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Maybe there is no “universal standard” for measuring human rights issues for countries across the world today?For example, the US led West is accusing China of various human rights violations, telling the world we Chinese are suppressed by the Communist Party of China, without any freedom, but as an ordinary Chinese, I’m living a quite normal life which I think with no subversive differences form life of most other people in the world.While observing from Chinese perspective, the human rights situation in the US is, some how, worrisome.According to a latest report today (Mar. 24, 2021) by China, there seem to be indeed not so rosy pictures of human rights in the US.Of course, it’s not a “creation” by the Chinese side, or fabricated “reports” based on distorted or fake information, instead, the report was basically compiled on the public media reports by US media outlets, or research reports of US institutes, organizations, etc. There is a US source for all the information in the report.Now, what is exactly included in it? Be prepared, a very very long one!I would copy the full text of the report here. And after reading it, you can draw your own conclusion on whether the US has human rights issues or not.Full text: The Report on Human Rights Violations in the United States in 2020The Report on Human Rights Violations in the United States in 2020The State Council Information Office of the People’s Republic of ChinaMarch 2021Foreword“I can’t breathe!”-- George Floyd“The scenes (the U.S. Capitol building violence) we have seen are the result of lies and more lies, of division and contempt for democracy, of hatred and rabble-rousing -- even from the very highest levels.”-- German President Frank-Walter SteinmeierIn 2020, the COVID-19 pandemic wreaked havoc around the world, posing a major threat to human security. The virus respects no borders, nor does the epidemic distinguish between races. To defeat the epidemic requires mutual help, solidarity and cooperation among all countries. However, the United States, which has always considered itself an exception and superior, saw its own epidemic situation go out of control, accompanied by political disorder, inter-ethnic conflicts, and social division. It further added to the human rights violations in the country, the so-called “city upon a hill” and “beacon of democracy.”-- The epidemic went out of control and turned into a human tragedy due to the government’s reckless response. By the end of February 2021, the United States, home to less than 5 percent of the world’s population, accounted for more than a quarter of the world’s confirmed COVID-19 cases and nearly one-fifth of the global deaths from the disease. More than 500,000 Americans lost their lives due to the virus.COVID-19 Map - Johns Hopkins Coronavirus Resource Center-- Disorder in American democratic institutions led to political chaos, further tearing the fabric of society apart. Money-tainted politics distorted and suppressed public opinion, turning elections into a “one-man show” of the wealthy class and people’s confidence in the American democratic system dropped to the lowest level in 20 years. Amid increasing political polarization, hate politics evolved into a national plague, and the Capitol was stormed in post-election riots.Viewpoint: What the Capitol riot means for US foreign policy-- Ethnic minority groups suffered systematic racial discrimination and were in a difficult situation. People of color made up about one-third of all minors under the age of 18 in the United States but two-thirds of all of the country’s imprisoned minors. African Americans are three times as likely as whites to be infected with the coronavirus, twice as likely to die from COVID-19, and three times as likely to be killed by the police. One in four young Asian Americans has been the target of racial bullying.Ethics and Systemic Racism-- Gun trade and shooting incidents hit a record high, and people’s confidence in social order waned. Americans bought 23 million guns in 2020 against the background of an out-of-control epidemic, accompanied by racial justice protests and election-related conflicts, a surge of 64 percent compared with 2019. First-time gun buyers exceeded 8 million. More than 41,500 people were killed in shooting incidents across the United States in the year, an average of more than 110 a day, and there were 592 mass shootings nationwide, an average of more than 1.6 a day.(Las Vegas shooting on October 1, 2017. /AFP)The 10 Deadliest Mass Shootings in Modern U.S. History-- George Floyd, an African American, died after being brutally kneeled on his neck by a white police officer, sparking a national outcry. Widespread protests for racial justice erupted in 50 states. The U.S. government suppressed demonstrators by force, and more than 10,000 people were arrested. A large number of journalists were attacked and arrested for no reason.Black Lives Matter | Definition, Goals, History, & Influence-- The gap between the rich and the poor widened, with the people at the bottom of society living in misery. The epidemic led to mass unemployment. Tens of millions of people lost health insurance coverage. One in six Americans and one in four American children were at risk of hunger. Vulnerable groups became the biggest victims of the government’s reckless response to the epidemic.(People wait to receive food at a food distribution site in the Brooklyn borough of New York, the United States, May 14, 2020. Growing polarization between the rich and the poor aggravated social inequality in the United States. Photo by Michael Nagle/Xinhua)The U.S. government, instead of introspecting on its own terrible human rights record, kept making irresponsible remarks on the human rights situation in other countries, exposing its double standards and hypocrisy on human rights. Standing at a new crossroads, mankind is faced with new, grave challenges. It is hoped that the U.S. side will show humility and compassion for the suffering of its own people, drop hypocrisy, bullying, “Big Stick” and double standards, and work with the international community to build a community with a shared future for humanity.I. Incompetent Pandemic Containment Leads to Tragic OutcomeThe United States claimed to be most abundant in medical resources and healthcare capacity, yet its response to the COVID-19 pandemic was chaotic, causing it to lead the world in the numbers of confirmed COVID-19 cases and related deaths.Incompetent pandemic response led to dire consequences. A tally by Johns Hopkins University showed that as of the end of February 2021, the United States has registered more than 28 million confirmed COVID-19 cases, with related deaths exceeding 500,000. With a population of less than 5 percent of the world’s total, the United States accounted for more than 25 percent of all the confirmed cases and nearly 20 percent of the deaths. On Dec. 20, 2020, CNN reported that the state of California alone had reported 1.845 million COVID-19 cases and 22,599 deaths, which translates to roughly 4,669 known cases and 57 deaths for every 100,000 residents. Even these numbers don’t give the whole picture of the state, because many cases, including mild or asymptomatic infections, had not been diagnosed. Had the American authorities taken science-based measures to contain the pandemic, this could have been avoided. But since they had not, the pandemic, as epidemiologist and former head of the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) William Foege had put it, is “a slaughter” to the United States.National leaders ignored warnings from experts and downplayed the seriousness of the pandemic. According to the timeline of COVID-19 pandemic in the United States released by media outlets including The New York Times and The Washington Post, the Trump administration had repeatedly ignored alarms regarding the risks of the pandemic. In early January 2020, a National Security Council office had already received intelligence reports predicting the spread of the virus to the United States. In a Jan. 29, 2020 memo, then White House trade adviser Peter Navarro projected that a coronavirus pandemic might lead to as many as half a million deaths and trillions of dollars in economic losses. A number of health officials, including then Health and Human Services Secretary Alex Azar, and medical experts also warned of the possibility of a pandemic in the United States. None of the aforementioned warnings brought the imminent pandemic to the Trump administration’s attention. Instead, the administration focused on controlling the message, and released misleading signals to the public by claiming “the risk of the virus to most Americans was very low,” suggesting that the coronavirus is no worse than the common flu, and stating the virus will “miraculously go away” when the weather gets warmer. Thus, the country lost crucial weeks for pandemic prevention and control. An article published on the website of The New York Times on April 13, 2020 commented that, then American leader’s “preference for following his gut rather than the data cost time, and perhaps lives.”Government inaction led to uncontrolled pandemic spread. “There’s no need for that many to have died. We chose, as a country, to take our foot off the gas pedal. We chose to, and that's the tragedy.” So commented David Hayes-Bautista, a professor of medicine at the University of California, Los Angeles, after the pandemic death toll hit 300,000 in the United States. Disease modelers with the Columbia University also estimated that, if the United States had begun locking down cities and limiting social contact on March 1, 2020, two weeks earlier than most people started staying home, about 83 percent of the nation’s pandemic-related deaths would have been avoided. An editorial from the website of medical journal The Lancet, published on May 17, 2020, commented that the U.S. government was obsessed with magic bullets -- vaccines, new medicines, or a hope that the virus will simply disappear. At the same time, it noted that only a steadfast reliance on basic public health principles, like testing, tracing, and isolation, would see the emergency brought to an end. Even when the pandemic is spreading in a vast area in the United States, the administration was hasty to restart the economy due to political concerns. According to news website Vox on Aug. 11, 2020, in April and May last year, several states rushed to reopen and caused the virus to shift to the South, West and eventually the rest of the United States. In addition, despite that experts had recommended people wear masks in public, the then American leader and some state officials had been extremely reluctant to issue any decree to make wearing masks mandatory.Chaotic pandemic control and prevention measures caused confusion among the public. An article published by CNN on May 9, 2020 called the U.S. response to the pandemic “consistently inconsistent,” and noted that there were no national guidelines and no organized efforts to reopen the country beyond what measures states had taken. The article also said that in terms of pandemic control and prevention, public health officials say one thing while governors say another and the national leader says something else entirely. In addition, after the experts called for federal leadership, the then American leader left it to cities and states to solve national problems with testing and hospital supplies by themselves. When the federal government released a phased plan for reopening, the leader called on states to reopen faster. After the CDC recommended that people wear masks in public, the leader refused to do so for months. Even more ridiculously, the leader at one point advocated injecting bleach as a treatment.National leaders shirked their responsibility out of arrogance. Despite one ludicrous idea after another, the then American leader refused to admit any fault. Instead, the leader invented all sorts of excuses to gloss over his mistakes while shirking from responsibilities. For one, the then leader insisted that the U.S. leads the world in COVID-19 cases because it tested more than any other country in the world. When asked about testing problems and rising deaths, the leader claimed he “doesn’t take responsibility at all.” However, White House adviser and National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases director Anthony Fauci admitted that the numbers didn’t lie and the United States had the worst coronavirus outbreak in the world.Senior citizens fell victims to the government’s incompetent response to COVID-19. Senior citizens are a group more susceptible to the pandemic, yet they have been further marginalized in the U.S. pandemic prevention and control chaos, with their lives becoming valueless and their dignity trampled upon. On March 23 and April 20, 2020, Dan Patrick, the lieutenant governor of Texas, told Fox News that he would rather die than see public health measures damage the U.S. economy and there are more important things than living. Furthermore, an Aug. 18, 2020 report published on The San Diego Union-Tribune website found that residents in long-term care facilities account for less than 1 percent of the U.S. population but more than 40 percent of COVID-19 deaths. A May 9, 2020 article from The Washington Post website called the U.S. pandemic control efforts “state-sanctioned killing,” where “the old, factory workers, and black and Hispanic Americans” were deliberately sacrificed.The poor faced greater threat of infection. Researchers found that the Gini Index, an economic barometer that ranks income inequality from 0 (total equality) to 1 (total inequality), was a strong predictor of COVID-19 deaths. New York State, which had one of the highest Gini Index numbers also had the highest number of fatalities in the nation by a margin. The Guardian website reported on March 21, 2020 that in the wake of the epidemic, it’s the wealthy and powerful first get coronavirus tests, while low-paid workers, most of whom have no paid sick leave and can’t do their work from home, put themselves at greater risk of contracting the virus in order to earn a living. Public health officials said, in Los Angeles County, residents of low-income communities are three times more likely to die of COVID-19 than those in wealthier neighborhoods, according to a report published on the Los Angeles Times website on May 8, 2020. A Gallup survey revealed that one in seven American adults said that if they or their family members developed symptoms related to COVID-19, they would probably give up medical treatment because they were worried that they could not afford the costs. The United Nations Special Rapporteur on extreme poverty and human rights, Philip Alston, also pointed out that the poor in the United States were being hit hardest by the COVID-19 pandemic. Low-income and poor people face far higher risks from the coronavirus due to chronic neglect and discrimination, and a muddled, corporate-driven federal response has failed them, he observed.The handicapped and the homeless were in dire straits. A study released in November 2020 by the nonprofit FAIR Health found that people with intellectual and developmental disabilities are three times more likely to die of COVID-19, compared to the general population. The website of the Los Angeles Times reported on May 14, 2020 that with the coronavirus-induced shock to the economy crippling businesses of all sizes and leaving millions of Americans out of work, homelessness in the United States could grow as much as 45 percent in a year. Many of the homeless Americans are elderly or disabled people. Given their originally poor physical health and bad living and hygienic conditions, they are susceptible to the virus. During the pandemic, the homeless were evicted and pushed into makeshift shelters. The website of Reuters reported on April 23, 2020 that the crowded shelters across the United States made it impossible for the homeless who lived there to maintain social distance, which made it easier for the virus to spread. The New York Times website reported on April 13, 2020 that in the New York City, a crisis has taken hold in homeless shelters, as more than 17,000 men and women are sleeping in group or “congregate” shelters for single adults, with beds close enough for people sleeping in them to hold hands. The Boston Globe website reported on May 4, 2020 that, about one-third of the homeless people who were tested have tested positive for the novel coronavirus.Outbreak in jails threatened lives of inmates. ABC News reported on Dec. 19, 2020 that at least 275,000 prisoners have been infected, of whom more than 1,700 have died, and nearly every prison system in the country has seen infection rates significantly higher than the communities around them. One of