The hardships faced by Amazon’s warehouse employees are well known and now Black workers in Alabama are organizing, challenging power, and leading the efforts to become unionized.
"Black and Latinx borrowers [are] more likely to be denied credit than white borrowers and more likely to be charged higher interest rates [...]. [O]ne of many ways the financial deck is stacked against Black and brown consumers.”
"Black student debtors "are 16 percent more likely to be in default or seriously delinquent than white student debtors; Latino borrowers are 8 percent more likely."
Today, nearly 60 years removed from Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr’s speech during the March on Washington, countless barriers remain between his dream and America’s reality.
An economy that ultimately lives up to our country’s promise will require us to invest in public goods and health infrastructure, break up concentrated economic power, and ensure equitable access for Black and brown communities.
The response to the COVID-19 crisis must include investments in public goods and health infrastructure, breaking up concentrated economic power, and equitable access for Black and brown communities.
Caregiving work has historically been undervalued. Today, Black women are disproportionately employed in caregiving work and facing the worst of the COVID-19 economic crisis.
“The actual dollar amount, it’s hard to put that at a figure that’s enough to help everyone who is struggling. And because of that, I’d err on the side of doing more.”
“The student debt crisis is yet another example of the deep and structural racial injustice at that heart of our economy. It prevents Black and Brown families from building wealth and economic power and has undermined the fundamental goal of higher education as a public good."
An executive action for student debt cancellation would provide much needed economic relief to millions of Black and Latinx families in order to avoid financial catastrophe during the continuing global pandemic.
Credit reports and scores control access to public goods people need. Yet, in the midst of a global pandemic and economic collapse, remaking the nation’s credit reporting system is not the top concern.
“This is a microcosm of many intra-progressive, intra-left policy debates—whether it’s better to do something universal and achieve something with relative ease or ensure that only those struggling by some definition get relief."
It is more vital than ever that Black- and brown-led organizations have the resources they need to combat the many issues confronting their communities and to build durable and sustainable power.
From March through May, New Florida Majority Education Fund surveyed over 21,000 Floridians to ask how the pandemic was affecting their lives and well-being. This report presents our findings from those surveys.