The incoming Joe Biden-Kamala Harris administration should keep its pledge to “champion a $15 minimum wage, affordable health care for all and federal action to address systemic racism,” Rev. Dr. William J. Barber II and Rev. Dr. Liz Theoharis urge in the New York Times. They have a few more words of advice from the households with incomes of less than $50,000 that supported Biden by an 11.5-point margin:
Voters also supported at least 14 ballot initiatives across the country that increase taxes on the wealthy, protect workers, address housing issues and homelessness, bridge the digital divide, fund transportation, confront the criminalization of poverty and limit campaign contributions. Voters across the country demanded health care, living wages, the decriminalization of their communities and a system that taxes those who can afford it most. Sixty-three percent of Americans now say that the government has a responsibility to provide health care for all. Around two-thirds of Biden voters in Michigan, Pennsylvania and Nevada say that systemic racism is a significant problem, and the same proportion of Americans surveyed last year favored a $15 minimum wage.
Part of the support for Mr. Biden and Ms. Harris is explained by the deep suffering and desperate need that exist in a nation with 140 million poor and low-wealth citizens. Since May, at least eight million people have fallen below the poverty line, tens of millions of Americans may face eviction in the coming months, and families with the lowest incomes have disproportionately lost jobs. It’s no wonder so many used their votes to challenge decades of neoliberal trickle-down policies that have not worked for so many.
To fulfill the mandate that the 2020 electorate has given them, Mr. Biden and Ms. Harris must reject the politics of austerity and fulfill their commitment to policies that address human needs and cultivate human capacities. While the Georgian runoffs will determine whether Democrats have a Senate majority, the new administration can take a bold stand now and commit to policies that would lift Americans regardless of their party affiliation. We must have immediate relief targeted to the Black, Native, poor and low-income communities that have suffered most from Covid-19, alongside universal action to address the root causes of inequality by guaranteeing every American access to quality health care, a $15 minimum wage, the right to form and join a union, and access to affordable housing.
To address the political obstruction that has made so many other policy changes impossible, the Biden administration must push to expand voting rights to include universal early voting, online and same-day registration, re-enfranchisement of citizens affected by mass incarceration, statehood for Washington, D.C., and full restoration of the protections of the Voting Rights Act. Real change can be sustained only if the level of voter participation we witnessed this year is sustained.
Is that before or after Biden cleans up the public health disaster left over from the Trump maladministration? Whatever. It is a helluva lot to undertake without having control of U.S, Senate. Georgia is on my mind. Progress on this sweeping agenda is in the balance.
There is nothing new on the list to progressive readers, and even more the nation’s “most vulnerable people” will require to recover. Not just from the tragic toll the COVID-19 pandemic has taken this year, but from the historic legacy of neglect and oppression low-income Americans of all hues have suffered under a system that gives too much lip-service to its ideals while giving its ear freely to the richest and best-connected.
Same as it ever was. Everywhere. In that the U.S. is decidedly unexceptional.
I’m thinking Biden won’t find much time for golf.
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