteran is referred to a community care provider that does not meet the same level of access and quality as the VA,  the veteran will be referred back to the VA. This full-circle referral process will better ensure that veterans are seen in a timely manner and receive the best possible quality of care.
• Establish cultural competency training protocols to ensure that providers in VA facilities and in community care settings understand and are equipped to support the needs of LGBTQ veterans in the health care setting.
• Reverse the transgender military ban. In 2010, Biden played a leading role in the Obama-Biden Administration’s repeal of “Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell” to allow gay, lesbian, and bisexual service members to serve the country they love without hiding their sexual orientation. In June 2016, the Obama-Biden Administration overturned the ban on transgender individuals serving openly, without hiding their gender identity. But Trump reversed this policy, barring transgender patriots from serving openly. This is discriminatory and detrimental to our national security. Every American who is qualified to serve in our military should be able to do so—regardless of sexual orientation or gender identity and without having to hide who they are. Biden will direct the U.S. Department of Defense to allow transgender service members to serve openly, receive needed medical treatment, and be free from discrimination.
• Reverse Department of Defense policies that perpetuate stigmatization of and discrimination against people living with HIV.The Trump-Pence Administration’s “Deploy or Get Out” policy, which is used to forcibly discharge members of the military with HIV, was found to be “irrational, inconsistent, and at variance with modern science” by a federal district court. The Fourth Circuit affirmed this decision in January 2020 for “fail[ing] to account for current medical literature and expert opinion about current HIV treatment and transmission risks.” If the Trump-Pence Administration continues to try to implement the policy, the Biden Administration will rescind it.
• Work with Congress to improve health services for women veterans. Biden will ensure that each VA Medical Center has at least one full-time women’s primary care physician; and, within 200 days of taking office, make available a women veterans training module for community health care providers. And, Biden will work with Congress to enact the Deborah Sampson Act and ensure that the safety and privacy concerns of women veterans are addressed throughout his Administration.
• Provide funding to ensure there is safe, reliable child care at all VA Medical Centers.
• Work with Congress to eliminate co-pays for preventive health care for veterans, which can create unnecessary barriers to seeking basic preventive care.
• Expand the list of presumptive conditions to ensure no veteran who experienced a TBI or had exposure to burn pits or other environmental toxins goes without access to VA health care and benefits. We cannot ask our veterans who are suffering to wait decades, as we did with Agent Orange. President Biden will also increase access to VA care beyond the 5-year eligibility window for combat veterans, as conditions related to toxic exposure may take many years to manifest.
• Increase research dollars by $300 million to invest in better understanding the impact of TBI and toxic exposures (including burn pits) on long-term health outcomes, and continue to drive research focused on the needs of disabled veterans.
• Ensure that disabled veterans that require a prosthesis are able to access the most modern prosthetics technology available, and that they are able to upgrade their equipment at no cost as new developments occur.
• Expand funding for direct and purchase-care treatment for disorders related to the misuse of alcohol and opioids in order to reduce unacceptably long wait-times for treatment.
• A Biden Administration will support the legalization of cannabis for medical purposes and reschedule cannabis as a schedule II drug so researchers can study its positive and negative impacts. This will include allowing the VA to research the use of medical cannabis to treat veteran-specific health needs.
• Ensure the full integration of veteran caregivers as members of the health care team for veterans. The VA offers a diverse array of programs and supports for caregivers, however, we must ensure that the VA remains a caregiver-friendly environment and respects their role in ensuring the recovery and rehabilitation of their loved one.  
• Increase funding for and expand access to telehealth through the VA, particularly in rural areas not able to access timely care.
• Modernize VA hospitals and clinics to serve our veterans better through a nationwide infrastructure plan that provides a comprehensive refresh of VA health facilities. Biden will retrofit VA’s existing brick and mortar physical locations, where patient volume warrants, and repurpose older facilities to meet new needs such as assisted-living facilities and long-term care alternatives. Biden will improve both the buildings and equipment, so the VA continues to lead in providing 21st century care.
• Create safe, modern, clean, and recovery-oriented housing for veterans being treated for SUDs and those who are homeless by refurbishing buildings condemned or not in use, such as the massive VA Los Angeles campus.

Driving Progress to Promote Veterans’ Mental Health and Well-Being 

Suicide is a public health crisis–the 10th leading cause of death in the United States. As a society, we need to work together to eliminate the stigma felt by those who are suffering and struggling with their mental health. There is no shame in asking for help. As president, Joe Biden will increase access to mental health treatment by enforcing full mental health parity and ensuring all Americans have access to high-quality mental health care, regardless of their insurance coverage status. Service members and veterans are at an elevated risk of dying by suicide. Recent data show that, on average, 20 veterans and service members die by suicide every day, and among some groups, the rate of suicide is rising alarmingly. Even one death by suicide is devastating, and we must do more to stem the tide. The Trump administration has grossly mismanaged this crisis, at one point leaving millions of VA dollars dedicated to suicide prevention efforts unused, and that’s just not right. This is a serious challenge, and our goal must be to remove the stigma in military communities to seek help, ensure that every veteran that reaches out is immediately connected to support and services, and to ultimately end the suicide crisis among veterans. As president, Biden will ensure a multi-faceted, substantive, and sustained commitment that addresses this as the public health emergency that it is.

The same is true when it comes to veterans experiencing homelessness. The Obama-Biden Administration proved that we can make huge inroads to address this persistent challenge with sustained attention and cross-coordination among government departments. But with just over 23,000 veterans without shelter on any given night, we have much more work to do.

A Biden Administration will:

• Publish within the first 200 days in office a comprehensive public health and cross-sector approach to addressing suicide in veterans, service members, and their families.
• Work aggressively to facilitate immediate access to mental health services for veterans in crisis, to include standardizing performance expectations around same day, walk-in and urgent mental health services; hiring more ER psychiatric staff and peer specialists; expanding crisis line capacity to ensure all calls are answered and appropriate referrals occur within hours; and implementing specific programs to encourage veterans to prioritize their mental health by reaching out to the VA when they need support. Within the first year in office, President Biden will have a goal of completely eliminating wait times for veterans who reach out with suicidal ideation so that they are immediately taken into treatment.
• Together with states, community-based organizations, and employers, implement public education and outreach initiatives to help veterans understand that care is available and effective. We must work to end the culture of silence around mental health issues and remove the stigma associated with getting mental health treatment, particularly among service members who are more used to helping others than asking for it themselves.
• Ensure the DoD’s Suicide Prevention Office and the VA have the resources and staff they need to make smart investments with allocated funds–and that money dedicated to suicide prevention efforts never goes unused.
• Create a national center of excellence for reducing veteran suicide, similar to the National Center on Homelessness among Veterans. Biden will recruit top-level leadership to build strategic partnerships and solutions that extend beyond the VA’s health care system.
• Require all providers of veterans services funded by the VA to receive training on suicide risk identification and safety planning, to include lethal means restriction and appropriate response and reporting about suicide.
• Enact policies that promote the value and dignity of life by supporting programs that increase economic stability; promote connectedness through structured social support; and reduce risky behaviors, such as substance use, poor sleep, and improper firearm storage.
• Expand capacity at Vet Centers to ensure veterans in communities can access readjustment counseling services and resources, including financial and long-term planning. President Biden will specifically expand outreach and resources for veterans as they experience periods of transition, not just out of the military, but throughout their life, including into post-career retirement.
• Tackle issues that contribute to higher suicide risk. This includes implementing programs to disseminate high-quality treatments for PTSD, ensuring that veterans have access to the best treatments available no matter where they receive care, and instituting policies that seek to eliminate discrimination, end harassment and hold perpetuators of sexual assault in the military accountable. A Biden Administration will not tolerate the sexual assault culture that has become all too common in the military and veteran sector.
• Work with Congress to continue to drive down veteran homelessness by permanently authorizing the Supportive Services for Veterans Families (SSVF) program, which provides critical funding for wrap-around services for those facing homelessness. President Biden will also work to ensure that we better understand the unique needs of women and LGBTQ veterans experiencing homelessness.
• Reform the policy and review processes for veterans so that less-than-honorable discharges will not be unjustly awarded for conduct directly linked to the behavioral health effects of PTSD, TBI, or other trauma experienced while serving.

