United States of America

By: Roy Douglas Malonson Almost a year ago with the country plagued by an unprecedented deadly pandemic, economic downturn, significant climate crises, and persistent racial injustices, President Joe Biden revealed his Build Back Better Agenda. The ambitious attempt to prepare America for a more sustainable, equitable, and prosperous future leaves us wondering, “What does ‘building back better’ look like for the Black community?” And are these promises that will be kept? Lower Costs: Americans pay a significant 2-3 times more money on prescription drugs than people in other wealthy countries. This contributes to the fact that Black people use 10-40 percent fewer medications than their white counterparts due to the high cost. President Biden’s agenda will lower costs by allowing Medicaid to negotiate medicine prices rather than large pharmaceutical companies. In the Black community, only 62.6 percent of three- and four-year-old Black children are enrolled in preschool or kindergarten due to high childcare costs. Biden’s plan is to reduce childcare costs making high-quality educational programs accessible to all three- and four-year-old children. The agenda also includes 12 weeks of paid maternal and medical leave, which will help improve Black women’s maternal health and reduce the wage inequality continuously affecting Black women. Before President Biden took office, almost 3.9 million Black people were uninsured in 2019. The Affordable Care Act, even with premium subsidies, was still too expensive for most families. The Build Back Better Agenda aims to lower health care costs for those buying insurance through the ACA by extending the American Rescue Plan’s cost savings, helping 360,000 Black people save $50 per person per month. It also adds dental, vision, and hearing coverage for more than 5.8 million Black people on Medicare. Though higher education has become more of a necessity to succeed in the 21st century, it has become unaffordable for the average family. Under Biden’s agenda, there will be two years of free community college, boosting the wages of high school graduates by nearly $6,000 yearly. The plan also increases the maximum federal Pell Grant to $1,500 and invests billions into subsidized tuition for low- and middle-income […]