every five prisoners in facilities run by the federal Bureau of Prisons has had coronavirus, according to data collected by The Associated Press and The Marshall Project, a nonprofit news organization covering the criminal justice system. They also found that 24 state prison systems have had even higher infection rates. Half of the prisoners in Kansas have been infected with COVID-19 — eight times the rate of cases among the state’s overall population. In Arkansas, four of every seven have had the virus.Out-of-control pandemic brought Americans psychological pressure. The Trump administration’s reaction to the COVID-19 pandemic has negatively affected Americans more than the virus itself, which has left people stressed and isolated. In a study published by the CDC on Aug. 14, 2020, due to stay-at-home orders, 40.9 percent of adults reported at least one adverse mental or behavioral health condition, 30.9 percent reported either anxiety or depression and those numbers are just the tip of the iceberg. The same CDC study showed that 13 percent of people surveyed by the CDC during the same time said that they started or increased their substance use and 11 percent seriously considered suicide. A separate study released in June 2020 showed calls to suicide hotlines went up 47 percent nationwide during the COVID-19 pandemic with some crisis lines experiencing a 300-percent increase.II. American Democracy Disorder Triggers Political ChaosTouting itself as the beacon of democracy, the United States has wantonly leveled criticism against and oppressed many other countries under the guise of upholding democracy, freedom and human rights. However, the U.S. society has been plagued by deep-rooted money politics, unchecked public opinion manipulation and rampant lies, and American democracy has further aggravated social division instead of bridging the increasingly polarized political differences. As a result, the American people enjoy their civil and political rights in name only.Influence of money in electoral politics essentially makes it a money-led election. Money is the driving force of American politics. America’s money politics has distorted public opinion, turning elections into a “one-man show” for the rich. The amount spent on the 2020 U.S. presidential and congressional campaigns hit nearly 14 billion U.S. dollars, more than double what was spent in the 2016 election. The presidential campaign saw a record high of 6.6 billion U.S. dollars in total spending, while congressional races finished with over 7 billion U.S. dollars. According to a Nov. 1, 2020 report on the website of CNBC, the top 10 donors in the 2020 U.S. election cycle contributed over 640 million U.S. dollars. In addition to publicly registered election donations, a large amount of secret funds and dark money flooded the 2020 U.S. elections. According to an analysis by the Brennan Center for Justice at New York University, dark money groups poured more than 750 million U.S. dollars into 2020 elections through ad spending and record-breaking contributions to political committees such as super political action committees.Public trust in U.S. elections was in crisis. According to Gallup’s figures released on Oct. 8, 2020, only 19 percent of Americans say they are “very confident” about the accuracy of the presidential election, the lowest Gallup has recorded in its trend dating back to 2004. According to a commentary carried by the Wall Street Journal on Nov. 9, 2020, the 2020 U.S. election can be seen as the culmination of a two-decade period of decline in faith in the basic building blocks of democracy.Political polarization grew. Disagreement between Democrats and Republicans has gradually changed from policy differences to identity battles with increasingly obvious political tribalism. The two parties have ended in deadlocks on many major public issues, thus leading to inefficient and incompetent state governance. Power plays between rival politicians in dogfights have become the hallmark of American politics, which saw a variety of shows featuring ugly attacks and vulgar smears. Voters supporting different parties are at loggerheads under the instigation of extreme politicians. Dominated by growing political fanaticism, the two camps are increasingly harder to talk to each other. Hate politics raged through the country and became the root cause of constant social unrest and division. According to a Nov. 13, 2020 report by Pew Research Center, America is exceptional in the nature of its political divide. There has been an increasingly stark disagreement between Democrats and Republicans on economy, racial justice, climate change, law enforcement, international engagement and a long list of other issues. The 2020 presidential election exacerbated these deep-seated divides. A month before the election, roughly 80 percent of the registered voters in both camps said their differences with the other side were about more than just politics and policies, but also about core American values, and about 90 percent in both camps worried that a victory by the other would lead to “lasting harm” to the United States.Power checks and balances have mutated into veto politics. The bipartisan divides intensified the veto practices inherent in the American system. The separation, check and balance of power have turned into vetoing each other. The two parties engaged in ferocious battles, paralyzing the Congress and deadlocking the decision-making. While the outbreak of COVID-19 went out of control, the two parties not only brawled with each other on multiple issues, but also took the bill for the second round of COVID-19 relief measures as their campaigning tool for election. The two parties filibustered and stalled each other for votes, leaving millions of grassroots people in livelihood predicament. The veto politics has caused acute confrontations between the Congress and the administrative system, as well as between the federal and state authorities. During the COVID-19 pandemic, frequent contradictions have taken place between the Republican president and the Democrats-dominated House of Representatives, and between the federal government and Democratic “blue states.” The federal government competed with the states in the scramble for anti-virus supplies, and was often at odds with the “blue states” in epidemic response policies, thus causing people to be at a loss. Massachusetts once arranged to buy 3 million N95 masks for urgent needs, but federal authorities seized them at the Port of New York.The post-election riots highlighted the American democracy crisis. The election did not resolve the political differences in the United States, but heated up social confrontation. A Nov. 4, 2020 report on the website of the Guardian noted that whoever won the 2020 election, America would remain a country bitterly divided and the politics of anger and hatred would be the legacy. Claiming that the election was tainted by fraud, the defeated Republican camp refused to accept the presidential election results and filed lawsuits in Michigan, Wisconsin, Pennsylvania and Georgia, calling for a recount of ballots to overturn the election by pressuring and intimidating local election officials. Donald Trump repeatedly insisted that he would never accept the election defeat, calling on his supporters to protest against the congressional certification of the election result in Washington, D.C. The election dispute eventually turned into riots.On Jan. 6, 2021, tens of thousands of protesters who refused to accept the election defeat staged a “Save America” rally in Washington, D.C. A large number of protesters breached security and stormed into the Capitol building, where they tussled with police officers. Members of the U.S. Congress were hurriedly evacuated wearing their gas masks, as the police fired tear gas and shot to disperse the protesters. Protesters acted recklessly after occupying the venue. The riots resulted in multiple injuries and an interruption of the congressional certification of the electoral victory. Washington, D.C. imposed curfew and entered a state of emergency. On Jan. 7, 2021, U.S. Capitol Police Chief Steven Sund said that thousands of individuals involved in violent riotous actions attacked officers with metal pipes, chemical irritants and other weapons, injuring more than 50 police officers. The police arrested more than 100 people in total. On Jan. 7, 2021, UN High Commissioner for Human Rights Michelle Bachelet said in a statement that the attack on the U.S. Capitol demonstrated clearly the destructive impact of sustained, deliberate distortion of facts, and incitement to violence and hatred by political leaders.The political chaos in Washington shocked the world. American media called it the first time in modern American history that the power transfer has turned into a real combat in the Washington corridor of power. They blamed that violence, chaos and vandalism had shaken the American democracy to the core, dealing a heavy blow to America’s image as a democratic beacon. The French daily Le Figaro commented that the violent incident stoked up the resentment and distrust among different camps in American society, plunging America into an unknown situation. The Foreign Policy said in a commentary that the United States has become what its leaders used to condemn: being unable to avoid violence and bloody destruction during transfer of power. Lebanese diplomat Mohamad Safa commented via social media, “If the United States saw what the United States is doing in the United States, the United States would invade the United States to liberate the United States from the tyranny of the United States.”III. Ethnic minorities devastated by racial discriminationIn the United States, racism exists in a comprehensive, systematic and continuous manner. Former U.S. President Barack Obama said helplessly that “for millions of Americans, being treated differently on account of race is tragically, painfully, maddeningly ‘normal’.” In June 2020, the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights Michelle Bachelet made two consecutive media statements, emphasizing that the protests triggered by the death of George Floyd, an African American, highlighted not only the issue of police brutality against people of color, but also inequality and racial discrimination in health, education, and employment in the United States. The grievances need to be heard and addressed if the country is to move on from its tragic history of racism and violence. On June 17, 2020, the 43rd session of the UN Human Rights Council held an urgent debate on racism. This was the first time in the history of the Human Rights Council that an urgent meeting on the human rights issues of the United States was held. On Nov. 9, 2020, the United States was severely criticized by the international community for racial discrimination when it was in the third cycle of Universal Periodic Review by the United Nations Human Rights Council. The Committee on the Elimination of Racial Discrimination of the United Nations and other institutions pointed out that racism in the United States is horrific. The white nationalists, neo-Nazis, and the Ku Klux Klan overtly use racist slogans, chants and salutes to promote white supremacy and incite racial discrimination and hatred. Political figures increasingly use divisive language in attempts to marginalize racial, ethnic and religious minorities, which amounts to inciting and fueling violence, intolerance and bigotry. Tendayi Achiume, the United Nations Special Rapporteur on contemporary forms of racism, racial discrimination, xenophobia and related intolerance, believes that for black people in the United States, the domestic legal system has utterly failed to acknowledge and confront the racial injustice and discrimination that are so deeply entrenched in law enforcement.Rights of the American Indians were violated. The United States has carried out systematic ethnic cleansing and massacres of Indians in history, and committed countless crimes against humanity and genocides. American Indians still live a life like a second-class citizen and their rights have been trampled over. Many indigenous peoples, such as the American Indians, who live in low-income communities in the United States, suffer from higher rates of cancer and heart diseases from toxic radioactive environments. Many indigenous people live near hazardous waste disposal sites and have an abnormally high rate of birth defects. On Aug. 5, 2020, the report of the United Nations Special Rapporteur on the implications for human rights of the environmentally sound management and disposal of hazardous substances and wastes, submitted pursuant to Human Rights Council resolution 36/15, decried the situation of indigenous peoples in the United States. They are exposed to toxic pollutants, including nuclear waste, released or produced by extractive industries, agriculture and manufacturing. The soil and lead dust pollution from mining waste poses a more significant health threat for indigenous peoples in the United States than other groups. The report of the United Nations Special Rapporteur on freedom of religion or belief in accordance with General Assembly resolution 74/145 found out that the United States had opened up the lands of indigenous communities, including the Standing Rock Sioux Tribe, to investment without the communities’ consent or in contravention of their customary and collective land ownership. The report of the United Nations Special Rapporteur on adequate housing as a component of the right to an adequate standard of living, released in accordance with Human Rights Council resolution 43/14, said that some of the most devastating effects of COVID-19 had been felt by racial and ethnic minorities and indigenous peoples. The hospitalization rate of Native Americans was five times that of non-Hispanic white Americans. The death rate of Native Americans also far exceeded that of white Americans.Bullying against Asian Americans escalated. Since the pandemic began, the incidents of Asian Americans being humiliated and even assaulted in public have been found everywhere, and some American politicians have misled the public on purpose. “It’s very lonely to be Asians in the United States during the raging pandemic,” said a report published on the website of the New York Times on April 16, 2020. A survey of young Asian Americans showed that in the past year, a quarter of young Asian Americans became targets of racial bullying; fueled by the racist remarks of the then American leader, nearly half of the respondents expressed pessimism about their situation, and a quarter of the respondents expressed fear about the situation of themselves and their families, according to a report published on the website of the National Broadcasting Corporation on Sept. 17, 2020. Tendayi Achiume, the United Nations Special Rapporteur on contemporary forms of racism, racial discrimination, xenophobia and related intolerance, said on March 23 and April 21, 2020, that politicians of relevant countries took the initiative to make open or suggestive xenophobic remarks, adopting alternative names with ulterior motives for the novel coronavirus. Their remarks that associated a specific disease with a specific country or ethnicity were irresponsible and disturbing, according to the Special Rapporteur. U.S. government officials openly incited, induced, and condoned racial discrimination, which was tantamount to humiliating modern human rights concepts.The high level of hate crimes highlighted the deterioration of race relations. An FBI report released in 2020 showed that 57.6 percent of the 8,302 single-bias hate crime offenses reported by law enforcement agencies in 2019 were motivated by race/ethnicity/ancestry. Of these offenses, 48.4 percent were motivated by anti-black or African American bias; 15.8 percent stemmed from anti-white bias; 14.1 percent were classified as anti-Hispanic or Latino bias; 4.3 percent resulted from anti-Asian bias. Among the 4,930 victims of racial hate crimes, as many as 2,391 were of African descent. Some Americans blamed the outbreak of the pandemic on Asian Americans, and there had been an increase in the number of hate crimes and incidents of harassment and discrimination against Asian Americans, according to a report published on the website of USA Today on May 20. Statistics from the civil rights organization Stop AAPI Hate showed there were over 2,300 anti-Asian hate crimes in the U.S. during the first seven months of 2020.Unchecked police violence led to frequent deaths of African Americans. On March 13, 2020, Breonna Taylor, a 26-year-old African-American woman, was shot eight times and killed by police in her own home. On May 25, 2020, George Floyd, a 46-year-old African American was killed after a white policeman kneeled on his neck in the