The Biden-Harris Record
Small Businesses: The Engines of the Economy
Starting a new business is an act of hope, and President Biden has taken significant actions to provide American small businesses the support they need to thrive.
In his Administration's first year, the federal government provided more than $450 billion in emergency relief to more than 6 million small businesses, helping them keep their doors open during the pandemic. Under President Biden, the federal government awarded a record $178.6 billion in contracting opportunities to small businesses, including $76.2 billion to small, disadvantaged businesses.
Traditionally under-served small businesses are growing at near-historic rates, with Black business ownership growing at the fastest pace in 30 years and Latino business ownership growing at the fastest pace in over a decade. The Small Business Administration has doubled the number of small dollar loans and loans to Latino and women-owned small businesses and tripled the number of loans to Black-owned small businesses since President Biden took office. In 2023, federal contracting dollars to women-owned small businesses hit the highest dollar amount ever awarded.
The Biden-Harris Administration is also leveraging tens of billions of public and private dollars in loans and equity investments through the American Rescue Plan's State Small Business Credit Initiative (SSBCI). Through programs like SSBCI, MBDA's Capital Readiness Program, and SBA's Community Navigators program, President Biden has prioritized hands-on technical assistance support to small businesses, helping countless businesses access loans, obtain their business license, file their taxes, and navigate zoning and permitting processes.
Historically Strong and Broadly Shared Recovery
The Biden-Harris Administration, thanks in part to the American Rescue Plan (ARP), led America to the strongest jobs recovery on record and the strongest economic recovery in the world, driving unemployment below 4% for 28 months – the longest stretch in over 50 years - and creating nearly 16 million jobs since President Biden took office.
ARP also spurred the largest investments in fighting crime, preventing violence, and investing in public safety in history. Thanks to this funding to help states, cities, towns, and counties across the country, 2023 saw one of the lowest rates of violent crime in over 50 years. The murder rate saw its sharpest decrease in history.
ARP has also led to the largest small business boom in history, with a record 19 million new business applications over the past three years - 55% higher than the year before the pandemic.
ARP's Child Care Stabilization program was critical in keeping child care centers open. ARP led to the lowest child poverty rate in American history, thanks in part to the expansion of the Child Tax Credit, and funded a historic vaccination campaign which led to the full vaccinations of 230 million Americans– up from 3.5 million when President Biden took office.
Most Pro-Labor President in History
President Biden and Vice President Harris believe that a hard day's work deserves a fair day's pay. That is why the Department of Labor issued a rule raising pay for 4 million workers by increasing who is eligible for overtime compensation when they work more than 40 hours per week.
On July 1, 2024, overtime protections were extended to 1 million workers making less than $43,888 per year ($844 per week), and next year protections will be extended to another 3 million workers making less than $58,656 ($1,128 per week).
The middle class built America, and unions built the middle class. President Biden is proud to be the most pro-worker, pro-union president in American history. The President and Vice President have stood by workers as they organized, bargained collectively, and went on strike for higher pay, better benefits, and safer workplaces.
In September 2023, during the United Auto Workers' historic Stand Up Strike, President Biden made history by becoming the first president to walk a picket line. The UAW's strike won historic wage increases and helped ensure that electric vehicles would be manufactured in America by union workers.
President Biden signed into law the Butch Lewis Act – the most significant law for union retirement security in over 50 years. Thanks to this legislation, the Biden-Harris Administration rescued and protected roughly 2 million workers' pensions, ensuring they remained solvent. Workers who saved their entire careers for their pensions deserve a strong, dignified retirement, and this rescue of multi-employer pension plans protects their hard-earned investments.
Moreover, President Biden has taken key steps to ensure federal dollars support good union jobs. For example, the President issued an Executive Order to require Project Labor Agreements on federal construction projects valued at or above $35 million and his Good Jobs Executive Order calls on agencies to embed high wages and labor standards into federal grant programs. This means that projects funded by the Administration's Investing in America agenda will move faster and without delays, get taxpayers a better deal and provide workers the security and peace of mind that comes with collectively bargained wages and benefits.
