URGENCY

Soaring inequality, a raging pandemic, rampant racial injustice, and a warming planet threaten all of our futures. Addressing these crises, many of which are longstanding, must begin on Day One. 

Regardless of the final composition of the Senate, the next administration will have many tools for addressing these pressing policy problems. They can and should use these without delay. 

STRUCTURAL CHANGE

We’ve tinkered around the edges for too long. The longstanding and deeply interconnected problems of racial injustice and economic inequality won’t be solved by another tax credit or a pilot program. Nor will they be solved by simply rolling back the harmful policies of the last four years. Only transformative, structural changes will meet the scale of the problems before us. 

We need policy that will dismantle unequal power structures and rebuild and transform our broken institutions. We also need durable changes whose impact will be long lasting. Superficial changes and temporary fixes won’t cut it.

BEAT THE VIRUS AND PROVIDE ECONOMIC RELIEF

The pandemic has stolen our lives and livelihoods, but the damage wasn’t caused by the virus alone.  The lack of leadership in the White House has made it much worse. The next administration must control the virus with contact tracing, masks, and personal protective equipment. They must also ensure that the vaccine is distributed equitably and quickly. 

The virus has also taken a toll on our economy. While the vaccine is essential to ushering us out of the economic downturn it is not sufficient. The damage that has already been done is significant, and will reverberate for many years. The long-term unemployed will have difficulty re-entering the labor force, families who have been evicted from their homes will have difficulty finding new housing with the stain of an eviction on their credit report, and millions of COVID survivors face uncertain health consequences and massive medical bills. We must offer immediate relief for workers and families, states and cities, and small businesses to get us to a vaccine, but then we must work to reverse some of the worst economic impacts of the pandemic and to ensure that we are on firmer footing going forward. 

ADVANCE EQUITY AND RACIAL JUSTICE

The pandemic has shown a spotlight on racial injustice embedded within all our institutions from our labor market to our healthcare systems. Black, Latinx, and Native American people are much more likely to get coronavirus, be hospitalized, and die. The economic impacts of pandemic have been unequal as well. While white Americans have already recovered more than half of their jobs lost between February and April, Black Americans have recovered only a third. And Black and brown workers are far more likely to be essential workers, forced to choose between their livelihoods and their paychecks. White households have, on average, significantly more wealth to fall back on in hard times, at every level, the pandemic has hit communities of color the hardest. 

The next Congress and the next administration must center racial justice in everything that they do. They must address the long history of structural inequities in our labor market, our democracy, our healthcare systems, our housing market, our immigration system, our access to reproductive healthcare, and our law enforcement apparatus. Race-neutral policies won’t suffice. We must center the leadership of impacted communities, invest directly in institutions owned or controlled by individuals who are Black, Indigenous, people of color, and immigrants, and hold our institutions accountable for making progress. 

DEMOCRATIZE POWER BY BREAKING UP CORPORATE POWER AND ADVANCING WORKER POWER

Income and wealth inequality in the United States have been increasing for decades, reaching levels not seen since the Gilded Age. Extreme concentrations of wealth in the hands of fewer and fewer individuals is bad for our economy but it also subverts our democracy. The next administration must commit to breaking up concentrated political and economic power at the top. They must also hold corporations, even those deemed “too big to fail,” accountable to the public and to the law. 

Our government must work for us. The next administration must build worker power, strengthen the right to organize and collectively bargain, and ensure that workers have a say in the workplace and a seat at the table where decisions are made. Workers should be paid, at a minimum, a livable wage and have safe and dignified working conditions. Finally, the next administration should not evaluate their performance based on the strength of the stock market. We won't be. Instead, we will evaluate the policies of the next administration by how the lowest-wage workers are doing and whether workers are finally getting their fair share of what they produce. 

STRENGTHEN OUR DEMOCRACY

Our democracy works best when everyone’s vote is counted, every voice is heard, and our elected officials are reflective of and accountable to our communities. Too often, we have not lived up to these goals. Working to reverse disenfranchisement, end the dominance of big money in politics, safeguard our elections, and boost the civic power of communities of color is critical for our democracy. But it’s also essential for making progress on climate change, the epidemic of gun violence, and ensuring quality healthcare for all. Perhaps most importantly, it is essential for dismantling the white supremacy that is baked into our democracy and that excludes communities of color from true participation in every facet of our economic and political system. 

ADDRESS THE CLIMATE CRISIS

To avert the worst climate-related disasters, the next administration must act quickly to drastically reduce climate pollution and bolster climate resilience, creating millions of high-quality jobs building a healthier, more equitable economy along the way. Throughout this work, we must ensure that justice is at the forefront. Those who have borne the brunt of the unjust status quo should guide the economic transition and reap the economic, health, and environmental benefits of it. 

TRANSFORM THE IMMIGRATION SYSTEM

We must establish a new immigration agenda that centers racial justice, fairness, family unity, economic opportunity, and American prosperity; and at its core be designed to pull us back together, lift our economy, and begin the repair of our nation.

We must not only to undo the harms of the Trump administration but build an immigration system that prioritizes human dignity and community safety. Prioritizing human dignity requires that we respect everyone. Everyone means everyone, no matter their income, place of birth, race, gender, where they worship, or who they love. This means creating a fair immigration process that keeps families together, welcomes and integrates newcomers into the fabric of our society, and recognizes the value of each person. We are the United States of America—we must also be the United People of America if we are to fulfill the promise of our country.

Prioritizing community safety requires that we respect the rights of all people—those recently arrived who bravely conquer all odds to come here seeking safety or a better life and those who have built their lives here over decades. By committing to these principles we can realize the goals and aspirations of every person, regardless of where they were born, how they worship, or the color of their skin.

BUILD GLOBAL SOLUTIONS

Many of the most processing problems we face, from taking on the pandemic, to addressing the climate crisis, to fighting racial injustice, are global and will require global solutions. U.S. foreign policy has too often relied upon the threat and projection of force on a global scale to protect the interests of a tiny segment of the American corporate and political elites. We must choose a different path. Going forward, our domestic and foreign policy must be based on universal human rights, and we must prioritize cooperation over competition and solidarity over exploitation. We must invest in diplomacy, multilateralism, development, peacebuilding, and the enforcement of international law to address the greatest challenges that face the United States and all of humanity.

The work that lies ahead is daunting, but we can—and must—meet this extraordinary moment.

This progressive policy agenda for the first 100 days and beyond is a blueprint for action. We need both legislative and administrative actions to achieve our goals. Together, they represent the changes our communities need to thrive—and many can be achieved simultaneously, beginning on the very first day.  

Durable solutions to these problems won’t come from small fixes around the edges. We need solutions that build power for everyday people in order to emerge from this crisis as a more resilient, just nation.