street. On Aug. 23, 2020, Jacob Blake, a 29-year-old African American, was severely injured after police officers shot him seven times in the back when Blake was getting into a car. At the time, Blake’s three kids were in the car, witnessing the horrible act. American police shot and killed a total of 1,127 people in 2020, with no killing reported in just 18 days, according to Mapping Police Violence. African Americans made up 13 percent of the U.S. population, but accounted for 28 percent of the people killed by the police. African Americans were approximately three times more likely than white people to be killed by police. From 2013 to 2020, about 98 percent of the police involved in shooting cases were not charged with a crime, and the number of convicted was even smaller.People of color were more harmed by the epidemic. The infection rate and death rate of COVID-19 in the United States showed significant racial differences, with the infection rate, hospitalization rate and death rate of African Americans being three times, five times and twice that of white people respectively, according to a report delivered by the Working Group of Experts on People of African Descent to the UN Human Rights Council on Aug. 21, 2020. “Nothing brings into sharper relief America’s color disparities than life and death in the Great Lockdown,” said a report published on the website of the Financial Times on May 15, 2020. Racial disparities in the epidemic extend to children, according to a report released by the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention on Aug. 7, 2020. Latino and black children were hospitalized with COVID-19 at a rate nine times and six times that of white kids, respectively. Barbara Ferrer, director of public health for Los Angeles County, said the disproportionate impact of the coronavirus on black and Latino residents is rooted in the impact of racism and discrimination on the access to the resources and opportunities that are needed to good health, according to the website of the Los Angeles Times on July 10, 2020. COVID-19 kills far more people of color than white Americans, which could be attributed to America’s unequal education and economic systems that disproportionately leave people of color out of higher-wage jobs, discrimination in housing that corralled people of color into tightly packed neighborhoods, and environmental policies designed by white power brokers at the expense of the poor, an article by USA Today said. Of the 10 U.S. counties with the highest death rates from COVID-19, seven have populations where people of color make up the majority, according to data compiled by USA Today. Of the top 50 counties with the highest death rates, 31 are populated mostly by people of color.People of color faced an even greater threat of unemployment. The Guardian commented in an article on April 28, 2020 that the “last hired, first fired” phenomenon was the most frustrating reality for African Americans. A report released by the U.S. Department of Labor on May 8, 2020 revealed the unemployment rate of African Americans and Latinos soared to 16.7 percent and 18.9 percent respectively in April, both the highest on record. The Washington Post reported on June 4, 2020 that after the Great Lockdown in spring, fewer than half of all black adults had a job. Figures released by the U.S. Department of Labor in September showed the jobless rate for the black people almost doubled that for the white. The Christian Science Monitor reported on July 20, 2020 that trade union leaders called for a national workers strike in more than two dozen U.S. cities to protest systemic racism and economic inequality that had only worsened during the novel coronavirus pandemic.Systemic racial discrimination existed in law enforcement and justice. The Courier Journal reported on its website on Dec. 17, 2020 that although black people make up about 20 percent of Louisville’s driving-age population, they accounted for 57 percent of police searches, even though the police were far more likely to find contraband in searches of white people than black people. In the past three years, black people made up 43.5 percent of arrests by the Louisville Metro Police Department. African Americans made up around 13 percent of the U.S. population, but represented almost a third of the country’s prison population, which meant that there were more than 1,000 African-American prisoners for every 100,000 African American population. People of color constitute approximately one-third of the U.S. population under 18, but two-thirds of incarcerated minors, according to a report by the National Conference of State Legislatures on July 15, 2020. Iowa Public Radio News reported on Dec. 18, 2020 that in Iowa’s prisons, black Iowans were imprisoned at a rate 11 times that of white Iowans. Black people were probably sentenced to a longer jail term for the same offense. The Los Angeles Times reported on Sept. 15, 2020 that black people have been over-represented on death rows across the United States and killers of black people are less likely to face the death penalty than people who kill white people. Davis Vanguard reported on Dec. 4, 2020 that people of color account for a disproportionate 43 percent of executions in the U.S. since 1976, and 55 percent of defendants currently awaiting execution are people of color. “We live in a country where our criminal justice system is defined by the size of your wallet and the color of your skin,” said an article published by the Miami Herald on Dec. 18, 2020.Workplace racial discrimination was deeply rooted. According to a CBS News report on Oct. 7, 2020, over 20 current and former black agents interviewed all described some sort of racial discrimination while in the FBI. Of the top 10 leadership positions in the FBI, all are currently held by white men. Currently, only 4 percent of the 13,000 FBI agents around the world are black, and black women only account for 1 percent, a number that has stayed virtually the same for decades. There were long-standing problems at the FBI such as the disproportionate weeding out of black applicants during the training process. As head of the FBI’s Black Affairs Diversity Committee, Eric Jackson called it “institutionalized racism.” According to a report by the Los Angeles Times on July 2, 2020, Facebook Inc. was accused of systemic discrimination in hiring, compensation and promotion of black people. Facebook’s own figures showed just 1.5 percent of employees in technical roles in the U.S. were black in 2019, and 3.1 percent were black among senior leadership. Those percentages have barely budged even as the company’s employees grew by 400 percent over the past five years.Social discrimination against ethnic minorities was widespread. A poll conducted by the Wall Street Journal and NBC News on July 9, 2020 found that 56 percent of the U.S. voters believe American society is racist and blacks and Hispanics are discriminated against. The Los Angeles Times reported on July 14, 2020 that after the death of George Floyd, more white Americans recognized the serious racial discrimination in the United States. A July 2020 survey showed that compared with February, white respondents are 18 percentage points more likely to believe black Americans are discriminated against frequently (from 22 percent to 40 percent), 10 percentage points more likely to believe Latinos are discriminated against frequently (from 22 percent to 32 percent), and 13 percentage points more likely to believe Asians are discriminated against frequently (from 7 percent to 20 percent).Inequality between races worsened. According to researchers from the University of Chicago and University of Notre Dame, the U.S. poverty rate jumped by 2.4 percentage points from June to November 2020, while the poverty rate among black Americans went up by 3.1 percentage points. Statistics showed the median white household has 41 times more wealth (measured as the sum of assets held by a family minus total household debt) than the median black family and 22 times more than the median Latino family. Citing data released by the Federal Reserve, the Associated Press reported on Oct. 13, 2020 that only 33.5 percent of black households owned stocks in 2019, compared with 61 percent for white households. USA Today reported on Oct. 23, 2020 that in the first quarter of 2020, the national homeownership rate for white households was 73.7 percent, but only 44 percent of black households owned a home. The Washington Post reported on June 4, 2020 that more than one in five black families now report they often or sometimes do not have enough food -- more than three times the rate for white families. ABC News reported on Oct. 11, 2020 that 15.7 percent of Latinos lived in poverty in 2019, a percentage more than double that of the white people.IV. Continuous Social Unrest Threatens Public SafetyThe government failed to maintain proper law and order, and shootings and violent crimes, which were already high in incidence, recorded new highs during the COVID-19 pandemic, causing panic among members of the public. The police’s unrestrained use of violence in law enforcement triggered waves of protests that swept across the country. The police had abused their force to suppress protesters, and attacked and arrested journalists on a large scale, further fueling public anger and continuous social unrest.Crime rates were on the rise amid the pandemic. While outdoor activities were down drastically as a result of various epidemic response measures, the crime rates were up in large cities amid the pandemic. According to the FBI’s Preliminary Uniform Crime Report released in September 2020, in the first half of 2020, the number of murder and nonnegligent manslaughter offenses increased 14.8 percent year on year, with cities with populations of 250,000 to 500,000 reporting an increase of 26 percent. During the same period, the number of arson offenses increased 19 percent year on year, while such offenses rose 52 percent in cities with populations of 1 million and over. Murders in Chicago spiked by 37 percent, while arson in the city was up 52.9 percent. New York City recorded an increase of 23 percent in homicides, while Los Angeles saw murders rise by 14 percent.The number of violent crimes remained high. According to FBI reports released in 2020, more than 1.2 million violent crimes occurred in the United States in 2019, including 16,425 murders, 139,815 rapes, 267,988 robberies, and 821,182 aggravated assaults, translating to five murders, over 40 rapes, 80 robberies and 250 aggravated assaults per 100,000 inhabitants.Gun sales and shootings hit record high. A study from the University of California, Davis found a significant increase in firearm violence in the United States associated with the coronavirus-related surge in firearm purchasing. A new destabilizing sense as virus fears spread had been motivating even people who had considered themselves anti-gun to buy weapons for the first time. The Washington Post reported on its website on Jan. 19, 2021 that, COVID-19 lockdowns, anti-racism protests and election strife had led to record gun sales of about 23 million in 2020, a 64 percent increase over 2019 sales. The 2020 numbers include purchases by more than 8 million first-time buyers, according to the National Shooting Sports Foundation. USA Today reported on its website on Dec. 18, 2020 that, with regard to gun homicides, the United States has historically reported a rate about 25 times higher than other wealthy nations. According to data from Gun Violence Archive, more than 41,500 people died by gun violence in 2020 nationwide, an average of more than 110 a day, which is a record. There had been 592 mass shootings nationwide, an average of more than 1.6 a day. Shootings in Chatham County of North Carolina, Riverside County of California, and Morgan County of Alabama each claimed seven lives. A deadly weekend in Chicago came at the end of May, when 85 people were shot, 24 fatally. In the afternoon of Jan. 9, 2021, 32-year-old Jason Nightengale went on a random shooting rampage in Chicago, leaving three people killed and four others wounded.George Floyd’s death from police brutality sparked unrest. On May 25, 2020, George Floyd, a 46-year-old African-American man from Minnesota, died after a white police officer kneeled on his neck for eight minutes during an arrest for forgery. Minneapolis Mayor Jacob Frey said what he saw was “wrong on every level,” noting, “Being black in America should not be a death sentence.” Civil rights attorney Ben Crump said in a statement, “This abusive, excessive and inhumane use of force cost the life of a man who was being detained by the police for questioning about a non-violent charge.” Kristen Clarke, president and executive director of the National Lawyers’ Committee for Civil Rights Under Law, said, “The depths of despair are enormous right now for black people in this country. You pile on unchecked police violence and it makes for a perfect storm.” The police brutality sparked visceral outrage, leading to protests in support of Black Lives Matter throughout the United States, as well as in other countries. The unrest escalated across the nation, with protesters blocking the streets and building barricades to confront the police. A large number of police stations, public institutions and shopping malls were looted. The Guardian reported on its website on June 8, 2020 that, since George Floyd’s death at the hands of police, about 140 cities in all 50 states throughout the United States have seen protests and demonstrations in response to the killing.The demonstrators were suppressed by force. In the face of visceral public grievances, the then U.S. administration leader added fuel to the fire by deploying a large number of National Guard soldiers across the country and calling for shooting. Targeted with flying rubber bullets and tear gas on site, the public were horrified and the society fell into chaos. U.S. federal agents had been grabbing protesters seemingly without cause. More than 10,000 individuals had been arrested, including many innocent people. The disclosure of the shooting death of Breonna Taylor, an African-American woman, during a police raid fueled a renewed wave of Black Lives Matter protests in 2020, with the city of Louisville alone reporting arrests of 435 individuals during the movement. The Guardian reported on its website on Oct. 29, 2020 that, at least 950 instances of police brutality against civilians and journalists during anti-racism protests had occurred since May 2020. The police had used rubber bullets, tear gas and “unlawful lethal force” against protesters.Journalists had been subject to unparalleled attacks by law enforcement. There were at least 117 cases of journalists being arrested or detained while on the job covering anti-racism protests in the United States in 2020, a 1,200-percent increase from the figure in 2019. The Guardian reported on its website on June 5, 2020 that, reporters were beaten, pepper-sprayed and arrested by police in numbers never before documented in the United States. There were 148 arrests or attacks on journalists in the country within one week after the George Floyd incident, which was more than what was recorded during the previous three years combined. The Committee to Protect Journalists said in a statement on Dec. 14, 2020 that, U.S. journalists faced unprecedented attacks in 2020, the majority by law enforcement.V. Growing Polarization Between Rich and Poor Aggravates Social InequalityThe COVID-19 epidemic plunged the United States into the worst economic downturn since World War II. A large number of businesses shut down, workers lost their jobs, the gap between rich and poor widened, and the lives of the people at the bottom of society were miserable.The rich-poor divide further widened. The website of Bloomberg reported on Oct. 8, 2020 that the 50 richest Americans now hold almost as much wealth as the poorest 165 million people in the country. The richest 1 percent of Americans have a combined net worth that is 16.4 times that of the poorest 50 percent. The epidemic has aggravated wealth inequality. The website of Forbes reported on Dec. 11, 2020 that over the past months of the pandemic, the collective net worth of America’s 614 billionaires has increased by 931 billion U.S. dollars. America’s poverty rate jumped to 11.7 percent in November 2020, up from 9.3 percent in June, according to researchers from the University of Chicago and University of Notre Dame.Out-of-control epidemic led to mass unemployment. The speed and magnitude of business closures and job losses defied comparison, according to a report on the website of The Washington Post on May 9, 2020. Some 20.5 million people abruptly lost their jobs, which was roughly double what the nation experienced during the entire financial