For immediate release: October 28, 2021

Contact: Domenica Ghanem, [email protected]

Biden’s Build Back Better Framework Includes Most Impactful Policies to Lift Up American Families in Decades

Community Change Action continues to demand more for immigrants

Community Change Action Co-Presidents Dorian Warren and Lorella Praeli reacted to what’s been included in the Build Back Better framework presented by the Biden administration:

“The proposed Build Back Better Act framework would mark a dramatic turning point away from the Reagan consensus that serves the super-wealthy and toward an economy that would lay a new economic foundation for the majority of Americans. Key policies in the Build Back Better Act would shore up federal dollars to reinvent our tattered safety net, and boost state funds that will strengthen the future of local economies devastated by decades of disinvestment, and most recently, the pandemic recession. These investments in a care economy would be a giant leap towards repairing the harm that has been done to Black families and women over decades of systemic exclusions that have led to racial and gender economic  inequality. We urge Democrats to prioritize passing a Build Back Better bill without any further cuts to investments for families.

For the first time in our country’s history, the government is showing the will to recognize the value of care work. The final bill must require federal subsidies be used to support a living wage for the child care workforce — 95% of whom are women and disproportionately women of color. Funding for high quality affordable child care for all and universal pre-k will help our families get back to work knowing their children are safe.

A renewed, fully-refundable Child Tax Credit will help cut child and family poverty and allow many families to build up savings for the very first time, putting regular down payments on the future of all of our children. No-strings-attached funds let parents and guardians decide the best way to care for their families and generate revenue into local economies. Permanent full refundability would be transformational for the families who need it most and corrects a policy that excluded too many, particularly Black and Brown women-led households. 

As one of the leading organizations in establishing the National Housing Trust Fund in 2008 — the first new federal housing production program specifically targeted to extremely low-income households since 1974 — we are excited to see more proposed investments in affordable housing. We could begin to turn the tide on past federal government negligence of our national housing crisis.

While we cannot understate the long overdue transformative power of these policies for families, Democrats must do more to keep their promises to immigrants — millions of whom helped carry the country through the pandemic. Our immigrant rights movement has fought for decades to win citizenship for undocumented immigrants, and we welcome the inclusion of immigration in this framework. We urge Democrats to deliver this year and ensure that the final Build Back Better package includes protections for millions. Our demand for citizenship — supported by the majority of voters — is unwavering.  Democrats must also restore CTC eligibility for ITIN holders that Trump cruelly eliminated, and provide an estimated one million undocumented kids access to a benefit their families have earned.

Our communities voted for President Biden and a Democratic Congress to take our country towards a new vision for the economy. This framework on the Build Back Better Act takes great steps towards achieving that vision and now we need to pass it. We will continue to fight to include all of our priorities in the final bill to improve the lives of our families and communities — including child care, an inclusive child tax credit, citizenship for undocumented immigrants, and affordable housing — and hold policy makers accountable to their promises.”

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