Under the Biden-Harris Administration, prime-age women's labor force participation is the highest it has ever been, and the gender pay gap has narrowed. Prime-age women's labor force participation is the highest it has ever been. President Biden is also working to advance pay equity for federal employees and contractors and ensuring that workplaces are free from discrimination. The President signed into law the Pregnant Workers Fairness Act and the PUMP Act, commonsense bipartisan workplace protections for pregnant and post-partum workers.
Lowering Costs, Tackling Junk Fees, and Promoting Competition
The Biden-Harris Administration lowered healthcare and prescription drug costs, including a $2,000 cap on prescription drugs for seniors and people with disabilities that will go into effect in 2025, a cap on insulin at $35 a month for seniors and people with disabilities, and new, lower prices for prescription drugs as part of the Medicare Drug Price Negotiation Program.
The Administration is also lowering utility bills by introducing tax credits up to $3,200 and direct consumer rebates of up to $14,000 for energy-saving home improvements like heat pumps, doors, windows, and insulation.
The Biden-Harris Administration has taken extensive action to limit junk fees of all types. For example, President Biden is delivering on his commitment to ban family seating fees that are costly and frustrating for many families with young children. Eliminating family seating fees can save a family with two children $200 for a round-trip itinerary.
President Biden took action by requiring airlines to provide passengers with automatic cash refunds for cancelled or delayed flights and lost luggage.
Under the Biden-Harris Administration, the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau (CFPB) ramped up supervisory pressure on banks to examine their excessive overdraft and bounced check fee policies, leading many financial institutions to reduce or eliminate these fees, This saves consumers $6.2 billion per year.
The CFPB also finalized a rule to close a longstanding loophole and slash credit card late fees from $32 to $8, and proposed a rule to reduce overdraft fees from $35 to $3. Further, the Federal Trade Commission proposed a cross-sector ban on junk fees including those in event ticketing, auto dealing, and the restaurant industry.
The Council of Economic Advisers estimates that the Biden-Harris Administration's efforts to combat junk fees will likely save Americans more than $20 billion annually.
The Biden-Harris Administration is also taking on monopoly power to lower prices for families, increase wages for workers, and promote innovation and economic growth in the American economy.
Following the President's Executive Order on Promoting Competition in the American Economy, the Administration has taken action to protect net neutrality; to protect farmers from unfair practices; to make hearing aids more affordable; to repair competition in ocean shipping; and more.
President Biden has appointed leadership and funded agencies to vigorously enforce competition law whenever it is violated, including in big tech, ticketing, housing, pharmaceuticals, food, farming, infrastructure, airlines, and more. These enforcement actions and guidance have saved or returned billions of dollars to American consumers and have protected the dignity and economic freedom of the American people.
Building a Fairer Tax System
President Biden and Vice President Harris believe large corporations should pay their fair share, and they are committed to reversing the massive tax giveaway Republicans enacted in 2017. The Inflation Reduction Act's corporate minimum tax ensures that billion-dollar corporations pay at least 15% of their income in taxes. In response to the surge in corporate stock buybacks after the Trump tax cuts, the Biden-Harris Administration enacted a surcharge on corporate stock buybacks to encourage businesses to invest in growth and productivity as opposed to funneling tax-preferred profits to wealthy and foreign shareholders.
The Biden-Harris Administration reversed the chronic under-funding of the IRS, giving the agency the tools it needed to improve taxpayers' experience and make wealthy and corporate tax cheats pay the taxes they owe. This includes slashing call wait times from 28 minutes to 3 and launching a Direct File program – so Americans in states across the country could file their taxes easily, online, and for free directly with the IRS. The IRS has also used this funding to collect $1.3 billion in unpaid taxes from wealthy tax cheats and crack down on high-end tax evasion. In total, the IRS is projected to collect hundreds of billions of dollars in additional revenue over the next decade thanks to this investment.