Creating Civilian Lives of Meaning and Opportunity 

The Obama-Biden Administration worked tirelessly to bring down high unemployment levels among our veterans. Over the course of 8 years, the Obama-Biden administration cut the veteran unemployment rate by more than half. That is vitally important progress, but now, we have to think about empowering our veterans and their future employers with the tools they need to build pathways to successful, long-term careers. Recent data indicate that veterans are more likely than their civilian counterparts to take a job at lower skill-level. As president, Biden will keep his foot on the gas to ensure that service members transitioning back to civilian lives have the best opportunities to succeed and build fulfilling futures.

A Biden Administration will:

• Work closely with DoD to ensure that the Transition Assistance Program (TAP) is implemented effectively and that outcomes are regularly reported.
• Ensure that more transitioning service members are able to access job training and placement services prior to their end of active duty service. By expanding private sector relationships through programs like the SkillBridge program, Biden will give qualified transitioning service members the opportunity to start building a meaningful civilian career as early as possible.
• Work with the Department of Labor to enforce the Vietnam Era Veterans Readjustment Assistance Act (VEVRAA) hiring benchmark among federal contractors and subcontractors, and provide preferences and incentives to corporations that meet the benchmark.
• Promote corporate mentorship programs between veteran-owned businesses and existing contractors to support veteran entrepreneurship.
• Ensure careful implementation of the Forever GI Bill so that veterans receive the educational benefits they have earned on time.
• Implement annual reporting to be led by the VA in partnership with the Department of Education and promote interagency cooperation and data sharing to better understand academic outcomes for all GI Bill users.
• Develop best-practice guidelines for supporting veterans in higher education to assist higher education institutions to improve graduation rates among GI Bill recipients and provide financial incentivizes for campuses that follow guidelines and transparently report their outcomes.
• Work aggressively to close the 90/10 loophole on GI Bill and Tuition Assistance dollars to keep for-profit bad actors from raiding the benefits service members and veterans have earned.
• Support and protect post-9/11 GI benefits for veterans and qualified family members by strengthening the GI Bill Comparison Tool and School Feedback Tool to put an end to post-secondary institutions’ predatory practices.
• Protect undocumented members of our armed services, veterans, and their spouses from deportation, because if you are willing to risk your life for this country, you and your family have earned the chance to live safe, healthy, and productive lives in America.
• Work with DoD and the Department of Homeland Security to provide timely naturalization for those who have served honorably in our military, with an earned path to citizenship prior to discharge or retirement.
• Protect and expand opportunities for people who risked their lives in military service.Biden will not target the men and women who served in uniform, or their families, for deportation. He will also direct the Secretary of Homeland Security to create a parole process for veterans deported by the Trump Administration, to reunite them with their families and military colleagues in the U.S.

Improving VA Management and Accountability

The agency charged with meeting the needs of our veterans–not only their health care needs, but administering their full range of benefits and overseeing the cemeteries that guard their honor in death–should not be limited by outdated management tools and practices. Our veterans deserve the best services available. As president, Biden will enhance the capacity of the VA to serve our veterans as efficiently as possible by overseeing a generational upgrade to clinical and management systems, by leveraging commercial best-practices and modern technologies to meet the unique demands of public sector mission.

A Biden Administration will:

• Improve health care access, quality, and customer experience by seamlessly augmenting direct care with purchase care enabled under the Mission Act. Enhance the administrative, financial, and operational systems that underpin the provision of care in the network model by improving vital case management systems, quality oversight, integrative health treatments and supporting administrative, financial and IT systems. These reforms will help ensure access to high-quality care and a first-rate customer experience that satisfies all veterans, regardless of where they receive care.
• Create standards of health record interoperability that ensure a comprehensive health record is provided by community care organizations back to the VA.
• Invest in improving human resource and management practices across the VA to strengthen the customer experience for our veterans and deliver services more efficiently. This will include a focus on workforce training and cultivating a culture across the VA that places a premium on quality and service.
• Leverage options under the Mission Act to pilot alternative payment models and prioritize care models that improve the quality of care, not just the volume of services. Veterans should be able to access care in a way that works best for them, not the way that is most convenient for the system, in particular when it comes to meeting specific needs such as rehabilitation services, SUD, and behavioral health.
• Reduce delays and errors in claims processing and in scheduling the medical exams necessary for veterans to complete their disability claims. This has been a constant source of frustration for veterans. The long delays in the system, and rates of error — in both Regional Offices and the Board of Veterans’ Appeals — are too long and too high, and unfairly delay adjudication of veterans claims. A Biden VA will identify the sources of the problem and undertake the investments in personnel and training needed to ensure that veterans receive accurate decisions in a more timely manner.
• Help more veterans gain access to their own health data and medical records through the Blue Button app. Blue Button has been downloaded by more than 2 million veterans and is increasingly being used by Medicare beneficiaries and the private sector. By making Blue Button easier to use, the VA will continue to lead the movement of patient-centered models of care.
• Implement a VA-hosted health record that can serve any and every American who wants one. We can leverage Blue Button to access health information no matter where it is, to allow veterans and citizens to manage and use it as they see fit. By putting our veterans first, we can make the VA the nexus of the best care everywhere.
• Create a national health database for non-profit research scientists and the commercial sector that would accelerate discovery of the best therapies against the devastating diseases of our time: cancer, heart disease, and Alzheimer’s, and dementia. Biden will direct the VA to support the database using its infrastructure, making access available to all. Veterans will be able to choose, on an individual basis, whether or not to contribute their data. This national repository for longitudinal health data will enable us to use technological innovations to see patterns that people don’t easily recognize and make connections we don’t normally make for the U.S. population as a whole.

BIDEN PLAN TO COMBAT CORONAVIRUS (COVID-19) AND PREPARE FOR FUTURE GLOBAL HEALTH THREATS

THE BIDEN PLAN TO COMBAT CORONAVIRUS (COVID-19) AND PREPARE FOR FUTURE GLOBAL HEALTH THREATS

For more information on Joe’s leadership during the Coronavirus pandemic, please visit here.

For more information from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention regarding the coronavirus, please visit here.

The American people deserve an urgent, robust, and professional response to the growing public health and economic crisis caused by the coronavirus (COVID-19) outbreak. That is why Joe Biden is outlining a plan to mount:

A decisive public health response that ensures the wide availability of free testing; the elimination of all cost barriers to preventive care and treatment for COVID-19; the development of a vaccine; and the full deployment and operation of necessary supplies, personnel, and facilities.
A decisive economic response that starts with emergency paid leave for all those affected by the outbreak and gives all necessary help to workers, families, and small businesses that are hit hard by this crisis. Make no mistake: this will require an immediate set of ambitious and progressive economic measures, and further decisive action to address the larger macro-economic shock from this outbreak.
Biden believes we must spend whatever it takes, without delay, to meet public health needs and deal with the mounting economic consequences. The federal government must act swiftly and aggressively to help protect and support our families, small businesses, first responders and caregivers essential to help us face this challenge, those who are most vulnerable to health and economic impacts, and our broader communities – not to blame others or bail out corporations.

Public health emergencies require disciplined, trustworthy leadership grounded in science. In a moment of crisis, leadership requires listening to experts and communicating credible information to the American public. We must move boldly, smartly, and swiftly. Biden knows how to mount an effective crisis response and elevate the voices of scientists, public health experts, and first responders. He helped lead the Obama-Biden Administration’s effective response to the 2009 H1N1 pandemic and the 2014 Ebola epidemic. Biden also helped lead the response to the greatest economic crisis since the Great Depression and ran point on implementation of the Recovery Act. He knows how to get relief out the door to families, as well as resources to state and local officials to deal with the challenges they are facing.

