FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
Contact: [email protected]
October 29, 2021
WASHINGTON, DC – Today, young leaders from A New Deal for Youth released the following statement on the ways President Joe Biden’s “Build Back Better” framework would impact young people living in America:
“If we are going to rebuild our country to being better than it was before, we cannot ignore the needs of America’s young people. President Biden’s ‘Build Back Better’ framework lays the foundation for many of the changes we need, prioritizing the concerns of everyday working people and disadvantaged communities.
“For young people with low incomes and young working parents, provisions like extending the expanded Earned Income Tax Child Tax Credits and the fully refundable Child Tax Credit will help us meet our basic needs and reduce the financial burden so many of us carry alone each month. Additionally, we are pleased to see targeted investments in subsidized employment for young people and those impacted by the criminal legal system—core components of our economic justice and opportunity agenda.
“The ‘Build Back Better’ framework also includes funding for programs that will increase the overall health and well-being many young people in America, including critical mental health and substance abuse services in our indigenous communities, investments in peer support, and diversifying the behavioral health workforce. Closing the Medicaid Coverage Gap will help millions of us who are uninsured gain access to healthcare we’ve needed for so long and will help make it affordable. And lastly, a $2.5 billion dollar investment in preventing trauma and community violence demonstrates a real commitment to justice and safe communities. Commitments for community investments related to climate change such as the creation of the Civilian Climate Corps, lead pipe abatement and Climate Justice Block Grants will help protect the environment and counter the harmful impacts of environmentally unjust practices that we live with every day.
“While we are disappointed that provisions that would specifically center the specific needs of young people like tuition free community college education, paid family and medical leave we remain hopeful and will continue pushing for improvements in the final bill, such as explicitly including a pathway to citizenship for all immigrants. We look forward to working with our elected leaders to ensure that the benefits of this plan are clearly accessible to young adults across our nation and that our communities understand how transformational it will be right now and for years to come.”
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About A New Deal for Youth
A New Deal for Youth is a youth-led, youth-centered effort advocating for the creation of new systems, policies, investments, and structures that reimagine life for young people in America. Through defining and advancing a transformational and holistic agenda that addresses the urgent challenges young people are facing due to COVID-19, the economic downturn, and structural racism, A New Deal for Youth Changemakers, partners, and allies are developing visionary policy proposals and community solutions that help shape public discourse and that decision-makers at the federal, state, and local levels and in the private sector can implement to address this crisis. Learn more at www.newdealforyouth.org.
About CLASP and the CLASP Youth Policy Team
CLASP is a national, nonpartisan, anti-poverty nonprofit advancing policy solutions for people with low incomes. CLASP develops practical yet visionary strategies for reducing poverty, promoting economic opportunity, and advancing racial equity.
The CLASP Youth Policy team seeks to advance a vision for America co-created with youth and young adults, ages 16-25, that centers safety, healing and well-being, and economic and racial justice. The team advances policy, community strategies, and investments that support economic mobility, community safety, equal access to quality health care and mental health resources, and that dismantle structural barriers preventing youth of color and youth with low incomes from opportunities to transform their lives.