crisis from 2007 to 2009. In April 2020, the unemployment rate soared to 21.2 percent for people with less than a high school degree, surpassing the previous all-time high set in the aftermath of the Great Recession. The website of USA Today reported on Aug. 8, 2020 that 33 U.S. metro areas had a jobless rate of over 15 percent in June 2020. About 11.5 million American women lost their jobs between February and May 2020.Tens of millions of people were in food crisis in the epidemic. More than 50 million people -- one in six Americans, including one in four children -- could experience food insecurity in 2020, according to an analysis report updated in October 2020 by Feeding America. The website of the Guardian reported on Nov. 25, 2020 that nationwide, demand for food aid has plateaued at about 60 percent higher than pre-pandemic times. Millions of Americans must rely on charity to put Thanksgiving dinner on the table in 2020.Health insurance coverage plummeted. America has no universal health insurance because of political polarization and the number of people enjoying health insurance has shrunk sharply due to the epidemic. From March to May 2020, an estimated 27 million Americans have lost health insurance coverage in the pandemic. In Texas alone, the number of uninsured jumped from about 4.3 million to nearly 4.9 million, which means that three out of every 10 Texans are uninsured.The digital divide aggravated educational inequality. In 2018, nearly 17 million children lived in homes without internet connection, and more than 7 million did not have computers at home, according to a report that analyzed census data for that year. The website of Politico reported on Sept. 23, 2020 that one in three students in Baltimore city, which is only an hour’s drive from the U.S. Capitol, has no computers. One in three African American, Latino or American Indian families do not have home internet. Virtual learning became a mainstream education pattern during the epidemic. Compared with their wealthier peers, low-income and minority children are less likely to have appropriate technology and home environments for independent study because of their family backgrounds and therefore are at a disadvantage in e-learning, further aggravating the educational divide caused by poverty and racial inequality.VI. Trampling on International Rules Results in Humanitarian DisastersAt a time when global unity is needed to fight the pandemic, the United States, however, persists in pursuing an agenda of “America first,” isolationism, and unilateralism, imposing sanctions wantonly, bullying and threatening international organizations, and treating asylum seekers cruelly, thus becoming the biggest troublemaker to global security and stability.The United States withdrew from WHO. In order to shirk its responsibility for its disastrous anti-pandemic measures, the Trump administration tried every means to scapegoat the World Health Organization (WHO) by fabricating false charges against the organization. On April 14, 2020, the U.S. government announced its suspension of paying dues to the WHO, which was widely criticized by the international community. UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres issued a statement on April 14, 2020, saying that when the world was fighting the COVID-19 pandemic, it was inappropriate to reduce the resources required by the WHO or any other humanitarian organization for operations. President of the American Medical Association, Patrice Harris, stated on April 15, 2020 that combating the pandemic required international cooperation and halting funding to the WHO at this critical moment was a dangerous step in the wrong direction. On April 15, 2020, an online article of the Guardian commented that when the world desperately needed to jointly overcome this threat that the world had never experienced before, the suspension of the WHO dues by the U.S. government was an act that lacked morality and disrupted the international order, and was a horrible betrayal to global solidarity. In July 2020, the U.S. government brazenly announced its withdrawal from the WHO despite the opposition of the international community.The United States walked away from its commitments to and withdrew from the Paris Agreement. The United States, as the largest cumulative emitter of greenhouse gases in the world, should bear the greatest share of emission reduction based on the principle of common but differentiated responsibilities. However, the United States ran counter to the trend of the times and officially withdrew from the Paris Agreement on Nov. 4, 2020, becoming the only country among the nearly 200 contracting parties to quit the treaty. The international community generally believed that the U.S. move was politically short-sighted, unscientific, and morally irresponsible. “Having the U.S. pull out of Paris is likely to reduce efforts to mitigate, and therefore increase the number of people who are put into a life-or-death situation because of the impacts of climate change,” said Cornell University climate scientist Natalie Mahowald, a coauthor of UN science reports on global warming.Bullying actions threatened international organizations. On June 11, 2020, the U.S. government authorized economic sanctions and travel restrictions against workers of the International Criminal Court (ICC) and their family members for investigating American troops and intelligence officials for possible war crimes in Afghanistan and elsewhere. The U.S. sanctions targeting ICC staff were “a direct attack on the institution’s judicial independence,” according to an article on the website of UN NEWS on June 25, 2020. On June 19, 2020, the United Nations Human Rights Council adopted a resolution strongly condemning police brutality that led to the death of African American George Floyd. Citing remarks from human rights groups, the AFP said that the final version of the resolution removed the call for further investigations and stripped away any mention of the racism and police brutality in the United States due to “hard lobbying.” By bullying other countries, the United States watered down the text of the resolution, escaped from international probes for another time, and ran counter to the African descent in the United States and victims of police violence, said the American Civil Liberties Union.Unilateral sanctions aggravated humanitarian crisis. At a critical time when COVID-19 spread globally and endangered human life, health, and wellbeing, all countries should work together to respond to the pandemic and maintain global public health security. However, during this pandemic, the U.S. government still imposed unilateral sanctions on countries such as Iran, Cuba, Venezuela, and Syria, which made it difficult for the sanctioned countries to obtain needed anti-pandemic medical supplies in a timely manner. United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights Michelle Bachelet said on March 24, 2020, that in the case of a global pandemic, sanctions would hinder medical work and increase risks for everyone. She argued that to maintain global public health security and protect the rights and lives of millions of people in sanctioned countries, sanctions should be relaxed or suspended in certain sectors. A group of 24 senior diplomats from various countries urged the U.S. government to ease medical and humanitarian sanctions on Iran, noting that such move “could potentially save the lives of hundreds of thousands of ordinary Iranians,” according to a report on the website of the Guardian on April 6, 2020. On April 30, 2020, UN human rights experts said that the U.S. embargo on Cuba and sanctions on other countries seriously undermined international cooperation to curb the pandemic and save lives. The experts called on the United States to implement UN resolutions, lift its economic and financial embargo on Cuba and withdraw measures that prevent Cuba from financing the purchase of medicine, medical equipment, food and other essential goods. The United Nations Special Rapporteur on extreme poverty and human rights, the Special Rapporteur on human rights for safe drinking water and sanitation, and the Special Rapporteur on the right to education issued a joint statement on May 6, 2020, saying that the U.S. sanctions on Venezuela were seriously harming the human rights of the people in the country. They urged the United States to immediately lift sanctions that exacerbated the suffering of the people when the pandemic raged in the country. On Dec. 29, 2020, Alena Douhan, United Nations Special Rapporteur on human rights, called on the United States to remove unilateral sanctions against Syria, noting that the sanctions would exacerbate the already dire humanitarian crisis in Syria and run roughshod over the Syrian people’s rights to live, health, and development.Asylum seekers were treated cruelly. According to a report of CNN on Sept. 30, 2020, in the 2020 fiscal year, 21 people died in Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) custody, which was more than double the number of deaths in the fiscal year 2019 and marked the highest annual death toll since 2005. A report published on the website of the Los Angeles Times on Oct. 30, 2020 noted that a huge number of migrant children were stranded in custody for the long haul. Data showed that of the 266,000 migrant children held in government custody in recent years, over 25,000 had been detained for longer than 100 days, close to 1,000 migrant children had spent more than a year in refugee shelters, and some of them had spent more than five years in custody. As reported by multiple U.S. media outlets, dozens of women from Latin American and Caribbean states have filed a class action lawsuit in federal court in Georgia, claiming that they were subjected to unnecessary gynecological surgeries without their consent while in ICE custody, including uterus removal in some cases. They said these unwanted surgeries caused severe harm to their physical and mental health. The Guardian website reported on Oct. 22, 2020 that Cameroonian asylum seekers were threatened and forced to sign their own deportation orders. Those who refused to sign were choked, beaten, and pepper-sprayed, with some put in handcuffs to have their fingerprints forcibly taken in place of a signature on orders of removal, by which the asylum seekers waive their rights to further immigration hearings and accept deportation.Forced deportation of immigrant children continued during the COVID-19 pandemic. According to data tallied by the ICE, as of Jan. 14, 2021, a total of 8,848 detainees had been confirmed as COVID-19 cases. According to a report on the website of the Los Angeles Times on Nov. 18, 2020, the U.S. government had expelled at least 8,800 unaccompanied immigrant children despite serious protection risks during the COVID-19 outbreak. According to UNICEF, migrant children who returned from the United States to Mexico and Central America were facing danger and discrimination.The United States pardoned criminals slaughtering civilians in other countries. On Dec. 30, 2020, the Working Group on the use of mercenaries, a mechanism of the United Nations Human Rights Council, issued a statement, saying that the then U.S. President’s pardon of four Blackwater contractors convicted of war crimes in Iraq violated U.S. obligations under international law. The statement called on all states to the Geneva Conventions to condemn the U.S. action. The four Blackwater contractors were found to have committed a massacre at Nisour Square in Baghdad in 2007, which left 14 unarmed civilians dead and at least 17 people wounded, according to the statement. Pardoning the Blackwater contractors was an affront to justice and the victims of the Nisour Square massacre and their families, said the Chair of the Working Group. Pardoning them “contributes to impunity and has the effect of emboldening others to commit such crimes in the future,” said Marta Hurtado, a spokesperson with the Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights.

Well, we already have three lazy smart-aleck answers.It took me less than two minutes to find this on Joe Biden’s campaign web siteThere’s a lot more than what I’ve reproduced below., but these three areas are the highlights.Joe Biden's Proposals to Set Up Support for Deserving Small Businesses – Joe Biden for PresidentEstablish a True Small Business Fund: Congressional Democrats secured a set-aside of $60 billion in funds for smaller lenders and community-based financial institutions, which are frequently best positioned to get resources into the hands of deserving small businesses in vulnerable communities. Joe Biden is calling on the Trump administration to go even further as it implements the PPP. The Trump administration should reserve fully half of all the new PPP funds for small businesses with 50 employees or less, so the bigger and more sophisticated aren’t able to win in a first-come, first-served race. We should make sure we serve the mom-and-pop shops — beauty salons, barbershops, diners, local auto body shops. Back on April 3, Joe Biden asked the administration to “produce a weekly dashboard to show which small businesses are accessing loans – to make sure that the program isn’t leaving out communities, minority- and women-owned businesses, or the smallest businesses.” They have not done so. It is unacceptable to have a small-business program that is leaving minority business owners out in the cold, or that firms with fewer than 20 employees received only about 20% of the money – even though they make up about one third of payroll. Small non-profits—including churches, mosques, and synagogues— should also be eligible for this fund. The Trump administration can do this if it makes it a priority. The country will be watching.No Unjust Enrichment: Keep Well-Off Business Owners from Using Any Program to Unjustly Enrich Themselves: Our emergency programs should be designed to keep small business owners and their workers whole during the crisis – not to make well-off business owners better off than they would be with no crisis. Unfortunately, there is a very real risk of high-paid business owners suffering little revenue harm seeking to have loans forgiven that are for more than the losses they have suffered. This is just wrong. Joe Biden would expedite loans with less unnecessary paperwork to hard-hit businesses, and never punish firms or banks for good-faith mistakes. But Biden would also make clear that no business owner should be receiving more than their lost revenue – and that there should be heightened scrutiny of certain types of small businesses – consulting, accounting, legal, tax advice, hedge funds – and where owners and executives are making above $500,000. He is calling on the Trump administration to embrace this approach in implementing the next round of funding.Make Sure That the Program’s Terms Actually Help Small Businesses. Joe Biden would also support further rule changes to the PPP that would ensure deserving small businesses get all the help they need for as long as they need, including:Providing a guarantee that every qualifying small business will get relief, rather than capping the fund in a way that forces small firms to compete against one another.Authorizing more generous loans that allow for small businesses in need to both keep workers on payroll and cover fixed costs for the duration of the crisis. It’s no use paying for payroll if a small business can’t keep the lights on.Extending the eight-week limitation so that payroll forgiveness continues for the duration of the crisis (in early April, Biden called upon the administration to “immediately re-engage Congress to allow for small business loans that can keep people on the payroll for far longer than eight weeks”), and there should be flexibility to allow businesses to decide when the covered period begins.Establishing look-back audit mechanisms to police against abuse based on a review of net business income.THE BIDEN PLAN TO INVEST IN MIDDLE CLASS COMPETITIVENESS – Joe Biden for PresidentJoe Biden is running for president to rebuild the middle class—and this time make sure everyone comes along. Toward that end, Biden is calling for a transformational investment in our country’s infrastructure and future: $1.3 trillion over ten years, to equip the American middle class to compete and win in the global economy, to move the U.S. to net-zero greenhouse gas emissions, and to ensure that cities, towns, and rural areas all across our country share in that growth.MAKE UNPRECEDENTED INVESTMENTS IN OUR INFRASTRUCTURE TO BOLSTER THE COMPETITIVENESS OF THE MIDDLE CLASSOur nation’s infrastructure is literally crumbling. It is unacceptable that one in five miles of our highways are in “poor condition,” that tens of millions of Americans lack access to high-speed broadband, and