And, even as we respond to this crisis, we must prepare for the next one. As President, Biden will establish and manage a permanent, professional, sufficiently resourced public health and first responder system that protects the American people by scaling up biomedical research, deploying rapid testing capacity, ensuring robust nationwide disease surveillance, sustaining a first class public health and first responder workforce, establishing a flexible emergency budgeting authority, and mobilizing the world to ensure greater sustained preparedness for future pandemics.

Congress has taken a step forward by passing an initial bipartisan emergency plan to combat COVID-19. The Trump Administration must now heed the calls of House Speaker Nancy Pelosi and Senate Democratic Leader Chuck Schumer to put the health and safety of the American people first. Much more needs to be done, now, to bring our country together, respond to this emergency, and set the groundwork for bold, long-term reforms, including ensuring quality, affordable health care and a comprehensive paid leave program for every American.

Biden will be ready on Day One of his Administration to protect this country’s health and well-being. But he is not waiting until then to communicate his views on what must be done now to properly serve the American people. Biden believes the following steps must immediately be taken. If Trump does not take them, Biden will on Day One as President.

The Biden Plan calls for:

Restoring trust, credibility, and common purpose.
Mounting an effective national emergency response that saves lives, protects frontline workers, and minimizes the spread of COVID-19.
Eliminating cost barriers for prevention of and care for COVID-19.
Pursuing decisive economic measures to help hard-hit workers, families, and small businesses and to stabilize the American economy.
Rallying the world to confront this crisis while laying the foundation for the future.
Biden understands that this is a dynamic situation. The steps proposed below are a start. As the crisis unfolds, Biden will build on this policy to address new challenges.

…

LIFT EVERY VOICE: THE BIDEN PLAN FOR BLACK AMERICA

Joe Biden knows that African Americans can never have a fair shot at the American Dream so long as entrenched disparities are allowed to quietly chip away at opportunity. He is running for President to rebuild our economy in a way that finally brings everyone along—and that starts by rooting out systemic racism from our laws, our policies, our institutions, and our hearts.

This mission is more important now than ever before, as the health and economic impacts of COVID-19 have shined a light on—and cruelly exacerbated—the disparities long faced by African Americans. In April 2020, Biden called on the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention to collect more data regarding how COVID-19 is affecting communities, including breaking down its impacts by race. The data we’ve seen so far suggests that African Americans are dying from COVID-19 at a higher rate than whites. Long-standing systemic inequalities are  contributing to this disparity—including the fact that African Americans are more likely to be uninsured and to live in communities where they are exposed to high levels of air pollution. African Americans also represent an especially high percentage of the front-line workers putting themselves at greater risk to sustain the economy and keep the rest of the country safe and fed—and are less likely to have a job they can do from home, forcing them to make the difficult choice between their health and a paycheck. While there’s a lot we don’t yet know about COVID-19, we do know that equitable distribution of resources, like testing and medical equipment, can make a difference in fighting the virus. Biden believes this should be a priority and action must be taken now.

COVID-19 is also having a disproportionate economic impact on African American families. African American small businesses have been hit hard, and over 90% of African American-owned businesses are estimated to be shut out of the initial relief program due to preexisting, systemic disparities in lending. This is especially dire given that African American families have less of a financial cushion to fall back on in hard times. Biden has been calling for the nation’s relief and recovery efforts to be equitable and just, including by designing relief programs in ways that avoid methods we know lead to disparate outcomes—so that funds can actually reach African American families, communities, and small businesses. President Trump has not heeded his warnings. If Biden were President today, he would make it a top priority to ensure that African American workers, families, and small businesses got the relief they need and deserve.

Tackling systemic racism and fighting for civil rights has been a driving force throughout Biden’s career in public service. He has a record of fighting for and delivering for the African American community. As a U.S. Senator he co-sponsored the Civil Rights Act of 1990 to protect against employment discrimination and led multiple reauthorizations of the Voting Rights Act, protecting African Americans’ right to vote. Biden also led efforts to reauthorize and extend the Fair Housing Act, and as Delaware’s Senator, was a vocal advocate and supporter of Delaware State University, the state’s Historically Black University.

Today, we need a comprehensive agenda for African Americans with ambition that matches the scale of the challenge and with recognition that race-neutral policies are not a sufficient response to race-based disparities.

The Biden Plan for Black America will:

Advance the economic mobility of African Americans and close the racial wealth and income gaps.
Expand access to high-quality education and tackle racial inequity in our education system.
Make far-reaching investments in ending health disparities by race.
Strengthen America’s commitment to justice.
Make the right to vote and the right to equal protection real for African Americans.
Address environmental justice.
ADVANCE THE ECONOMIC MOBILITY OF AFRICAN AMERICANS AND CLOSE THE RACIAL WEALTH AND INCOME GAPS

Invest in African American Businesses and Entrepreneurs

Approximately 4% of small business owners are African American, even though African Americans make up approximately 13% of the population. To build wealth in African American communities, we must invest in the success of African American businesses and entrepreneurs.

Ensuring equal access to credit and capital. African American businesses often lack the capital they need to succeed. African American businesses are rejected at a rate nearly 20% higher than the white-owned firms. Even worse, African American businesses that do get funding receive only 40% of the funds requested as compared to 70% for white businesses. To increase investment and access to capital, Biden will:

Double funding for the State Small Business Credit Initiative. The Obama-Biden Administration created the State Small Business Credit Initiative (SSBCI) to support small businesses, driving $10 billion in new lending for each $1 billion in SSBCI funds. Biden will extend the program through 2025 and double its federal funding to $3 billion, driving close to $30 billion of private sector investments to small businesses all told, especially those owned by women and people of color.
Expand the New Markets Tax Credit, make the program permanent, and double Community Development Financial Institutions (CDFI) funding. The New Markets Tax Credit has helped draw tens of billions of dollars in new capital to low-income communities, providing tax credits to investors in community development organizations that support everything from supermarkets to real estate projects to manufacturing plants.  As part of his plan to reinvest in communities across the country, including in rural areas, Biden will also double funding for the Community Development Financial Institutions (CDFI) Fund, which supports local, mission-driven financial institutions in low-income areas around the U.S. This builds on Biden’s proposal to support entrepreneurs in small towns and rural areas by expanding both the Rural Microentrepreneur Assistance Program and the number of Rural Business Investment Companies, to help rural businesses attract capital.

Improve and expand the Small Business Administration programs that most effectively support African American-owned businesses. The Small Business Administration’s (SBA) programs have been and remain one of the most effective ways of accessing capital for African American-owned businesses. Biden will strengthen these existing programs by:Ensuring the SBA has the funding it needs to support African American-owned business and others in the current crisis and beyond. Trump has once again proposed a massive cut of 25% in the SBA budget for FY2021, including a 35% cut in funding to Small Business Development Centers, a 20% cut to the SBA Microloan Program, and significantly increased fees for the 7(a) loan program, which is SBA’s main loan program for small businesses.

Making permanent the successful Community Advantage loan program, originally created during the Obama-Biden Administration. The program, which provides capital for startups and growing small businesses located in particularly underserved communities through CDFIs and other mission-driven lenders, has been run as a pilot program since 2011. Biden will make this program permanent and reverse rules enacted by the Trump Administration that are making it more difficult for lenders to participate in the program and lend to African American-owned businesses and other businesses located in underserved communities.
Increase opportunities for African American-owned businesses to obtain or participate in federal contracts. In the aftermath of the 2008-2009 financial crisis, well over $100 billion of federal prime contracting dollars were awarded to minority-owned small businesses. And, between 2013 and 2016, the Obama-Biden Administration increased federal prime contract dollars going to Small Disadvantaged Businesses by nearly 30%, from $30.6 billion to $39.1 billion. The Obama-Biden Administration also created an Interagency Task Force on Federal Contracting Opportunities for Small Businesses, which included a focus on contracting opportunities for minority-owned businesses. The Obama-Biden Administration implemented its vision of more equitable access to federal contracts through a variety of channels, including by launching the Federal Procurement Center (FPC) as part of the Commerce Department’s Minority Business Development Agency (MBDA). The FPC, a first-of-its-kind program, helps minority-owned firms apply for and win federal government contracts. As President, Biden will build on these efforts to support the expansion of opportunities for minority-owned small businesses.

