Democratic U.S. presidential candidate and former U.S. Vice President Joe Biden visits a site of the protest over the death of George Floyd in Minneapolis police custody, in Wilmington, Delaware, in this social media image courtesy of Joe Biden’s presidential campaign, May 31, 2020.
Joe Biden for President | via REUTERS
WASHINGTON – Former Vice President Joe Biden will unveil a far-reaching plan Tuesday aimed at narrowing the generational wealth gap that persists between White Americans and their Black, Latino, Asian and Native American neighbors.
The economic equity plan is the fourth plank in the presumptive Democratic presidential nominee’s “Build Back Better” economic platform, and Biden is scheduled to announce it an event in Delaware on Tuesday afternoon.
Here are some of the key points:
- Create a new Small Business Opportunity Fund and seed it with $30 billion of Biden’s proposed $300 billion domestic innovation funding.
- Expand the New Markets Tax Credit to $5 billion yearly and make it permanent.
- Pass legislation to require the Federal Reserve to report data and trends on racial economic gaps, and commit the Fed to a “real-time” payment system aimed at eliminating the time it takes for checks to clear.
Unlike the previous three planks in Biden’s economic platform, the racial equity plan does not initially include demands for more federal spending, according to a copy of the plan distributed to reporters on Tuesday morning. Instead, it is centered on the ways that funding Biden has already proposed in his first three planks is allocated.
The plan also repackages several of Biden’s existing proposals, such as his plan to offer a one-time student debt reduction of $10,000 per student, and his call for a $15 hourly minimum wage.
It also contains a separate section focused on criminal justice reform, which includes Biden’s plan to eliminate cash bail and to guarantee that formerly incarcerated people are provided temporary housing upon release from prison.
Speaking to reporters Tuesday morning, senior Biden campaign advisors said more details about the costs and the funding of these proposals are forthcoming, although they did not specify when to expect the numbers.
One thing the plan does not contain is any reference to the word “reparations,” despite a growing movement on the left in recent years to quantify and compensate Black Americans for centuries of slave labor and for the subsequent systemic racism under Jim Crow laws that denied them access to the same opportunities to acquire and grow wealth that White families were given.
Read the entire plan below.
This is a developing story. Please check back for updates.