that our public schools have repeatedly earned a D+ grade from the American Society of Civil Engineers. We are the world’s richest nation, but rank just 10th in the overall quality of our infrastructure, according to the World Economic Forum.During his 2016 presidential campaign, President Trump said he’d change that. He has been promising an infrastructure plan since his earliest days in office and keeps holding “Infrastructure Weeks”—but has failed to actually deliver results. Instead, Trump has focused on privatizing construction projects to benefit his wealthy friends, leaving communities across the country suffering and our nation falling behind.Biden will revitalize America’s infrastructure and make us more competitive with the rest of the world, while also creating and sustaining quality, middle-class jobs at home. Every one of Biden’s investments in infrastructure will further the following three goals:Create good, union jobs that expand the middle class. American workers should build American infrastructure and manufacture all the materials that go into it, and all of these workers must have the option to join a union and collectively bargain. Building on his plan to strengthen worker organizing, collective bargaining, and unions, President Biden will propose infrastructure legislation that incorporates labor provisions contained in Senator Merkley’s Good Jobs for 21st Century Energy Act, adopting all basic labor protections, ensuring that all investments meet Davis-Bacon wage guidelines, and banning anti-worker provisions like forced arbitration and the overuse of temporary staffing agencies. He will require federally funded projects to source materials in the U.S., to employ workers trained in registered apprenticeship programs, and to prioritize Project Labor and Community Workforce Agreements in federal procurement procedures. Biden’s proposal will make sure that national infrastructure investments create millions of middle-class jobs, benefiting union and non-union workers across industries.Build resilient infrastructure and reduce greenhouse gas emissions. We’ve already felt the devastating impacts of climate change—from raging wildfires to more frequent and more severe hurricanes to unprecedented floods. Every federal dollar spent on rebuilding our infrastructure during the Biden Administration will be used to prevent, reduce, and withstand the impacts of this climate crisis. If we transform our modes of transportation and the sources of energy that power them, we can make real progress toward reducing our greenhouse gas emissions. For that reason, Biden will invest in expanded public transit systems, giving more Americans an affordable, efficient way to get around without their cars. He will help state and local governments plan for the widespread adoption of electric cars, and will coordinate and invest in the construction of a national electric-vehicle charging network to power them. Biden will also push to build a national high-speed rail network; to accelerate the development of low-carbon aviation and shipping technology; and to fortify our infrastructure to withstand the effects of climate change. And, he will give homeowners and businesses new incentives to retrofit their buildings to reduce their carbon footprints. Across these efforts, Biden will also work with state and local governments and the private sector to modernize our nation’s electric grid, making it smarter, more resilient, and ready to meet the changing needs of a net-zero greenhouse-gas-emissions economy. The impacts of climate change will continue to vary by region, and the people living in each area must be part of developing the solutions to best address their unique challenges.Revitalize communities in every corner of the country so that no one is left behind. Whether in our biggest cities or our smallest towns, too many low-income communities are bearing the brunt of our nation’s decaying infrastructure. Biden will boost federal investments in those neighborhoods to ensure that every American has access to clean drinking water, well-paved roads, high-speed broadband, safe schools, and affordable housing.TRANSPORTATIONHighways, Roads, & BridgesJump-start the repair of our highways, roads, and bridges. Almost 20% of our roads are in poor condition, and there is a backlog of hundreds of billions of dollars of investment. Americans in cities lose more than 8.8 billion hours to traffic each year—an average 54 hours a year per commuter. Biden will propose to immediately spend $50 billion over the first year of his Administration to kickstart the process of repairing our existing roads, highways, and bridges. In addition to sending these funds to states, some of the dollars will go directly to cities and towns that own and run most of our roads. Biden will also expedite permitting, so that projects can break ground faster.Make American roads the world’s safest. The federal government must lead the way in making our streets and highways safer. Under President Biden, the U.S. Department of Transportation will work with cities around the country to build “complete streets,” designed to help drivers, pedestrians, cyclists, and others safely share the road. Biden will also work with Congress to increase federal funding for key safety initiatives like the Highway Safety Improvement Program; and to encourage state and local governments to explore new technologies that can reduce accidents, including “smart” pavement, vehicle-to-infrastructure communication, connected intersections, and other infrastructure-related innovations.Invest in historically marginalized communities and bring everyone to the table for transportation planning. Biden’s pledge to bring Americans together will be reflected in his Administration’s approach to infrastructure. Not only will he make unprecedented investments in rebuilding and connecting historically underserved areas to better transportation options, he will make sure that our highway, road, transit, and air systems never again divide us. As president, Biden will emphasize a robust public engagement process in planning all new transportation projects. He will create a new Community Restoration Fund, specifically for neighborhoods where historic transportation investments cut people off from jobs, schools, and businesses. And, he will work to make sure towns and cities directly receive a portion of existing federal transportation investments.Pair new infrastructure investments with new training programs. To help develop the workforce that will build the new backbone of our country, Biden will work with Congress and the U.S. Department of Labor to fund new Apprenticeship Readiness Programs that specifically target veterans, women, and communities of color to enter the construction trades and that are connected to Registered Apprenticeships. Additionally, Biden will work to further support community colleges that have articulation agreements with Registered Apprenticeship Programs. This, in conjunction with promoting Project Labor and Community Workforce Agreements, will ensure that infrastructure investments are paired with public and private investments in Pre-Apprenticeship training and other recruitment strategies that support the Registered Apprenticeship system, promote meaningful construction careers, and will ensure that the benefits of these investments are broadly shared. This effort will also develop a diverse and local workforce that will strengthen communities as we rebuild our physical infrastructure.Stabilize the Highway Trust Fund. The Highway Trust Fund has for far too long been grossly underfunded. Biden will ensure new revenues are secured to stabilize the Highway Trust Fund in order to build roads, bridges, and public transportation projects.Speed the Transition to Low- and No-Carbon VehiclesSpeed the transition to electric vehicles. Even with major investments in transit and planning, many Americans will still depend on their cars and trucks. To reach net-zero emissions, we have to make it much easier for them to own and use electric vehicles. Biden will work to remove today’s biggest barriers to their use, easing concerns about price, range, and access to charging stations. As president, he will restore the full electric-vehicle tax credit, to encourage American families to buy electric cars for their personal use – and to incentivize American businesses to build or shift their existing fleets to electric vehicles. He will also ensure that the U.S. Department of Energy invests $5 billion over five years in battery and energy storage technology, to spur breakthroughs that can boost the range and slash the price of electric cars. And, he will enact policies to promote domestic manufacturing of electric vehicles. Biden will also work with Congress, the private sector, labor unions, mayors, and governors to build a national electric charging system of 500,000 public charging outlets, so that by 2030, Americans will be able to drive anywhere in the United States in an electric car. Under his Administration, the U.S. Department of Transportation will also provide an additional $1 billion per year in new grants to ensure that those charging stations are installed by certified technicians, promoting high-paying jobs and benefits. Finally, Biden will convene the U.S. Departments of Energy and Transportation to coordinate on special demonstration projects, for example testing new highways that can charge electric cars while in transit. The Departments will provide grants to cities, towns, and counties that are open to piloting new kinds of charging infrastructure, building on programs like the Department of Energy’s Transportation Electrification Project and Clean Cities Initiative, which Biden oversaw as part of the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act.Launch a new generation of low-carbon trucking, shipping, and aviation technologies. Long-haul trucking, oceanic shipping, and global aviation also contribute heavily to transit emissions. As part of Biden’s plan to invest $400 billion over 10 years in clean energy research and innovation, his administration will develop a federal research program focused on further reducing the cost of biofuels; increasing their energy density; and developing more efficient engines that can power long-haul trucks, planes, and ships, to keep global commerce moving while reaching net-zero emissions by 2050. In addition, the Biden Administration will work with the International Civil Aviation Organization and the International Maritime Organization to share those technologies with other nations.RailSpark the second great railroad revolution. Two centuries ago, the first great railroad expansion drove our industrial revolution. Today, the U.S. is lagging behind Europe and China in rail safety and speed. A 21st-century passenger rail system that connects people across our nation is essential to our competitiveness, to reducing greenhouse gas emissions, and to giving more Americans the freedom and flexibility to travel. Biden will make sure that America has the cleanest, safest, and fastest rail system in the world—for both passengers and freight. As president, he will invest in high-speed rail. He’ll start by putting the Northeast Corridor on higher speeds and shrinking the travel time from D.C. to New York by half – and build in conjunction with it a new, safer Hudson River Tunnel. He will make progress toward the completion of the California High Speed Rail project. He will expand the Northeast Corridor to the fast-growing South. Across the Midwest and the Great West, he will begin the construction of an end-to-end high speed rail system that will connect the coasts, unlocking new, affordable access for every American. A Biden Administration will also support freight projects, including a truck and rail-transit bridge linking Oregon to Washington State, and Chicago’s CREATE project, which has the potential to halve transit times for goods moving across the country. Overall, Biden’s rail revolution will reduce pollution, connect workers to good jobs, slash commute times, and spur investment in communities that will now be better linked to major metropolitan areas. To speed that work, Biden will tap existing federal grant and loan programs at the U.S. Department of Transportation, and improve and streamline the loan process.Electrify the rail system. As president, Biden will work with Amtrak and private freight rail companies to further electrify the rail system, reducing diesel fuel emissions.Transit and Regional PlanningOffer tens of millions of Americans new transportation options. Outside major cities, most Americans do not have access to high-quality, reliable public transportation; and within urban areas, it’s often in need of repair. As a result, workers and families rely on cars, which can be a big financial burden, clog roadways, and – along with light-duty trucks – significantly increase U.S. greenhouse gas emissions. As president, Biden will aim to provide all Americans in municipalities of more than 100,000 people with quality public transportation by 2030. To that end, he’ll increase flexible federal investments, helping cities and towns to install light rail networks and to improve existing transit and bus lines. He’ll also help them to invest in infrastructure for pedestrians, cyclists, and riders of e-scooters and other micro-mobility vehicles. And, Biden will work to make sure that new, fast-growing areas are designed and built with public transit in mind. Specifically, he will create a new program that gives rapidly expanding communities the resources to build in public transit options from the start.Reduce congestion by working with metropolitan regions to plan smarter growth. Biden will empower city, county, regional, and state leaders to explore new, smarter, climate-friendly strategies to help reduce average commute times and build more vibrant main streets. Specifically, Biden will create a competitive grant program to help leaders rethink and redesign regional transportation systems, to get commuters where they are going safer, faster, and more efficiently. At the same time, Biden will boost highway funding by 10%, and allocate the new funding to states that embrace smart climate design and pollution reduction, incentivizing them to invest in greenhouse gas reduction. States will also be free to use existing highway funding for alternative transportation options.Connect workers to jobs. For too many low-income workers, the cost of transportation and time it takes them to commute to work every day are significant barriers. As president, Biden will dedicate an additional $10 billion over 10 years specifically for transit projects that serve high-poverty areas with limited transportation options, so that workers seeking a better life won’t have to spend as much getting to their jobs.Smart CitiesEncourage innovation and launch smarter cities. Transportation patterns are changing across the country. New modes of car ownership, the explosive growth of ride-hailing and ride-sharing services, and the rapid adoption of electric scooters and bike-share programs are giving Americans new ways to move. But the biggest disruption lies ahead: self-driving cars. Citizens will benefit if cities can adapt to those new technologies – for example, by reshaping streets to protect cyclists and scooters, connecting transit systems to last-mile solutions like ride-shares and e-scooters, or using real-time data to manage traffic flows. As president, Biden will build on the U.S. Department of Transportation’s Smart City Challenge by launching a yearly $1 billion competitive grant program to help five cities pilot new planning strategies and smart-city technologies that can serve as models for the country. Biden will also direct the Department to work with labor unions to develop a plan to help workers impacted by this automation find high-paying, quality jobs.AviationMake our airports the best in the world. Aviation and airports are major drivers for the U.S. economy, but our airports are in desperate need of improvement. As president, Biden will double funding for airports through the Federal Aviation Administration’s (FAA) Airport Improvement Program, and launch a new competitive grant program for major airport renovation projects. At the same time, he’ll also make sure that the U.S. maintains the world’s safest aviation system, working with the FAA to fully implement its NextGen technology system, to improve safety, modernize our airspace, and reduce delays and cancellations. Biden will also ensure that U.S. airlines’ operating, repair, and maintenance facilities overseas adhere to our nation’s highest safety standards.FreightInvest in freight infrastructure, including inland waterways, freight corridors, freight rail, transfer facilities, and ports. From early-19th century canals, to late-19th