Increase funding for the Minority Business Development Agency budget. MBDA plays a critical role in supporting the development and growth of minority-owned businesses around the country, as well as providing needed assistance to federal and state agencies so that they award minority-owned businesses procurement contracts. The Trump Administration has pushed for a 75% cut in MBDA’s budget. Biden would protect and call for increased funding for it.

Protect small and disadvantaged businesses from federal and state contract bundling which often locks out African American-owned smaller firms from effectively bidding on procurement contracts. Biden will build on the anti-bundling provisions of the Small Business Jobs Act of 2010, by having the Office of Management and Budget, SBA, and MBDA conduct a government-wide review of existing contract bundling to determine whether agencies are following existing rules and whether agencies have the ability to further ensure small business participation in federal and state procurement opportunities.

Make sure economic relief because of COVID-19 reaches the African American businesses that need it most. The first installment of the Paycheck Protection Program (PPP) largely left out minority-owned businesses. The Center for Responsible Lending estimates that more than 90% of small businesses owned by people of color will not receive loans. The program is not taking into account the specific challenges that African American businesses face in accessing funding and complying with the program’s requirements. The financial institutions best positioned to help African American small businesses don’t have the systems to quickly deploy the funding in a first-come first-served approach. The second phase set aside $60 billion for community banks and CDFIs, as well as mid-sized banks, which can better serve smaller businesses and minority-owned firms. This is a good start, but more needs to be done:

Provide AfricanAmerican entrepreneurs and other small business owners technical assistance to help them apply for funding, as well as legal and accounting support to ensure their documentation (such as their financial records, tax filings, and other legal documents) is all in correct order. The Trump Administration and Congress should provide an additional infusion of operating capital to these CDFIs and community-focused lenders to ensure all African American entrepreneurs have access to the technical assistance and support they need.
Reserve half of all the new PPP funds for small businesses with 50 employees or less, so the bigger and more well-connected aren’t able to win in a first-come, first-served race. While this will help the vast majority of small businesses, it should also help target more funding to minority-owned businesses, given 98% of all minority-and women-owned businesses have fewer than 50 employees.
Produce a weekly dashboard to show which small businesses are accessing loans. Such a dashboard would help drive better data collection on the beneficiaries of small business support related to the COVID-19 epidemic, including in particular collecting data by gender and race, in order to ensure that the program isn’t leaving out communities, minority- and women-owned businesses, or the smallest businesses.

SUPPORTING AFRICAN AMERICAN CHURCHES DURING THE COVID-19 CRISIS
Shelter-in-place orders, while critical to protecting the health of parishioners, have hit churches hard as collection revenue has virtually stopped. African American churches are especially at-risk during the downturn. One survey put the typical African American membership at just 75 congregants, while others have noted that annual revenue is down since much of it is typically collected during Easter season. At a time when many Americans will seek spiritual assistance and social support, we must ensure the preservation of religious institutions. The decision by Congress to include non-profits, including religious institutions, in the Paycheck Protection Program and Emergency Injury Disaster Loan programs was a critical first step. But the support has not flowed to these institutions the way it should. Well-connected companies were first in line for the support funding.Biden’s True Small Business Fund would also apply to non-profit groups like African American churches.
Expand African American Homeownership and Access to Affordable, Safe Housing

The gap between African American and white homeownership is larger today than when the Fair Housing Act was passed in 1968. This has contributed to a jaw-dropping racial wealth gap—nearly 1,000%—between median white and African American households. Because home ownership is how most families save and build wealth, the disparity in home ownership is a central driver of the racial wealth gap. As President, Biden will invest $640 billion over 10 years so every American has access to housing that is affordable, stable, safe and healthy, accessible, energy efficient and resilient, and located near good schools and with a reasonable commute to their jobs. Biden will:

Help families buy their first homes and build wealth by creating a new refundable, advanceable tax credit of up to $15,000. Building off of a temporary tax credit expanded as part of the Recovery Act, this tax credit will be permanent and advanceable, meaning that homebuyers receive the tax credit when they make the purchase instead of waiting to receive the assistance when they file taxes the following year.

Tackle racial bias that leads to homes in communities of color being assessed by appraisers below their fair value. Housing in communities primarily comprised of people of color is valued at tens of thousands of dollars below majority-white communities even when all other factors are the same, contributing to the racial wealth gap. To counteract this racial bias, Biden will establish a national standard for housing appraisals that ensures appraisers have adequate training and a full appreciation for neighborhoods and do not hold implicit biases because of a lack of community understanding.

Roll back Trump Administration policies gutting fair lending and fair housing protections, strongly enforce fair credit reporting laws, and create a new Public Credit Reporting Agency. Being able to obtain a credit report is a critical step for homeownership. Biden has long been an advocate for eliminating discrimination in the provision of credit, including his legislation amending the Equal Credit Opportunity Act which prohibited creditors from discriminating against consumer applicants for credit. Today’s credit reports, which are issued by just three large private companies, are rife with problems: they often contain errors, they leave many “credit invisible” due to the sources used to generate a credit score, and they contribute to racial disparities, widening the African American homeownership gap, Biden will create a new public credit reporting agency within the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau to provide consumers with a government option that seeks to minimize racial disparities, for example by ensuring the algorithms used for credit scoring don’t have a discriminatory impact, and by accepting non-traditional sources of data like rental history and utility bills to establish credit.

Protect homeowners and renters from abusive lenders and landlords through a new Homeowner and Renter Bill of Rights. This new Bill of Rights will prevent mortgage brokers from leading borrowers into loans that cost more than appropriate, prevent mortgage servicers from advancing a foreclosure when the homeowner is in the process of receiving a loan modification, give homeowners a private right of action to seek financial redress from mortgage lenders and servicers that violate these protections, and give borrowers the right to a timely notification on the status of their loan modifications and to be able to appeal modification denials.

Roll back Trump Administration policies gutting fair lending and fair housing protections for homeowners.

Give local elected officials the tools and resources they need to combat gentrification. Biden will implement the Obama-Biden Administration’s Affirmatively Furthering Fair Housing Rule requiring communities receiving certain federal funding to proactively examine housing patterns and identify and address policies that have a discriminatory effect. The Trump Administration suspended this rule in 2018. Biden will ensure effective and rigorous enforcement of the Fair Housing Act and the Home Mortgage Disclosure Act. And, he will reinstate the federal risk-sharing program which has helped secure financing for thousands of affordable rental housing units in partnership with housing finance agencies.
Hold financial institutions accountable for discriminatory practices in the housing market. In 2013, the Obama-Biden Administration codified a long-standing, court-supported view that lending practices that have a discriminatory effect can be challenged even if discrimination was not explicit. But now the Trump Administration is seeking to gut this disparate impact standard by significantly increasing the burden of proof for those claiming discrimination. In the Biden Administration, this change will be reversed to ensure financial institutions are held accountable for serving all customers.
Restore the federal government’s power to enforce settlements against discriminatory lenders. The Trump Administration has stripped the Office of Fair Lending and Equal Opportunity, a division of the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau, of its power to enforce settlements against lenders found to have discriminated against borrowers – for example by charging significantly higher interest rates for people of color than white individuals. Biden will return power to the division so it can protect consumers from discrimination.

Strengthen and expand the Community Reinvestment Act to ensure that our nation’s bank and non-bank financial services institutions are serving all communities. The Community Reinvestment Act currently regulates banks, but does little to ensure that “fintechs” and non-bank lenders are providing responsible access to all members of the community. On top of that gap, the Trump Administration is proposing to weaken the law by allowing lenders to receive a passing rating even if the lenders are excluding many neighborhoods and borrowers. Biden will expand the Community Reinvestment Act to apply to mortgage and insurance companies, to add a requirement for financial services institutions to provide a statement outlining their commitment to the public interest, and, importantly, to close loopholes that would allow these institutions to avoid lending and investing in all of the communities they serve.