Increased Housing for Americans
President Biden believes every American deserves access to safe, accessible, and affordable housing. Since Day One of his Administration, President Biden has prioritized housing for millions of Americans seeking to purchase their first home, living on a fixed income, or experiencing evolving housing needs. The President has taken unprecedented steps to strengthen tenant protections and increase fairness in the rental market, as well as steps to ensure that all households have an opportunity to build generational wealth by purchasing a home.
Immediately upon entering office, President Biden was faced with an unprecedented housing crisis wherein millions of Americans were facing eviction related to the economic impacts of the pandemic. In response, the Biden-Harris Administration deployed unprecedented tools to keep Americans housed, including nearly 11 million emergency rental assistance payments, and a first-of-its-kind national eviction prevention infrastructure that kept eviction filings below pre-pandemic levels for one and a half years after the eviction moratorium ended.
President Biden has focused on building more housing and lowering housing costs. More housing units are under construction now than at any time in over 50 years, and the rate of new housing starts is up 17%compared to the last administration. Rents have fallen over the last year in many places, and the home ownership rate is higher now than it was before the pandemic.
President Biden believes home appraisals should be fair and unbiased for all Americans – that is why he led a coordinated, whole-of-government effort to root out discrimination in the appraisal and home-buying process. The "appraisal gap" – the likelihood that homes in communities of color are undervalued compared to homes in majority-white communities – has been cut by roughly 40% since President Biden took action on appraisal bias.
Technology and Innovation at Home
President Biden signed into law the CHIPS and Science Act to reestablish the United States' leadership in semiconductor manufacturing, shore up global supply chains, and strengthen national and economic security. America invented the semiconductor and once produced nearly 40%of the world's chips, but that number dropped to about 10%. The CHIPS and Science Act is changing that by investing nearly $53 billion in U.S. semiconductor manufacturing, research and development, and workforce capacity.
Companies have now committed nearly $400 billion in total semiconductor investments across the country. This is due, in large part to the Department of Commerce's CHIPS Incentive program which has signed preliminary agreements with 15 companies across 15 states to provide over $30 billion in direct funding and roughly $25 billion in loans for semiconductor manufacturing jobs. These projects will support the creation of more than 115,000 direct construction and manufacturing jobs, and further investment in workforce development and training. As a result of these investments, the United States is on track to produce nearly 30% of the global supply of leading-edge chips by 2032, up from 0%when President Biden and Vice President Harris took office.
Additionally, the Biden-Harris Administration has funded 12 Tech Hubs to leverage regional assets and accelerate the growth of innovative industries of the future. Authorized by the CHIPS and Science Act, the Tech Hubs program unifies companies; state, local, and Tribal governments; institutions of higher education; labor unions; and nonprofit organizations around a common vision for regional economic development. These Tech Hubs will ensure that the benefits of innovation and technological development – which have been concentrated in a few coastal cities for too long – reach rural, industrial, and disadvantaged communities
The Infrastructure Decade
President Biden is delivering an "Infrastructure Decade" that is unlocking access to economic opportunity, creating good-paying jobs, boosting domestic manufacturing, and growing America's economy.
Thanks to the Bipartisan Infrastructure Law, the Biden-Harris Administration has announced funding for 60,000 infrastructure projects across thousands of communities in all 50 states, D.C., Tribes, and territories. These projects are rebuilding our nation with American-made materials – thanks to requirements that all iron, steel, manufactured products, and construction materials used in federally funded infrastructure projects are produced in America. Implementation of the Bipartisan Infrastructure Law has helped create hundreds of thousands of good-paying jobs, including a record-high number of jobs in the construction sector.