century railroads, to 20th-century highways, innovations in transportation infrastructure have powered our economy, carrying the freight that drives our nation forward. Today, though, our freight system is especially outdated. Freight railroads run through 100-year-old tunnels too small for the shipping containers they should be carrying. Highways and bridges buckle under trucks’ weight, and many ports are too shallow for modern shipping vessels. As president, Biden will change that. He will roughly double funding for key competitive grant programs – like the Better Utilizing Investments to Leverage Development (BUILD) Transportation Discretionary Grants program (formerly known as Transportation Investment Generating Economic Recovery, or TIGER) and Infrastructure For Rebuilding America (INFRA) – from $1.8 billion to $3.5 billion a year. These programs leverage local, state, and private investment, and create innovative transportation models that can be replicated nationwide. Biden will also work closely with American manufacturers to prioritize investments that will improve supply chains and distribution, reduce shipping costs, and boost U.S. exports. And he will also increase funding for the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers by $2.5 billion per year, supporting infrastructure projects to keep goods moving quickly through our ports and waterways. This will include increased federal funding for lock modernization projects on inland waterways.Support American port infrastructure. Biden will ensure that all fees collected for the Harbor Maintenance Trust Fund are used to improve and rebuild American ports of entry. And he’ll work with U.S. ports and labor unions to ensure that cargo bound for the U.S. is offloaded in the U.S., and not in Canadian ports to avoid harbor taxes.RESILIENT INFRASTRUCTUREInvest in the resiliency of our infrastructure. Communities around the country are already experiencing the impact of climate change. While the Trump Administration has abdicated global climate leadership, America’s mayors and other local leaders have stepped up to build smarter cities that can withstand storms, floods, heat, wildfires, sea level rise, and more. A Biden Administration will give those communities a true partner in the White House again, advancing their efforts and helping to create new, well-paying jobs to improve climate resiliency and invest in our economic future. As president, Biden will convene top innovators to help design common-sense zoning and building codes, and to help communities build and rebuild before and after natural disasters and other shocks and stresses. Biden will also invest in and help train people for well-paying jobs in climate resiliency industries. These include coastal restoration, resilient infrastructure design, construction and evaluation (for example, building bridges to withstand high winds and roads that don’t wash out during floods), natural solutions (for example, planting trees on a large scale to combat urban heat and its negative health impacts), and technological solutions. These industries have been shown to improve communities’ resilience – and they’re all opportunities for job creation and economic growth.ENERGYInvest in energy infrastructure for a 100% clean energy economy. The transition to a clean energy economy won’t just require new technologies and vehicles, it will entail a major expansion of renewable energy production and a dramatic evolution of our electric grid – not only reducing emissions, but creating millions of new jobs. As president, Biden will partner with utilities and regulators around the country to build a 21st-century power grid, able to distribute clean energy reliably and safely to households and businesses across the United States. Specifically, he will appoint commissioners to the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission who will drive market reforms, like expanding regional electric markets, integrating renewables, building in demand-response, and promoting long-term infrastructure planning to achieve a 100% clean energy economy and net-zero emissions by 2050. The Biden Administration will also work with cities, states, and utilities to install advanced metering equipment; to deploy electric vehicle charging infrastructure; and to upgrade transmission lines to support larger regional electric markets that can distribute renewably-generated electricity from the point of generation to end users. Finally, Biden will work with the U.S. Department of Energy to advance large-scale storage demonstration projects, including pilots that use electric vehicles as mobile energy storage units.Make our buildings more energy efficient. As president, Biden will work with Congress to electrify the building sector and increase energy efficiency in a range of ways. For homeowners, he’ll reinstate tax credits for residential energy efficiency. For businesses, he’ll expand tax deductions for energy retrofits, smart metering systems, and other emissions-reducing investments in commercial buildings. His administration will also boost investment in low-income weatherization programs and in key technologies like electric heat pumps; and it will work with local and state governments and the private sector to expand the utilization of Property Assessed Clean Energy (PACE). Biden will also reinstate the solar Investment Tax Credit (ITC), slated to expire in two years; and will construct net-zero-carbon federal buildings, to serve as a model for state and local governments and the private sector.WATERReplace aging pipes and invest in water infrastructure so every American has clean drinking water. Americans deserve clean, reliable drinking water in their homes. But across the country, pipes and treatment plants are aging into obsolescence, and in places like Flint, Michigan, Merrimack, New Hampshire, and Martin County, Kentucky, drinking water is endangering public health. Biden will double federal investments in clean drinking water and water infrastructure, and focus new funding on low-income rural, suburban, and urban areas that are struggling to replace pipes and treatment facilities – and especially on communities at high risk of lead or other kinds of contamination. In addition, Biden will reduce the matching funds required of local governments that don’t have the taxbase to be able to afford borrowing to repair their water systems.Monitor for lead and other contaminants and hold polluters accountable. As president, Biden will require state and local governments to monitor their water systems for lead and other contaminants, and he will provide them with the resources to do so. Biden will also work with the EPA and the Justice Department to hold companies that pollute our waterways accountable, aggressively enforcing existing regulations and prosecuting any violations. Corporations and their executives cannot break the law and expect to get away with it.Invest in water technology. New technologies present real opportunities to use existing water resources more efficiently, and to reduce the cost and energy required to generate new water supplies, for example through desalination. As president, Biden will increase federal funding for water technology research and use the convening power of the White House to spur private-sector innovation.BROADBANDBring broadband to every American household. In a 21st century economy, Americans need broadband. Without it, students face substantial barriers to doing their homework and the sick and elderly can’t access remote health care. Broadband is a prerequisite for starting a business, working remotely, accessing government resources, and engaging in public debate. But today, more than 21 million Americans still don’t have broadband; and many more can’t afford it. This “digital divide” is particularly wide for low-income, older, and rural Americans, as well as for Americans living on tribal lands. As president, Biden will close the digital divide. First, he will invest $20 billion in rural broadband infrastructure; and triple funding to expand broadband access in rural areas, and to ensure that the work of installing broadband provides high-paying jobs with benefits. Biden will also direct the federal government – especially the U.S. National Telecommunications and Information Administration and the U.S. Department of Agriculture – to support cities and towns that want to build municipally-owned broadband networks. He will encourage competition among providers, to increase speeds and decrease prices in urban, suburban, and rural areas. And to encourage those providers to invest in further extending service to rural communities and tribal areas, Biden will make available key federally-controlled telecom resources, like towers, poles, and rights-of-way. Biden will also work with the FCC to reform its Lifeline program, increasing the number of participating broadband providers, reducing fraud and abuse, and ultimately offering more low-income Americans the subsidies needed to access high-speed internet. Finally, Biden will work with Congress to pass the Digital Equity Act, to help communities tackle the digital divide.SCHOOLSInvest $100 billion to modernize our nation’s schools. American public school facilities received a grade of D+ from the American Society of Civil Engineers. In fact, each year the U.S. underfunds school infrastructure by $46 billion, resulting in schools that are outdated, unsafe, unfit, and – in some cases – making kids and educators sick. In line with the Rebuild America’s Schools Act, backed by the House Education Committee, President Biden will invest $100 billion in improving public school buildings. First and foremost, those funds will be used to address health risks, so that going to school or working at one never makes anyone sick. Additional funds will be used to build cutting-edge, energy-efficient, innovative schools, with technology and labs to prepare our students for the jobs of the future.Build Transformational ProjectsHistorically, major infrastructure projects, from the Erie Canal to the Hoover Dam, reshaped not just a single town or city, but a whole region of our country. These projects – and their benefits – often extend across state lines, making them hard for any one state government to plan, fund, or execute. That’s why Biden is proposing a new $40 billion, 10-year Transformational Projects Fund, to provide significant discretionary grants for projects too large and complex to be funded through existing infrastructure programs. The grants will be available for transportation, water, and energy projects, with allocations to the Environmental Protection Agency and the U.S. Departments of Transportation, the Interior, and Energy. Projects might include a major new regional transportation system, a major port upgrade, or a new tunnel.In the weeks ahead, Biden will put forward additional policies related to housing.ENSURE GROWTH IS SHARED BY COMMUNITIES ACROSS THE COUNTRYVice President Biden’s plan will spark a renaissance in cities, towns, and communities that have been forgotten for too long. It will attract private capital to all corners of the country, and provide funds for anchor institutions, including new research centers and hospitals. Biden will make critical investments so that every American has a chance to succeed, no matter their zip code.A NATIONAL COMMUNITY DEVELOPMENT AND JOBS INITIATIVEExpand the New Markets Tax Credit, make the program permanent, and double Community Development Financial Institutions (CDFI) funding. The New Markets Tax Credit has helped draw tens of billions of dollars in new capital to low-income communities, providing tax credits to investors in community development organizations that support everything from supermarkets to real estate projects to manufacturing plants. Biden will expand the program to provide $5 billion in support every year, and he will make the program permanent so communities can take the credit into account in their long-term planning. As part of his plan to reinvest in communities across the country, including in rural areas, Biden will also double funding for the Community Development Financial Institutions (CDFI) Fund, which supports local, mission-driven financial institutions in low-income areas around the U.S. This builds on Biden’s proposal to support entrepreneurs in small towns and rural areas by expanding both the Rural Microentrepreneur Assistance Program and the number of Rural Business Investment Companies, to help rural businesses attract capital.Double funding for the Economic Development Administration, to help underserved communities tap existing federal resources. Billions in federal aid is available for economic development goals like expanding access to broadband, setting up business incubators, and encouraging industry clusters in manufacturing or information technology. But, underserved communities often lack resources to navigate the complex grant application system in the first place. Throughout the Obama-Biden Administration’s work to support the resurgence of places like Detroit, it was clear that helping local leaders apply for federal aid is one of the most important ways to start turning around an economically depressed city. For that reason, Biden will double funding for the Economic Development Administration, an agency within the U.S. Department of Commerce devoted to economic development, and task it with creating a new division devoted to helping underserved communities apply for federal aid. This initiative complements Biden’s proposal for a new White House “StrikeForce” to assist rural communities in persistent poverty, and will help to ensure that every community can seek and receive the federal resources it needs to build a more prosperous economy.Create a new Cities Revitalization Fund. Our nation must recommit to revitalizing American cities. As president, Biden will launch a new, $10 billion fund, coordinated through the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development, and focused on creative revitalization projects in distressed cities – like redeveloping post-industrial waterfronts, energizing main street business districts, rehabbing public markets, and building new green public spaces. These communities have missed out on both private capital and necessary government funding for far too long. Under a Biden Administration, they will get the investment they need and deserve.Fund anchor institutions in distressed areas. For many communities across the United States, anchor institutions serve as long-standing contributors to economic vitality. These institutions – which include hospitals, colleges and universities, and government administrative offices – can help to provide a reliable source of income and good-paying jobs, even in times of economic downturns; and can support small businesses and middle-class workers. Unfortunately, many communities have no viable anchor institution and miss out on the related economic and social benefits. Biden will create a new fund to support the establishment and revitalization of anchor institutions, with a competitive process to ensure that the most deserving communities win investment.Fully Implement Congressman Clyburn’s 10-20-30 PlanTo tackle persistent poverty in all communities, in both urban and rural America, Vice President Biden supports applying Congressman James Clyburn’s 10-20-30 formula to all federal programs. The formula would allocate 10% of funding to counties “where 20% or more of the population has been living below the poverty line for the last 30 years.”REVITALIZE MANUFACTURING ACROSS THE COUNTRYQuadruple funding for the Manufacturing Extension Partnership. America’s small manufacturers need help. On the heels of the Trump Administration’s reckless trade wars, our country’s manufacturing sector has been thrown into a full-blown recession. Righting American manufacturing will require smarter, less erratic trade policies – but it also begins with giving small manufacturers the tools they need to succeed. One lifeline for thousands of them is the Manufacturing Extension Partnership, a program designed to provide small manufacturers with the technical expertise needed to compete in a global economy. While President Trump proposed fully cutting this program, Biden will quadruple its funding, to ensure that more small manufacturers can access the technical and business support it provides.Enact a national strategy to develop a low-carbon manufacturing sector in every state, boosting access to new technologies and skills, and helping small and large manufacturers upgrade their capabilities to have both competitive and low-carbon futures. This strategy will connect research universities, community colleges, incubators, manufacturing institutes, employers, unions, and state and local governments – alone or as part of a regional pact – and