Eliminate local and state housing regulations that perpetuate discrimination. Exclusionary zoning has for decades been strategically used to keep people of color and low-income families out of certain communities. As President, Biden will enact legislation requiring any state receiving federal dollars through the Community Development Block Grants or Surface Transportation Block Grants to develop a strategy for inclusionary zoning, as proposed in the HOME Act of 2019 by Majority Whip Clyburn and Senator Cory Booker. Biden will also invest $300 million in Local Housing Policy Grants to give states and localities the technical assistance and planning support they need to eliminate exclusionary zoning policies and other local regulations that contribute to sprawl.

Increase access to affordable housing. Biden will invest in expanding the supply of affordable housing by:

Establishing a $100 billion Affordable Housing Fund to construct and upgrade affordable housing. He will ensure funding supports community development efforts, expanding the HOME program and the Capital Magnet Fund, which spurs private investment in affordable housing and economic development in distressed communities.
Providing tax incentives for the construction of more affordable housing in communities that need it most. As President, Biden will expand the Low-Income Housing Tax Credit – a tax provision designed to incentivize the construction or rehabilitation of affordable housing for low-income tenants that has created nearly 3 million affordable housing units since the mid-1980s – with a $10 billion investment. Biden will also invest in the development and rehabilitation of single family homes across distressed urban, suburban, and rural neighborhoods through the Neighborhood Homes Investment Act.
Protect homeowners during the COVID-19 crisis. Biden has previously called for a rent freeze for qualifying individuals for the duration of the crisis, and a halt to foreclosures and evictions as people get back on their feet. Some banks are raising mortgage borrowing standards and requiring significantly higher down payments. Biden would also restrict the big banks’ ability to abandon the African American community by withdrawing from housing markets for all but the best-off buyers.

Read Joe Biden’s full housing plan at joebiden.com/housing.

Promote More Equitable Wealth Building and a More Secure Retirement

The typical white family holds approximately ten times the wealth as the typical African Americans family—a disparity that dramatically increased over the past half century. Today, the typical wealth of a white family is $171,000, compared to just $17,600 for the typical African American family. This inequity means that many African American families have insufficient wealth to enjoy a secure retirement. In fact, in 2016, the average African American family had just $25,000 saved for retirement—due in part to a retirement saving system that affords limited incentives for middle-class African American families to save for retirement. To make the U.S. retirement system more secure and equitable, Biden will:

Equalize the tax benefits of defined contribution plans. The current tax benefits for retirement savings are based on the concept of deferral, whereby savers get to exclude their retirement contributions from tax, see their savings grow tax free, and then pay taxes when they withdraw money from their account. This system provides upper-income families with a much stronger tax break for saving and a limited benefit for middle-class and other workers with lower earnings.

The Biden Plan will equalize benefits across the income scale, so that low- and middle-income workers will also get a tax break when they put money away for retirement.

Remove penalties for caregivers who want to save for retirement. African Americans are more likely to be caregivers than whites. They also bear disproportionate caregiving responsibilities relative to white caregivers. Biden will support informal caregivers by allowing them to make “catch-up” contributions to retirement accounts, even if they’re not earning income in the formal labor market, as has been proposed in bipartisan legislation by Representatives Jackie Walorski and Harley Rouda.

Give small businesses a tax break for starting a retirement plan and giving workers the chance to save at work. Half of African American workers lack access to a retirement saving plan at work. Biden calls for widespread adoption of workplace savings plans and offers tax credits to small businesses to offset much of the costs. Under Biden’s plan, almost all workers without a pension or 401(k)-type plan will have access to an “automatic 401(k),” which provides the opportunity to easily save for retirement at work—putting millions of middle-class families in the path to a secure retirement.

Make Social Security benefits more generous and equitable. Older African Americans disproportionately depend on Social Security benefits for retirement income. To bolster retirement security for older African Americans who have spent a lifetime working, the Biden Social Security reform plan will raise benefits for vulnerable beneficiaries—including widows and widowers, low-wage workers, and long duration beneficiaries who may have exhausted all other assets. In addition, Biden proposes to boost average benefits across the board while putting Social Security on a long-term path to solvency by raising payroll taxes for workers with more than $400,000 in earnings.

Invest in Communities that Need it Most

Fully implement Congressman Clyburn’s 10-20-30 Plan to help all individuals living in persistently impoverished communities. To tackle persistent poverty in all communities, in both urban and rural America, Vice President Biden supports applying Congressman James Clyburn’s 10-20-30 formula to all federal programs, targeting funds to census tracts with persistent poverty.

Create a White House “StrikeForce” to partner with rural communities to help them access federal funds. The Biden Administration will create a White House StrikeForce consisting of agency leaders who will partner with community-building organizations in persistent poverty rural communities and help them unlock federal resources. This approach is modeled on the StrikeForce Secretary Tom Vilsack successfully established in the U.S. Department of Agriculture during the Obama-Biden Administration.

Drive additional capital into low-income communities to spur the development of low-income housing. The New Markets Tax Credit draws in $8 of private investment for every $1 of federal investment in low-income communities by providing tax credits to investors in community development organizations that support everything from supermarkets to real estate projects to manufacturing plants. Biden will expand the program to provide $5 billion in support every year, and will make the program permanent so communities can take the credit into account in their long-term planning.

Build and modernize infrastructure in communities that need it most. Biden has offered a transformational $1.3 trillion plan to create millions of good-paying, union jobs—roads, ports, waterways, schools, broadband, schools, and more. His plan includes specific measures to close the resource gap in communities of color. Biden will:

Invest in historically marginalized communities and bring everyone to the table for transportation planning. Biden will create a new Community Restoration Fund, specifically for neighborhoods where historic transportation investments cut people off from jobs, schools, and businesses. And, he will work to make sure towns and cities directly receive a portion of existing federal transportation investments.
Bring broadband to every American household. As President, Biden will close the digital divide. First, he will invest $20 billion in rural broadband infrastructure. He will triple funding to expand broadband access in rural areas, and ensure that the work of installing broadband provides high-paying jobs with benefits. He will encourage competition among providers, to increase speeds and decrease prices in urban, suburban, and rural areas. Biden will also work with the FCC to reform its Lifeline program, increasing the number of participating broadband providers, reducing fraud and abuse, and ultimately offering more low-income Americans the subsidies needed to access high-speed internet. Finally, Biden will work with Congress to pass the Digital Equity Act, to help communities tackle the digital divide.
Read Joe Biden’s full plan to invest in infrastructure and our communities at joebiden.com/infrastructure, and his full plan for older Americans at joebiden.com/older-Americans.

Support African American Workers

Biden is proposing a plan to grow a stronger, more inclusive middle class—the backbone of the American economy—by strengthening public and private sector unions and helping all workers bargain successfully for what they deserve. Biden knows that African Americans face unique challenges as workers. Biden will support these workers by:

Fight for equal pay. African American women earned 61 cents for every dollar earned by white men in 2017. This totals $23,653 less in earnings in a year and $946,120 less in a lifetime. The Obama-Biden Administration protected more workers against retaliation for discussing wages and required employers to collect and report wage gaps to the federal government. As President, Biden will codify this into law, and he’ll make it easier for workers to join together in class action lawsuits, shift the burden to employers to prove pay gaps exist for job-related reasons, and increase penalties against companies that discriminate, as called for in the Paycheck Fairness Act. And, he’ll hold companies accountable by increasing funding for investigators and enforcement actions.

Ensure federally funded projects protect workers. Biden will propose infrastructure legislation that incorporates labor provisions contained in Senator Merkley’s Good Jobs for 21st Century Energy Act, adopting all basic labor protections, ensuring that all investments meet Davis-Bacon wage guidelines, and banning anti-worker provisions like forced arbitration and the overuse of temporary staffing agencies. He will require federally funded projects to employ workers trained in registered apprenticeship programs, and to prioritize Project Labor and Community Workforce Agreements in federal procurement procedures. His proposal will make sure that national infrastructure investments create millions of middle-class jobs, benefiting union and non-union workers across industries. Read Joe Biden’s full plan to encourage unions and collective bargaining at joebiden.com/empowerworkers.

