The Biden/Harris Commitment to Asset Building and Financial Capability
There are a lot of reasons why a Biden/Harris administration might support the advancement of asset building and financial capability efforts of American’s hardworking families.
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August 11, 2020, will go down as a historic date, as that was when Kamala Harris was chosen by presidential candidate Joe Biden to be his running mate. This was momentous on many accounts, and especially celebrated by women, Black Americans, and South Asian Americans alike who all proudly call her their own. I am thrilled as well, and happily watched as the progressive pundits gushed on the evening cable news networks.
And now that the news has settled and we transition into the general election, I have a question: Where do Joe Biden and Kamala Harris stand on policies that empower women and families to build assets and promote financial capability.
Let’s find out.
Biden’s “Build Back Better”
By know you may by familiar with Biden’s catchy alliteration. For a deeper dive on Biden’s platform on policies that support working families, I first turned to an article by Dylan Matthews at Vox called “This is the future Joe Biden wants.” It gave a comprehensive look at where Joe Biden wants to go in his administration. And there are quite a few proposals that professionals in the financial capability space will like to see. Let’s take a look at this and other sources to learn what Joe is thinking about:
Pandemic Response: Joe Biden’s website has all the space he needs to explain how he will respond to the pandemic if and when he becomes president. Scrolling down the page, I found that he supports emergency paid sick leave and caregiving leave, expanded unemployment insurance, and mortgage relief.
Child care: Biden wants to provide universal pre-K to all 3- and 4-year-olds in the country. As a parent who paid out of pocket for her 3-year-old preschool and benefited from public pre-K when my kids were 4, this comes as music to my ears. He is also proposing a tax credit to pay for up to half of child care costs, up to a maximum of $8,000 per child per year for families making under $125,000/year. In high-costs states I am not sure if this is going to be enough, but it is something.
Minimum wage: Biden supports a $15/hour minimum wage.
Housing: According to Matthew Ygelsias at Vox, Biden’s housing plan is pretty extraordinary. He proposes to make Section 8 housing vouchers available to every household who qualifies. For those who you who work with clients who spend years on Section 8 waiting lists, you understand how momentous this is. Experts caution that simply funding the Section 8 voucher program will not instantaneously eradicate housing instability, that there needs to be services to assist prospective renters in navigating the local housing stock. And for those metropolitan areas experiencing a housing shortage (yes, Boston, and I am looking at you) there needs to be an overall increase in the supply of housing.
Health Care: While Biden is not a supporter of “Medicare for All” like Bernie Sanders and Elizabeth Warren, he is proposing a public option that might move the needle for providing affordable coverage for consumers who need it. Biden’s public health insurance option would be available not only to people on the health insurance exchanges, but also to employees of large employers to choose to offer it as an alternative to private insurance plans. This might have the effect of introducing more competition into the marketplace and drive down costs. We’ll see.
Bankruptcy: Biden has adopted Elizabeth Warren’s streamlined bankruptcy plan which allows for student loan debt to be eliminated like other debt, as well as allowing for people to keep their homes and cars while in bankruptcy.
College Affordability: Biden plans to make all public universities and HBCU’s free for families making under $125,000/year.
Green New Deal: While I tend to focus on social policy as a primary mechanism for helping hardworking families, you cannot debate that climate change has a detrimental impact on low-income and low-wealth communities. Biden supports the Green New Deal, and furthermore will work to protect low-income communities from the pollution spewed by large-scale fossil fuel corporations.
Harris’s Policy Agenda
As we know, before Kamala Harris was a history-making VP pick, she had her own ambitions to become president herself, and her own policy platform to consider. Adam Cancryn and Carla Marinucci of Politico recently explained her positions. Those (as well as others) include:
Pandemic Response: Harris supports a ban on foreclosures and evictions and proposes sending people $2,000 every month for the duration of the emergency.
LIFT the Middle Class Act: While not Universal Basic Income, the act that Harris proposed in 2018 provides up to $6,000/year in refundable tax credits to married couple households earning less than $100,000. What’s more, families can access that tax credit in monthly increments of $500.
Equal Pay: Harris proposes that companies with 100 or more employees be required to disclose their pay data to the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission every two years, and pay a financial penalty if that cannot prove fair pay.
Minimum Wage: Like Joe Biden, Kamala Harris supports a $15 minimum wage.
Paid Leave: “The Children’s Agenda”, released in October 2019, includes six months of paid leave for all workers (full-time, part-time, self-employed, independent contractors, etc.) so that they can take paid time off to care for themselves and their loved ones. Wages for workers making up to $75,000 would be replaced at 100%, with a phase-down for higher earners.
Credit Scores: Harris proposed at an amendment to the Fair Credit Reporting Act to include rent, cellphone plans, and utilities when calculating credit scores, in an attempt to reduce the racial homeownership gap.
Rent Relief Act: This bill would create a refundable tax credit for renters who pay more than 30% of their gross annual income on rent and utilities.
Health Care: It’s hard to tell what Harris’s current stance is with regards to health care, after first supporting Bernie Sander’s “Medicare for All’ plan, and then developing her own plan that allowed private insurers to participate. Now that she is in the VP slot, her and Biden’s health care plans are expected to look pretty much identical.
Student Loan Debt: As my colleague Adam Minsky explains in his recent Forbes article, Harris supports $10,000 in student loan forgiveness as a part of pandemic relief, and an overhaul of the Public Service Loan Forgiveness program.
Climate Equity Act: Along the lines of the Green New Deal, Harris, along with Alexandria Ocasio-Ortiz, has introduced the Climate Equity Act, which will bring “frontline communities” to the front-and-center when environmental decisions are at play.