provide them with significant funding for a place-based plan to build a competitive, localized, low-carbon future in manufacturing. Industries ranging from textiles and machine tools, to metal fabrication or the most advanced manufacturing technologies, will be eligible for funding; and will be motivated to modernize, compete, create jobs, and move to a clean energy future. Allocated tax credits and subsidies will help businesses to upgrade equipment and processes, to invest in expanded or new factories, and to deploy low-carbon technologies – as long as all community stakeholders are included in the process. In cases where states feel that competitive pressures or climate change-related requirements may harm a local economy, Biden’s strategy will preemptively fund a more competitive or low-carbon manufacturing approach. Those preemptive efforts may include new economic strategies, or new federal funding for technology or manufacturing innovation centers. That support can particularly help green economy manufacturers, whether producing batteries for electric vehicles and energy storage, solar panels, or other advanced equipment; and it can also incentivize small manufacturers to use American-made materials, such as iron, steel, and intermediate manufactured products, in their production processes.Establish a Manufacturing Communities Tax Credit. The Obama-Biden Administration proposed a $6 billion, three-year initiative to invest in communities that experienced mass layoffs or the closure of a major government institution. As president, Biden will adopt and expand this initiative, providing five years of funding for projects that boost local economic growth.SPARK ENTREPRENEURSHIP AND SMALL BUSINESS GROWTH IN EVERY COMMUNITYDouble down on the State Small Business Credit Initiative. In 2010, the Obama-Biden Administration created the State Small Business Credit Initiative (SSBCI) to support small businesses. The program transfers funds to state small business lending initiatives, driving $10 billion in new lending for each $1 billion in SSBCI funds. Biden will extend the program through 2025 and double its federal funding to $3 billion, driving close to $30 billion of private sector investments to small businesses all told, especially those owned by women and people of color.Establish a competitive grant program for new business startups outside of our biggest cities. To help redirect investments to more communities across the country – not just our biggest cities – Biden will enact legislation to provide $5 billion in funding to states with policies to encourage small business startups, for example by supporting the transfer of technology from public universities to the private sector, or by implementing training programs for new entrepreneurs.JOE BIDEN: STEADY STEWARD OF THE BIGGEST INFRASTRUCTURE INVESTMENT IN GENERATIONSAs Vice President, Biden oversaw the execution of the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act, which poured more than $800 billion into infrastructure and stimulus spending, bringing the country back from the brink of depression.Biden made sure that taxpayer dollars were well spent, with less than 0.2% of awards generating investigations of fraud.Investing in Middle Class Competitiveness, Not Rewarding WealthEvery cent of Joe Biden’s $1.3 trillion investment in our nation’s infrastructure will be paid for by making sure the super-wealthy and corporations pay their fair share. Specifically, this investment will be offset by revenue raised through reversing the excesses of the Trump tax cuts for corporations; reducing incentives for tax havens, evasion, and outsourcing; ensuring corporations pay their fair share; closing other loopholes in our tax code that reward wealth, not work; and ending subsidies for fossil fuels.THE BIDEN PLAN FOR STRENGTHENING WORKER ORGANIZING, COLLECTIVE BARGAINING, AND UNIONS – Joe Biden for PresidentStrong unions built the great American middle class. Everything that defines what it means to live a good life and know you can take care of your family – the 40 hour work week, paid leave, health care protections, a voice in your workplace – is because of workers who organized unions and fought for worker protections. Because of organizing and collective bargaining, there used to be a basic bargain between workers and their employers in this country that when you work hard, you share in the prosperity your work created.Today, however, there’s a war on organizing, collective bargaining, unions, and workers. It’s been raging for decades, and it’s getting worse with Donald Trump in the White House. Republican governors and state legislatures across the country have advanced anti-worker legislation to undercut the labor movement and collective bargaining. States have decimated the rights of public sector workers who, unlike private sector workers, do not have federal protections ensuring their freedom to organize and collectively bargain. In the private sector, corporations are using profits to buy back their own shares and increase CEOs’ compensation instead of investing in their workers and creating more good-quality jobs. The results have been predictable: rising income inequality, stagnant real wages, the loss of pensions, exploitation of workers, and a weakening of workers’ voices in our society.Biden is proposing a plan to grow a stronger, more inclusive middle class – the backbone of the American economy – by strengthening public and private sector unions and helping all workers bargain successfully for what they deserve.As president, Biden will:Check the abuse of corporate power over labor and hold corporate executives personally accountable for violations of labor laws;Encourage and incentivize unionization and collective bargaining; andEnsure that workers are treated with dignity and receive the pay, benefits, and workplace protections they deserve.This plan is a critical addition to Biden’s proposals to ensure all workers have access to quality, affordable health care; to guarantee all workers are able to send their children to quality public schools and have access to universal pre-kindergarten; to provide education and training beyond high school, including federally Registered Apprenticeships; to support a clean energy revolution that creates millions of unionized middle-class jobs; and to meet our commitment to invest first in American workers and ensure that labor is at the table to negotiate every trade deal. In the months ahead, Biden will continue to outline in further detail his related proposals, including on issues related to pensions, starting with passing the Butch Lewis Act; infrastructure investments and project labor agreements; and workplace equality.CHECK THE ABUSE OF CORPORATE POWER OVER LABORPresident Trump and Republican leadership think this country was built by CEOs and hedge fund managers, but they’re wrong. Joe Biden knows that our country was built by hard-working Americans. While we could survive without Wall Street and investment banks, our entire economy would collapse without electricians to keep our lights on, auto workers on the line building our cars, drivers who deliver all things we need for our daily lives to our markets, firefighters, ambulance drivers, service workers, educators, and millions more.Yet employers steal about $15 billion a year from working people just by paying workers less than the minimum wage. On top of that, workers experience huge losses in salary caused by other forms of wage theft, like employers not paying overtime, forcing off-the-clock work, and misclassifying workers. At the same time, these companies are raking in billions of dollars in profits and paying CEOs tens and hundreds of millions of dollars.In addition, employers repeatedly interfere with workers’ efforts to organize and collectively bargain. In nearly all union campaigns, corporations run a campaign against the union. Three in four employers hire anti-union consultants, spending approximately $1 billion each year on these efforts. Corporations fire pro-union workers in one of every three union campaigns and about half of corporations threaten to retaliate against workers during union campaigns. Even workers who successfully are able to form a union are later impeded by corporations who bargain in bad faith. About half of newly organized groups of workers do not have a contract a year later and one in three remain without a contract two years after a successful union election.Biden will ensure employers respect workers’ rights. Specifically, he will:Hold corporations and executives personally accountable for interfering with organizing efforts and violating other labor laws. Biden strongly supports the Protecting the Right to Organize Act’s (PRO Act) provisions instituting financial penalties on companies that interfere with workers’ organizing efforts, including firing or otherwise retaliating against workers. Biden will go beyond the PRO Act by enacting legislation to impose even stiffer penalties on corporations and to hold company executives personally liable when they interfere with organizing efforts, including criminally liable when their interference is intentional.Aggressively pursue employers who violate labor laws, participate in wage theft, or cheat on their taxes by intentionally misclassifying employees as independent contractors. As president, Biden will put a stop to employers intentionally misclassifying their employees as independent contractors. He will enact legislation that makes worker misclassification a substantive violation of law under all federal labor, employment, and tax laws with additional penalties beyond those imposed for other violations. And, he will build on efforts by the Obama-Biden Administration to drive an aggressive, all-hands-on-deck enforcement effort that will dramatically reduce worker misclassification. He will direct the U.S. Department of Labor to engage in meaningful, collaborative enforcement partnerships, including with the National Labor Relations Board (NLRB), the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission, the Internal Revenue Service, the Justice Department, and state tax, unemployment insurance, and labor agencies. And, while Trump has weakened enforcement by sabotaging the enforcement agencies and slashing their investigator corps, Biden will fund a dramatic increase in the number of investigators in labor and employment enforcement agencies to facilitate a large anti-misclassification effort.Ensure federal dollars do not flow to employers who engage in union-busting activities, participate in wage theft, or violate labor law. Biden will institute a multi-year federal debarment for all employers who illegally oppose unions, building on debarment efforts pursued in the Obama-Biden Administration. Biden will also restore and build on the Obama-Biden Administration’s Fair Pay and Safe Workplaces executive order, which Trump revoked, requiring employers’ compliance with labor and employment laws be taken into account in determining whether they are sufficiently responsible to be entrusted with federal contracts. He will ensure federal contracts only go to employers who sign neutrality agreements committing not to run anti-union campaigns. He also will only award contracts to employers who support their workers, including those who pay a $15 per hour minimum wage and family sustaining benefits. The tax dollars of hard-working families should not be used to damage the standard of living of those same families.Penalize companies that bargain in bad faith. Too many employers pretend to bargain with unions (“surface bargaining”) with no intent of reaching an agreement. Biden will give the NLRB the necessary power to force any employer found to be bargaining in bad faith back to the negotiating table, as called for in the PRO Act. And, he will require those companies to pay a penalty, in addition to making workers whole for the time the company stalled negotiations.ENCOURAGE AND INCENTIVIZE UNION ORGANIZING AND COLLECTIVE BARGAININGUnions and collective bargaining are essential tools for growing and sustaining a stronger, more inclusive middle class. 16 million workers in the United States are union members or are in a job that provides them union representation. More than six in ten of those individuals are women and/or people of color. Union workers earn roughly 13% more than non-union workers on a similar job site. They also experience drastically lower rates of labor standards violations, like employers engaging in wage theft or failing to meet safety and health requirements.But today, union members make up just 10.5% of the American workforce. That’s down from 35% in the 1950s. It is no coincidence that this decline has occurred at the same time as rising income inequality. When workers are blocked from organizing and engaging in collective bargaining, stagnant wages and a declining middle class are the predictable result.Joe Biden believes the federal government should not only defend workers’ right to organize and bargain collectively, but also encourage collective bargaining. That’s the mission put forward by the National Labor Relations Act, signed into law in 1935, which states that “encouraging the practice and procedure of collective bargaining” is part of the “policy of the United States.”Toward that end, President Biden will:Make it easier for workers who choose to unionize to do so. Today, workers face an uphill battle of anti-union intimidation and intense employer opposition when trying to organize a union. And, too many employers are able to “run out the clock” on negotiating an initial collective bargaining agreement. Biden strongly supports the provisions of the PRO Act that address union organizing, as well as additional aggressive remedies that will:ban employers’ mandatory meetings with their employees, including captive audience meetings in which employees are forced to listen to anti-union rhetoric;reinstate and codify into law the Obama-Biden Administration’s “persuader rule” requiring employers to report not only information communicated to employees, but also the activities of third-party consultants who work behind the scenes to manage employers’ anti-union campaigns;codify into law the Obama-Biden era’s NLRB rules allowing for shortened timelines of union election campaigns; andstop employers from stalling initial negotiations with newly formed unions.A co-sponsor of the original Employee Free Choice Act, Biden supports workers choosing to form a union if a majority signs authorization cards empowering a union to represent them. He will go beyond the PRO Act by allowing workers to use this process, called “card check,” as an initial option for forming a union, not merely an option granted when the employer has illegally interfered in the election process.Provide a federal guarantee for public sector employees to bargain for better pay and benefits and the working conditions they deserve. Public sector unions provide the voice that workers – including educators, social workers, firefighters, and police officers – need to ensure they can serve their communities. And, public sector unions have been and continue to be an essential pathway to the middle class for workers of color and women, who disproportionately work in the public sector. Yet, in many states across the country, public sector workers do not have the right to bargain collectively. In states such as Iowa, Wisconsin, Florida, Michigan, and Indiana, these rights are increasingly under attack. As president, Biden will establish a federal right to union organizing and collective bargaining for all public sector employees, and make it easier for those employees who serve our communities to both join a union and bargain. He will do so by fighting for and signing into law the Public Safety Employer Employee Cooperation Act and Public Service Freedom to Negotiate Act. He will work to ensure public sector workers, including public school educators, have a greater voice in the decisions that impact their students and their working conditions. He will also strongly encourage states to pursue expanded bargaining rights for state licensed and contracted workers, including child care workers and home health care workers. And, he will look for federal solutions that will protect these workers’ rights to organize and bargain collectively. Finally, he will reinstate the Obama-Biden rule, which the Trump Administration has since reversed, making it easier for independent-provider home care workers to join a union.Ban state laws prohibiting unions from collecting dues or comparable payments from all workers who benefit from union representation that unions are legally obligated to provide. Currently more than half of all states have in place these so-called “right to work” laws, which in fact deprive workers of their rights. These laws exist only to