Encourage diverse hiring and promotion practices. To push companies to look hard at their hiring practices and root out discrimination, Biden will require companies to make public their overall workforce diversity and senior-level diversity. He will support employers in increasing diverse hiring and promotion by providing federal grants to states, cities, and organizations to develop and implement evidence-based practices and innovative solutions, such as ban the box legislation, to push employers to hire and retain diverse employees and end discriminatory hiring policies. And, he will hold companies accountable by increasing funding for the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission, the U.S. Labor Department’s Office of Federal Contract Compliance Programs (OFCCP), and the U.S. Justice Department’s Civil Rights Division to increase the number of investigators.

Restore the federal government’s role in setting the bar for other employers to advance opportunities for all workers. Biden will restore and build on the Obama-Biden Administration’s Fair Pay and Safe Workplaces executive order, which Trump revoked, requiring employers’ compliance with labor and employment laws be taken into account in determining whether they are sufficiently responsible to be entrusted with federal contracts. And, he will mandate that contractors publicly disclose plans to recruit and advance people of color, women, people with disabilities, and covered veterans and will increase enforcement efforts, including pursuing debarment where contractors refuse to end discriminatory practices.

Protect essential workers in the COVID-19 crisis. A report published in April found that “Black Americans are overrepresented in nine of the ten lowest-paid, high-contact essential services, which elevates their risk of contracting the virus.” Joe Biden has released a plan to protect these essential workers, and give them the respect, dignity, and pay they deserve.  If he were President, he would:

Ensure all frontline workers, like grocery store employees, qualify for priority access to personnel protective equipment (PPE) and COVID-19 testing based upon their risk of exposure to the virus, as well as child care assistance, and other forms of emergency COVID-19 support.
Expand access to effective personal protective equipment, including through use of the Defense Production Act.
Establish and enforce health and safety standards for workplaces.
Enact premium pay for frontline workers putting themselves at risk. There is no substitute for ensuring worker safety, but all frontline workers putting their lives on the line should receive premium pay for their work. This premium pay should be in addition to paid sick leave and care-giving leave for every worker, which Biden called for in his plan, and $15 minimum wage for all workers.
Turn unemployment insurance into employment insurance. African American workers are more likely to work in jobs subject to reduced hours, furloughs, and layoffs during the pandemic. Biden would transform unemployment insurance into employment insurance for millions of workers by getting states to adopt and dramatically scale up short-time compensation programs. Under short-time compensation—also known as work sharing—firms in distress keep workers employed but at reduced hours and the federal government helps make up the difference in wages. The Obama-Biden administration championed this approach in the U.S., and so far more than half of states have established short-time compensation programs. For the current crisis, the administration should move rapidly to scale up short-time compensation in all 50 states, the District of Columbia, Puerto Rico, and the U.S. Virgin Islands to save or restore millions of jobs.

EXPAND ACCESS TO HIGH-QUALITY EDUCATION AND TACKLE RACIAL INEQUITY IN OUR EDUCATION SYSTEM

As President, Biden will ensure that no child’s future is determined by their zip code, parents’ income, race, or disability. Biden will build an education system that starts with investing in our children at birth and helps every student get some education beyond a high school diploma, whether a certification, associate’s degree, or bachelor’s degree. Biden will:

Provide high-quality, universal pre-kindergarten for all three- and four-year-olds. For families with young children, finding highly quality pre-K is a major financial, logistical, and emotional burden, with potentially lifelong consequences for their children. As President, Biden will work with states to offer pre-K for all three- and four-year-olds.

Eliminate the funding gap between white and non-white districts, and rich and poor districts in order to give teachers a raise and expand STEM curriculum in underserved school districts. There’s an estimated $23 billion annual funding gap between white and non-white school districts today. Biden will work to close this gap by nearly tripling Title I funding, the federal program funding schools with a high percentage of students from low-income families. This new funding will first be used to ensure teachers at Title I schools are paid competitively, three- and four-year olds have access to pre-school, and districts provide access to rigorous coursework—including computer science and other STEM subjects—across all their schools, not just a few.

Improve teacher diversity. For African American students, having just one African American teacher in elementary school reduces the probability of dropping out. Biden will support more innovative approaches to recruiting teachers of color, including supporting high school students in accessing dual-enrollment classes that give them an edge in teacher preparation programs, helping paraprofessionals work towards their teaching certificate, and working with Historically Black Colleges and Universities and Minority-Serving Institutions to recruit and prepare teachers.

Reinstate the Obama-Biden Administration’s actions to diversify our schools. As President, Biden will reinstate the Department of Education guidance that supported schools in legally pursuing desegregation strategies and recognized institutions of higher education’s interests in creating diverse student bodies. And, he will provide grants to school districts to create plans and implement strategies to diversify their schools.

Ensure that African American students are not inappropriately identified as having disabilities, while also ensuring that African American students with disabilities have the support to succeed. African American students are 40% more likely to be identified as having any disability, and twice as likely to be identified as having certain disabilities, such as emotional disturbance and intellectual disabilities. The Obama-Biden Administration issued regulations to address racial disparities in special education programs, including disproportionate identification. The Trump Administration attempted to illegally delay the Obama-Biden Administration’s regulation. Biden will fully implement this regulation and provide educators the resources that they need to provide students with disabilities a high-quality education by fully funding the Individuals with Disabilities Education Act (IDEA).

Address the African American student debt crisis. The student debt burden has a disproportionate impact on African Americans. The typical bachelor’s degree graduate has about $16,000 in debt compared to $23,400 for African Americans students. According to a recent Brookings Institution study, African Americans graduating with a four year degree are 5 times more likely to default on their student loans than white graduates. African American students are three times more likely to default on their student loans than white student borrowers. The inequitable burden of student loan debt contributes to the stark racial wealth gap that exists in society. Biden’s plans to address student loan debt will alleviate student debt burdens by:

Including in the COVID-19 response an immediate cancellation of a minimum of $10,000 of federal student loan debt.
Forgiving all undergraduate tuition-related federal student debt from two- and four-year public colleges for debt-holders earning up to $125,000. This will also apply to individuals holding federal student loans for tuition from private HBCUs and MSIs.
Forgiving loan payments for individuals making $25,000 or less per year and capping loan payments at 5% of discretionary income for those making more.
Fixing the Public Service Loan Forgiveness Program and forgiving $10,000 of undergraduate or graduate student debt for every year of national or community service, up to five years.
Cracking down on private lenders profiteering off of students by empowering the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau to take action against private lenders who are misleading students about their options and do not provide an affordable payment plan when individuals are experiencing acute periods of financial hardship.
Permitting the discharge of student loans in bankruptcy.
Increase college completion by making college affordable for African American students. Our postsecondary education system has not done enough to help African American students access, afford, and succeed in high-quality postsecondary education. 64% of white students graduate from four year institutions, compared to only 40% of African Americans. To help African American students access and complete college, Biden will:

Make public colleges and universities tuition-free for all students whose family incomes are below $125,000, including students at public HBCUs.
Providing two years of community college or other high-quality training programs without debt for any hard-working individual looking to learn and improve their skills to keep up with the changing nature of work. This commitment includes two-year public HBCUs. Individuals will also be able to use these funds to pursue training programs that have a track record of participants completing their programs and securing good jobs, including adults who never had the chance to pursue additional education beyond high school or who need to learn new skills.
Targeting additional financial support to low-income and middle-class individuals by doubling the maximum value of Pell grants, significantly increasing the number of middle-class Americans who can participate in the program. According to the Department of Education, almost 60% of African American undergraduates received a Pell grant during the 2015-2016 academic year. Biden also will restore formerly incarcerated individuals’ eligibility for Pell.
Invest over $70 billion in the Historically Black Colleges and Universities and Minority-Serving Institutions that will train our next generation of African American professionals. Historically Black Colleges and Universities (HBCUs) are key to educating our next generations of African American leaders. They enroll about 10% of African American students, while accounting for more than 20% of African American bachelor’s degrees awarded. 40% of African American engineers and 80% of African American judges are HBCU graduates. But these institutions do not receive the investment that reflects their importance. The Thurgood Marshall College Fund estimates that the typical HBCU endowment is one-eighth the average size of historically white colleges. As President, Biden will take steps to rectify the funding disparities faced by HBCUs so that the United States can benefit from their unique strengths. Biden will:

