big shout-out to congresswoman ayanna presley, who has been one of the most passionate partners in making sure that the president, the administration, that all of us stayed centered on acknowledging who is carrying this debt burden, and that we focus on how to bring that burden down. look, like i rdsaid, i would li bigger numbers, i would like to be able to do more. i am very happy that the president has come this far and it is going to make a huge difference in the lives of black women. it is going to make a huge difference in the lives of those who have the hardest time getting to college and the hardest timein paying off their debt, after college. in fact, by the design of the si plan, one of the groups that we know is going to be most helped by those who were in default before we hit the pandemic and the pause under the pandemic,
color, and i think we need to focus specifically on black women, because they are the sort of most vulnerable as it were in terms of the hell of debt as you call it, black women on average, they borrow more than any other racial group, they have to, $41,466, and then if you look at who1, voted for joe biden, in t 2020jo election, black women we for joe biden, 90% to donald trump s 9%. and this is a key part of the president s base, and they in many ways, the black community starting with the south carolini primary, helped get him into the white house. when you were talking to the white house about the contours of thise legislation, were the thinking about communities of color? o and were they specifically talking about black womenal who again, 41,000 dollars of debt, we re talking about 20,000 dollars in relief, that s half the burden, but it is certainly not all the burden? i certainly carried that message, and i want to give a
veterans, they are parents, mamas, who are trying to go back to work, and they are first generation students, in other words, we ve done what democrats tried to do, and they have pushed more of the resources to those for whom college was a whole lot harder and a whole lot harder trying to pay off that debt, so iha think we re in a mh better placere right now with t plan that the president has actually announced. now, look, i m going to keep fighting for more, because i think there is more good that we can do, but we need to take a deep breath and acknowledge juse how historic this moment is, and how the presidentme of the unit states has reached out to individuals, to middle class families, to working families, and said i m going to put government on your side. you bring up communities of
biden would do just that and pushing the white house on the issue as recently on friday when she along with senators chuck schumer and rafael warnock met with chief of staff ron klain and today came the monumentous much anticipated announcement, the white house says theto bide plan will fully cancel the debt of 45% of borrows and 90s about of the relief will go to those earning less than $57,000. the plan is already facing predictableal criticism on the right. republicans say itic goes too f, and then it leaves the check with those who did not go to college, or have already managed toco pay off their debt, and th it could also add to inflation. biden is also facing criticism on the left for not going far enough. he did not, after all, cancel a portion of student loan debt for all borrows, the 50,000 dollars in debt that senator warren had officially proposed. case in point, the president of naacp has called the $10,000 in relief for some borrows, quote, meager, to say the least.
you ought to focus more of the energy on those who need the helpos the most. the republicans have got nothing here. and what we have to remember, as we have this fight, is there is nobody left in america who doesn t know someone who is struggling with studentho loan debt. it s everywhere around us. it s our neighbors. it s our friends. it s our families. it s our co-workers. it s our fellow students. it s the people we live with and work with. and what is happening to those folks right now, they can t move out of mom s basement, they can t save up money to buy a home. they can t start a small business. heck, a lot of a them can t eve start a family. all because of the sin that they wanted to try to get an education, and they weren t born into aio family that could writa check to make that happen.