deprive unions of the financial support they need to fight for higher wages and better benefits. As president, Biden will repeal the Taft-Hartley provisions that allow states to impose “right to work” laws.Create a cabinet-level working group that will solely focus on promoting union organizing and collective bargaining in the public and private sectors. As president, Biden will create a cabinet-level working group that includes representatives from labor. In the first 100 days of the Administration, the working group will deliver a plan to dramatically increase union density and address economic inequality. The group will consider whether there are very specific areas where the federal government could waive preemption of the National Labor Relations Act to allow cities and states to pursue innovative ways to increase union organizing and collective bargaining without undermining current workers protections, like allowing for neutrality agreements and card check. The group will also be tasked with working with unions and trade associations to further explore the expansion of sectoral bargaining, where all competitors in an industry are engaged in collective bargaining with a single or multiple unions.Ensure workers can bargain with the employer that actually holds the power, including franchisors, and ensure those employers are accountable for guaranteeing workplace protections. During the Obama-Biden Administration, the NLRB issued the landmark Browning-Ferris Industries decision. If allowed to stand, this decision would allow unions to collectively bargain with the employer that actually controls their wages, benefits and working conditions — which is often not the staffing agency or the franchisee, but a large corporation or franchisor like McDonald’s. The Trump Administration and Trump’s handpicked NLRB majority proposed reversing this decision. As president, Biden will enact legislation codifying the Browning-Ferris Industries joint employer definition into law, as called for in the PRO Act, and restoring the broad definition of joint employment to wage and hour law.Ensure that workers can exercise their right to strike without fear of reprisal. The right of workers to withhold their labor, or to strike, is fundamental to balancing power in the workplace. But too many workers risk reprisal, punishment, or termination when they seek to bring pressure on employers by participating in strikes, picket lines, and boycotts. Low wage workers face especially high barriers to exercising their right to strike. They often have too few resources to sustain long strikes, and instead require short, periodic strikes, or “intermittent strikes,” to be able to bring pressure to their employer. Under current law, these types of strikes are not sufficiently protected. And, because low-wage workers often do not have specialized skills, they are more often “permanently replaced” – or functionally fired – while striking. Workers are also often limited in the pressure they can exert on employers because of restrictions on boycotting “secondary” businesses that have influence over their employer. These secondary boycotts are essential for promoting workers’ voice. For example, after tomato growers unsuccessfully led strikes of their employer at the turn of the century, they successfully boycotted Taco Bell and other fast-food giants who bought the tomatoes to gain better wages and working conditions. Biden has supported secondary boycotts since he entered public service, and has long supported banning “permanent replacement” of workers. As president, Biden will fight for passage of the PRO Act to protect intermittent strikes, ban permanent strike replacements, and remove the ill-conceived ban on secondary boycotts once and for all.Empower the National Labor Relations Board to fulfill its intended purpose of protecting workers. Congress created the National Labor Relations Board (NLRB) to encourage union organizing, support collective bargaining, and protect workers’ rights. The Obama-Biden Administration appointed officials to the NLRB who supported workers’ right to organize and collective bargain, and made critically important decisions such as ensuring that workers could organize in micro-units. Trump has undermined this progress and the intent of the NLRB by appointing board members with long histories of anti-union activities. As president, Biden will appoint members to the NLRB who will protect, rather than sabotage, worker organizing, collective bargaining, and workers’ rights to engage in concerted activity whether or not they belong to a union.Reinstate and expand protections for federal employees. The federal government should serve as a role model for employers to treat their workers fairly. Yet, Trump has gutted the ability of federal employees to collectively bargain, stripped them of their union representation, and made it easier to fire federal employees without “just cause.” On Biden’s first day in office, he will restore federal employees’ rights to organize and bargain collectively, and will direct his agencies to bargain with federal employee unions over non-mandatory subjects of bargaining.Expand long overdue rights to farmworkers and domestic workers. When Congress extended labor rights and protections to workers, farmworkers and domestic workers – who are disproportionately immigrants and people of color – were left out. Still today, millions of these workers are not fully protected under federal labor law. As president, Biden will support legislation, including the Fairness for Farmworkers Act and Domestic Workers’ Bill of Rights, that expands federal protections to agricultural and domestic workers, ensuring that they too have the right to basic workplace protections and to organize and collectively bargain. And, through the Domestic Workers’ Bill of Rights, Biden will ensure domestic workers have a voice in the workplace through a wage and standards board.Extend the right to organize and bargain collectively to independent contractors. Some workers are correctly classified as independent contractors, but are not very different from employees. They bring only their labor, and perhaps a small amount of capital investment, to the organization with which they do business. These workers lack individual bargaining power and, as a result, are at grave risk of exploitation by big business. Biden supports modifying antitrust law and guaranteeing that these independent contractors can organize and bargain collectively for their mutual protection and benefit.ENSURE THAT ALL WORKERS ARE TREATED WITH DIGNITY AND RECEIVE THE PAY, BENEFITS, AND WORKPLACE PROTECTIONS THEY DESERVEDuring the Great Depression, Franklin Delano Roosevelt ushered in labor protections and established the safety net for a reason. The excesses of business threatened the very fabric of our community in the Roaring Twenties, as children slaved away in factories and workers labored for poverty wages. Basic protections like the minimum wage and overtime pay allowed workers to earn their fair share.But it has been far too long since we have increased those standards. Today’s corporate culture treats workers as a means to an end and institutes policies to suppress wages.As president, Biden will ensure that workers receive the pay and dignity they deserve. He will:Increase the federal minimum wage to $15. As Vice President, Biden helped get state and local laws increasing the minimum wage across the finish line – including in New York State – and has supported eliminating the tipped minimum wage. He firmly believes all Americans are owed a raise, and it’s well past time we increase the federal minimum wage to $15 across the country. This increase would include workers who aren’t currently earning the minimum wage, like the farmworkers who grow our food and domestic workers who care for our aging and sick and for those with disabilities. As president, Biden will also support indexing the minimum wage to the median hourly wage so that low-wage workers’ wages keep up with those of middle income workers.Invest in communities by widely applying and strictly enforcing prevailing wages. The prevailing wage, or the wage earned by the median worker in the same occupation in the same region, is an essential mechanism for securing middle class jobs. Taxpayer dollars should always be used to build the middle class, not to foster wage-cutting competition among employers in the construction or service industries. When President Obama put Vice President Biden in charge of the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act (ARRA), Biden made sure that Davis-Bacon Act and Service Contract Act standards were strictly enforced, requiring that the prevailing wage be paid to construction workers and service workers on all projects funded by ARRA. As president, Biden will build on this success by ensuring that every federal investment in infrastructure and transportation projects or service jobs is covered by prevailing wage protections.Stop employers from denying workers overtime pay they’ve earned. The Obama-Biden Administration fought to extend overtime pay to over 4 million workers and protect nearly 9 million from losing it. The Trump Administration reversed this progress, implementing a new rule that leaves millions of workers behind. Since Trump walked away from protecting these middle-class workers, they have lost over $2.2 billion in foregone overtime wages. As president, Biden will ensure workers are paid fairly for the long hours they work and get the overtime they have earned.Ensure workers in the “gig economy” and beyond receive the legal benefits and protections they deserve. Employer misclassification of “gig economy” workers as independent contractors deprives these workers of legally mandated benefits and protections. Employers in construction, service industries, and other industries also misclassify millions of their employees as independent contractors to reduce their labor costs at the expense of these workers. This epidemic of misclassification is made possible by ambiguous legal tests that give too much discretion to employers, too little protection to workers, and too little direction to government agencies and courts. States like California have already paved the way by adopting a clearer, simpler, and stronger three-prong “ABC test” to distinguish employees from independent contractors. The ABC test will mean many more workers will get the legal protections and benefits they rightfully should receive. As president, Biden will work with Congress to establish a federal standard modeled on the ABC test for all labor, employment, and tax laws.Eliminate non-compete clauses and no-poaching agreements that hinder the ability of employees to seek higher wages, better benefits, and working conditions by changing employers. In the American economy, companies compete. Workers should be able to compete, too. But at some point in their careers, 40% of American workers have been subject to non-compete clauses. If workers had the freedom to move to another job, they could expect to earn 5% to 10% more – that’s an additional $2,000 to $4,000 for a worker earning $40,000 each year. These employer-driven barriers to competition are even imposed within the same company’s franchisee networks. For example, large franchisors like Jiffy Lube have no-poaching policies preventing any of their franchisees from hiring workers from another franchisee. As president, Biden will work with Congress to eliminate all non-compete agreements, except the very few that are absolutely necessary to protect a narrowly defined category of trade secrets, and outright ban all no-poaching agreements.Put an end to unnecessary occupational licensing requirements. While licensing is important in some occupations to protect consumers, in many occupations licensing does nothing but thwart economic opportunity. If licensed workers choose to move to new states for higher-paying jobs, they often have to get certified all over again. As president, Biden will build on the Obama-Biden Administration’s efforts to incentivize states to reduce unnecessary licensing requirements and to ensure licenses are transferable from one state to the next.Increase workplace safety and health. No one should get sick, injured, or die simply because they went to work. Every worker has the right to return home from work safely. But Trump has attempted to weaken several occupational and safety regulations established during the Obama-Biden Administration. For example, he rolled back regulations requiring companies to report their workplace injuries so they are disclosed to the public. He removed the restrictions on line speeds in pork plants, making meatpacking jobs even more dangerous. He reduced the number of Occupational and Safety Health Administration (OSHA) investigators and safety enforcement efforts, despite the fact that OSHA inspections reduce injuries. As president, Biden will reinstate these critical safety protections and ensure all appointments to committees and advisory boards under OSHA intimately understand the consequences of not having functional safety standards in place. He will direct OSHA to substantially expand its enforcement efforts. He will increase the number of investigators in OSHA and the Mine Safety Health and Administration (MSHA). He will also direct OSHA, the U.S. Department of Agriculture, MSHA, and other relevant agencies to develop comprehensive strategies for addressing the most dangerous hazards workers encounter in the modern workplace.Ensure workers can have their day in court by ending mandatory arbitration clauses imposed by employers on workers. Sixty million workers have been forced to sign contracts waiving their rights to sue their employer and nearly 25 million have been forced to waive their right to bring class action lawsuits or joint arbitration. These contracts require employees to use individual, private arbitrations when their employer violates federal and state laws. Biden will enact legislation to ban employers from requiring their employees to agree to mandatory individual arbitration and forcing employees to relinquish their right to class action lawsuits or collective litigation, as called for in the PRO Act.Expand protections for undocumented immigrants who report labor violations. When undocumented immigrants are victims of serious crimes and help in the investigation of those crimes, they become eligible for U Visas. The Obama-Biden Administration expanded the U Visa program to certain workplace crimes. As president, Biden will further extend these protections to victims of any workplace violations of federal, state, or local labor law by securing passage of the POWER Act. And, a Biden Administration will ensure that workers on temporary visas, including guest teachers, are protected so that they are able to exercise the labor rights to which they are entitled.BIDEN HAS STOOD WITH UNIONS AND WORKERS FOR HIS ENTIRE CAREERVice President Biden has stood with and fought for workers again and again. He helped get state and local laws increasing the minimum wage across the finish line – including in New York State. As Vice President, Biden was the loudest elected voice calling out “the most direct assault [on unions] in generations” when governors in states like Wisconsin and Ohio eviscerated the collective bargaining rights of public sector employees. When President Obama put Vice President Biden in charge of the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act, he ensured construction workers were paid prevailing wages, essential for maintaining middle class jobs. The Recovery Act also played a vital role in saving public sector jobs, including tens of thousands of education jobs. And, Biden secured an expansion of the SAFER Act to keep more firefighters on the job during the Great Recession.The Obama-Biden Administration also took action to make it easier for workers to organize. The Administration increased transparency of employers’ anti-union campaigns and ensured that employers who wanted federal contracts had to comply with labor laws. They supported public sector workers’ ability to organize, including by clarifying that states can deduct union dues from home care workers. And, the Administration appointed a pro-union National Labor Relations Board.Biden’s commitment to fighting for workers and unions is longstanding. As a senator, he was one of the original co-sponsors of the Employee Free Choice Act, which would have made it easier for workers to unionize through card-check. Dating back to 1975, he was one of the first champions of secondary boycotts, a critical method workers need to fight for fair working conditions. Both provisions have now gained broad support and are included in congressional Democrats’ Protecting the Right to Organize (PRO) Act. As president, Biden will sign the PRO Act into law.