Make HBCUs more affordable for their students. Biden will invest $18 billion in grants to four-year HBCUs and Minority-Serving Institutions (MSIs), equivalent to up to two years of tuition per low-income and middle class student. He will invest additional funds in private, non-profit HBCUs and under-resourced MSIs so they are not undermined by the Biden proposal to make four-year public colleges and universities tuition-free for students. Schools must invest in lowering costs, improving retention and graduation rates, and closing equity gaps year over year for students of color.
Reduce disparities in funding for HBCUs and MSIs.
Invest $10 billion to create at least 200 new centers of excellence that serve as research incubators and connect students underrepresented in fields critical to our nation’s future – including fields tackling climate change, globalization, inequality, health disparities, and cancer – to learning and career opportunities.
Build the high tech labs and facilities and digital infrastructure needed for learning, research, and innovation at HBCUs and MSIs.
Invest $5 billion in graduate programs in teaching, health care, and STEM and will develop robust internship and career pipelines at major research agencies.
Create a “Title I for postsecondary education” to help students at under-resourced four-year schools complete their degrees. The Biden Administration will establish a new grant program to support under-resourced four-year schools that serve large numbers of Pell-eligible students. The funds will be used to foster collaboration between colleges and community-based organizations to provide wraparound support services for students, including additional financial aid to cover textbook and transportation costs that often keep students from staying enrolled, to child care and mental health services, faculty mentoring, tutoring, and peer support groups.

Make a $50 billion investment in workforce training, including community-college business partnerships and apprenticeships. These funds will create and support partnerships between community colleges, businesses, unions, state, local, and tribal governments, universities, and high schools to identify in-demand knowledge and skills in a community and develop or modernize training programs – which could be as short as a few months or as long as two years – that lead to a relevant, high-demand industry-recognized credential.

Read Joe Biden’s full education plans at joebiden.com/education and joebiden.com/beyondHS.

MAKE FAR-REACHING INVESTMENTS IN ENDING HEALTH DISPARITIES BY RACE

The COVID-19 pandemic has highlighted the long-standing, pervasive disparities that exist across our health care system due to unequal access to treatment. An early analysis indicates that counties with majority-African American populations have coronavirus infection rates three times higher than counties with majority white residents, with death rates nearly six times higher. Although COVID-19 can hit anyone anywhere, it does not affect every community the same. African Americans are more likely to be uninsured and report higher rates of chronic health problems, and these factors increase their chances of becoming seriously ill and dying from this disease. This is unconscionable. Biden calls on Congress to immediately enact Senator Kamala Harris’ bill to create a task force to address the racial disparities that have been laid bare by this pandemic. As President, he will do everything in his power to eliminate health care disparities.

Ensuring access to health care during this crisis. In the short-term, Biden’s COVID-19 response plan calls on the Trump Administration to drop its support of a lawsuit to overturn Obamacare. Millions of Americans may lose their health insurance because they lose their job, and millions more may find health care increasingly difficult to afford. During this crisis, Biden would expand access to quality, affordable health care for all through:

Creating a public option;
Providing full payment of premiums for COBRA plans;
Increasing Affordable Care Act subsidies;
Reopening Obamacare enrollment so uninsured individuals can get insured;
Increasing federal investments in Medicaid;
Ensuring that every person, whether insured or uninsured, will not have to pay a dollar out-of-pocket for visits related to COVID-19 testing, treatment, preventative services, and any eventual vaccine. No co-payments, no deductibles, and no surprise medical billing.

…

THE BIDEN PLAN TO BUILD SECURITY AND PROSPERITY IN PARTNERSHIP WITH THE PEOPLE OF CENTRAL AMERICA

“The challenges ahead are formidable. But if the political will exists, there is no reason Central America cannot become the next great success story of the Western Hemisphere.”

—Vice President Joe Biden

The people of the United States and Central America have a strong and abiding friendship. We are bound together not just by proximity, but by our shared history and values, and the deeply rooted connections of family and friends that inextricably link our futures. These ties are an essential part of our strength, and they should never be diminished or taken for granted.

Yet, from the first moments of announcing his candidacy for president, Trump has insulted and bullied our closest neighbors, and demonized as less-than-human migrants and the people of our partner nations throughout the region. He has governed through fear and division at home, and abandoned U.S. leadership in the region. It’s not just a moral outrage, it’s a complete failure of American global leadership that is exacerbating challenges in our own region and making the people of the United States less secure.

The Western Hemisphere has the potential to be secure, democratic, and prosperous from the northern reaches of Canada all the way to the southern tip of Chile. Critical to achieving this goal is ensuring that the nations of Central America–especially El Salvador, Guatemala, and Honduras, the Northern Triangle countries–are strong, secure, and capable of delivering futures of opportunity for their own people.

Currently, the Northern Triangle faces enormous challenges from violence, transnational criminal organizations, poverty, and corrupt and ineffective public institutions. This is forcing too many families, unaccompanied children, and adults to make an untenable choice: leave behind everything they know and undertake a dangerous journey to seek a better life, or stay and live under the constant threat of violence, persecution, hopelessness, or even death. Trump’s response has been to enact draconian immigration policies that seek to undo our asylum and refugee laws, coupled with severe reductions in our foreign assistance to the region. Trump has failed to address the challenge of irregular migration and abandoned our commitment to human rights and our democratic values in the process. And, we see the results of his dangerous and erratic decisions every day in the humanitarian crisis at our border.

Joe Biden knows that the most effective and sustainable way to reduce migration from the Northern Triangle is to comprehensively address its root causes–the factors pushing people to leave their countries in the first place–because he’s done it before. As the point-person for the Obama-Biden Administration to address the surge of unaccompanied minors from the Northern Triangle in 2014, Biden successfully built consensus among Democrats and Republicans in Congress in favor of a multi-year strategy to reduce irregular migration, and secured $750 million to support reforms in the region. Biden’s strategy engaged the leaders of the region to take responsibility for improving economic prosperity through poverty reduction and regional integration programs, deepened security cooperation to reduce gang violence and combat transnational criminal organizations, and strengthened institutions through technical assistance that improved governance and transparent fiscal management. The Biden approach reduced violence and helped to ensure that families and children remained in their home countries. Despite this success, since assuming office, the Trump Administration has delayed, reduced, or diverted assistance to Central America–a counterproductive policy that has been rejected by congressional leaders on both sides of the aisle.

As president, Biden will immediately do away with the Trump Administration’s draconian immigration policies and galvanize international action to address the poverty and insecurity driving migrants from the Northern Triangle to the United States. Central American governments and societies have a primary responsibility to address the drivers of emigration in their own countries, but the depth of the necessary reforms require sustained international assistance and cooperation. Renewed U.S. leadership is desperately needed, and must be complemented by private sector investment, the support of the international donor community, and a commitment by regional governments to undertake fundamental reforms.

As president, Joe Biden will renew a robust commitment to U.S. leadership in the region and pursue a comprehensive strategy for Central America by: 

• Developing a comprehensive four-year, $4 billion regional strategy to address factors driving migration from Central America;
• Mobilizing private investment in the region;
• Improving security and rule of law;
• Addressing endemic corruption;
• Prioritizing poverty reduction and economic development.

A COMPREHENSIVE FOUR-YEAR, $4 BILLION REGIONAL STRATEGY

The people of the region understand that addressing these challenges in a sustainable way demands systemic change and reforms across many sectors of society in the Northern Triangle–and that sort of change requires a serious investment of political will and resources at every level. It requires the sustained commitment from the leaders and peoples of El Salvador, Guatemala, and Honduras, and as they step up, the United States should be there to offer support and partnership. It is in the direct interest of the United States to help drive that change with a comprehensive strategy of U.S. support for regional initiatives and engagement at the highest levels of our government.

As president, Biden will renew the U.S. commitment to tackling the root causes driving migration with an integrated, four-year, $4 billion regional strategy that:

• Requires countries to allocate a substantial amount of their own resources and undertake significant, concrete, and verifiable reforms;
• Places strong conditions for verifiable progress to ensure that U.S. taxpayer funds are used effectively;
• Puts combating corruption at the heart of U.S. policy in Central America;
• Marshals private sector investment, including through public-private partnerships, to supplement government funds;
• Invests primarily in civil society organizations that are on the frontlines of addressing root causes;
• Renews efforts to work constructively with Mexico, Canada, and other regional partners from Central and South America; and
• Recognizes the central role of women as a powerful force for development.

To pay for this investment in the future of our region, Biden will reprioritize money away from the Department of Homeland Security’s budget for detention, which has skyrocketed under Trump’s inhumane and unnecessary policies, in favor of more effective and cost-efficient alternatives to detention. The savings from not locking migrants away like criminals or separating families will be much better used to improve conditions in the region and help people feel safe in their home countries.

MOBILIZING PRIVATE INVESTMENT IN THE REGION

Alone, government investment and generous foreign aid are insufficient to stimulate the kind of economic opportunity the people of Central America need to build stable, secure, middle class futures. Ultimately, economies will only grow sustainably by attracting greater private investment–both from international sources, and from their citizens being willing to invest at home.

A Biden administration will harness private sector investment to promote economic stability and job creation in Central America by:

• Working with multilateral development banks, such as the World Bank and the Inter-American Development Bank (IDB), to develop infrastructure and promote foreign investment by engaging with the private sector in a cost-effective and competitive manner. The United States has historically been a significant funder of these international organizations, and we should use our role and investments to ensure that these institutions focus on Central America as a priority.
• Reducing the barriers to private sector investment by prioritizing strengthening the rule of law with increased judicial capacity and improving the competitiveness of the Northern Triangle market by modernizing and standardizing customs procedures.
• Directing the U.S. Trade Representative and the Commerce Department to evaluate whether the countries of Central America are abiding by their commitments under DR-CAFTA, including ensuring that labor practices do not disadvantage competition. Maximizing our trade and commercial deals also generates greater economic opportunities for U.S. businesses and investors. The U.S. is the primary source of foreign direct investment in Central America.
• Bolstering microfinance and financial inclusive banking in Central America with a priority on programs that empower women. Remittances from family members sending money home constitutes a larger share of the GDP in some Northern Triangle countries than foreign direct investment, accounting for more than 10 percent of GDP in Guatemala and approaching 20 percent in El Salvador and Honduras. As president, Biden will create mechanisms to help remittance recipients, especially women, invest in and start small businesses.
• Focusing economic development efforts on modernizing the Northern Triangle’s power grids, ports, and roads, so that local industries can compete globally. In the short term, Biden will join efforts to double the capacity of SIEPAC, the Central American Electrical Interconnection System, to generate electricity for the region.

IMPROVING SECURITY AND THE RULE OF LAW

Families will continue to flee the region if they and their children are not safe in their home communities. They will not try to start a business. They will not invest in their future. Violence and a lack of faith in the capacity of the region’s security services are an enormous barrier to progress in the Northern Triangle. Strengthening security and establishing confidence in the rule of law are the cornerstones for all the other reforms that are needed in the Northern Triangle. Improving both is in the direct interest of people throughout the region and the United States.

A Biden Administration will tackle regional security challenges by:

• Supporting reforms at the national level to fight corruption in the security services and strengthen the judiciary. Investing in improving professional standards and training for police and security forces in the region is key to ensuring that public safety, in partnership with communities, is prioritized.
• Backing violence reduction programs and job training programs that prevent youth from joining dangerous criminal gangs in the first place. These efforts will build on the latest evidence-based practices worldwide to reduce violence with data-driven programs that target high-risk offenders through violence interruption; cognitive, behavioral, and family therapy; juvenile justice reform; restorative justice; and workforce development.
• Providing technical assistance to judges and prosecutors to help authorities more effectively combat financial crimes.
• Ensuring access to justice and support services for victims of domestic violence. Domestic and intra-family violence continue to be a major problem in the Northern Triangle countries and a driver of migration, particularly for women and children. Biden will restore full access to asylum for domestic violence victims, while also strengthening prosecutors’ abilities to pursue domestic violence cases and put perpetrators behind bars.

ADDRESSING ENDEMIC CORRUPTION

Central America will never be able to mobilize private investment on the scale necessary or deliver the services its people need without also addressing corruption. Corruption prevents nations from governing effectively, siphons off resources needed for critical investments in things like infrastructure and education, drives away outside investment, creates crises of legitimacy in fragile democracies, and leaves countries vulnerable to organized crime. It is a cancer that is eating away at the countries of the Northern Triangle and preventing them from making meaningful progress on any of their other key challenges. As the most corrupt Administration in modern American history, Trump has undercut U.S. moral leadership on this issue, and his efforts to combat corruption anywhere in the world have been woefully inadequate to nonexistent.

A long-time vocal proponent of anti-corruption efforts around the world, including in the Northern Triangle, as president, Biden will treat anti-corruption in the Northern Triangle as a top priority by:

• Revoking visas to the United States and freezing assets of corrupt individuals from El Salvador, Guatemala, and Honduras.
• Increasing the presence of U.S. Justice and Treasury Department attachés at our Embassies in Central America to better fight organized crime and illicit activity, and creating a new office as part of the Treasury Department’s Office of Foreign Asset Control (OFAC) to investigate corruption in the Northern Triangle.
• Prioritizing additional funding to train prosecutors in specialized anti-corruption policies and procedures.
• Supporting existing anti-corruption mechanisms while also working with partners to create a regional commission to fight corruption, build more robust domestic institutions, and help local prosecutors pursue corruption. To ensure long-term sustainability and success, Biden will also enlist the support of international organizations, such as the United Nations, the Organization of American States, and the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development, that already have anti-corruption efforts in place.

PRIORITIZING POVERTY REDUCTION AND ECONOMIC DEVELOPMENT

Progress depends on creating a stronger security environment, but it cannot be the sole focus of our efforts in the region. Investing in economic development and the potential of the people of the region is critical for long-term success. Unfortunately, Trump doesn’t understand that U.S. development aid is a vital investment not just in the success of the region, but in our own future security and prosperity.

A Biden Administration will prioritize poverty reduction and development by:

• Addressing food insecurity as a root cause of migration by investing in programs that combat malnutrition in the Northern Triangle, particularly in Guatemala’s Western Highlands and in the dry corridor along the Pacific coast of Central America.
• Strengthening U.S. investments in reintegrating returning migrants to ensure these individuals do not once again undertake the dangerous trek north. Biden will work with the private and non-profit sector in the Northern Triangle to target these individuals for job training and prevention programs, many of whom have gained valuable skills – including English-language skills.
• Prioritizing developing human capital. Biden will work with the public and private sectors to provide training opportunities for youth in the region, while also supporting more scholarships to bring Central American students to study in the United States.
• Providing technical assistance through the U.S. Agency for International Development and the Department of the Treasury to support tax reforms and enforcement. The Northern Triangle governments struggle to meet basic governance challenges such as securing their countries against criminal gang activity, mitigating the effects of extreme poverty, or building stronger educational systems. With increased tax revenue, the countries of the Northern Triangle can invest more of their own money in combating insecurity and strengthening economic development.
• Developing in coordination with countries throughout the region a comprehensive strategy to address the effects of the climate crisis. In our own hemisphere, climate change is already undermining security and prosperity, as well as driving increased migration. Biden’s strategy to meet the greatest threats and create opportunities includes a focus on the Caribbean and the Northern Triangle to promote transitions to clean energy as well as climate change adaptation and resilience.