The Bipartisan Infrastructure Law is the largest investment in roads and bridges since President Eisenhower's Interstate Highway System, and the Biden-Harris Administration has already started improvements on over 175,000 miles of roads and launched over 10,000 bridge repair projects. The Law also invests $66 billion for rail, the largest investment in passenger rail since the inception of Amtrak, and makes the largest investment in public transit ever, including billions to electrify or upgrade our bus, transit rail, and ferry fleets. Already, the Biden-Harris Administration has replaced over 220,000 lead pipes, and has announced billions of dollars in investments in clean water, high-speed internet, and more, to improve the lives of millions of Americans.
Taking on Big Pharma
President Biden's Inflation Reduction Act is a key part of the Biden-Harris Administration's Investing in America agenda, which is lowering costs, creating good-paying jobs, and expanding opportunity in every corner of the country.
Already, the Inflation Reduction Act has transformed American lives by beating Big Pharma. Millions of Americans are saving an average of about $800 per year on health insurance premiums because of savings from the American Rescue Plan and Inflation Reduction Act extended, helping drive the nation's uninsured rate to historic lows.
Thanks to the Inflation Reduction Act, adults enrolled in Medicaid as well as Medicare beneficiaries are now able to get recommended vaccines for free. That means more Americans covered by Medicare are saving an average of $70 in out-of-pocket costs on vaccines like shingles and TDAP. In 2023, 10.3 million enrollees received a free vaccine.
Because Medicare is now able to negotiate lower prescription drug prices for seniors and people with disabilities, American taxpayers are expected to save $6 billion on prescription drug costs, and people enrolled in Medicare are expected to save $1.5 billion in out-of-pocket costs in 2026 alone. All 3.4 million Medicare Part D enrollees who filled an insulin prescription in 2023 had their insulin costs capped at $35 per month, saving some seniors hundreds of dollars for a month's supply.
People with Medicare will continue to see their prescription drug costs go down as more provisions of the Inflation Reduction Act go into effect in 2025. Nearly 19 million seniors and other Part D beneficiaries are projected to save $400 per year on prescription drugs when the out-of-pocket cap drops to $2,000 in 2025. The Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) recently announced that it reached agreements with all participating manufacturers on the first 10 drugs selected for the Medicare Drug Price Negotiation Program, cutting the list price of these drugs between 38 and 79%.
Made in America
For decades, the United States imported products and exported jobs. But thanks to President Biden's Made in America policies, factories are humming and manufacturing is booming.
Almost a century ago, Congress passed the Buy American Act to make sure American tax dollars support American jobs and businesses. In his first week in office, President Biden signed an executive order, which launched a whole-of-government initiative to enforce the law, making sure that commitment no longer rang hollow. President Biden signed the "Invent It Here, Make It Here" Executive Order, which directed Federal agencies to prioritize domestic manufacturing when it comes to research, development, innovation, and bringing inventions to market.
The President and Vice President fought for "Made in America" provisions across their Investing in America agenda that go even further to promote domestic manufacturing and won. They also implemented the most robust change to the Buy American Act in almost 70 years to strengthen these requirements. Since then, the United States has created 1.6 million new manufacturing and construction jobs and seen hundreds of billions in private sector investment in the sectors.
Tackling the Climate Crisis
The Biden-Harris Administration is tackling the climate crisis by advancing clean energy, cutting pollution from buildings, transportation, and industry; supporting climate-smart agriculture and forestry; and ensuring that the clean energy future is manufactured here in America.
The Inflation Reduction Act has also accelerated progress toward President Biden and Vice President Harris' goal of cutting U.S. climate pollution by 50 - 52% below 2005 levels by 2030. In the two years since President Biden signed the Inflation Reduction Act into law, companies have announced more than 330,000 clean energy jobs and $273 billion in new clean energy investments in nearly every state in the nation.
Together, the CHIPS Act, Bipartisan Infrastructure Law, and Inflation Reduction Act have helped catalyze over $900 billion dollars in announced private sector clean energy and manufacturing investments. In 2023, more than 3.4 million American families saved $8.4 billion from IRA consumer tax credits on home energy technologies. These tax credits can save families up to 30% on heat pumps, insulation, rooftop solar, and other clean energy technologies. The Inflation Reduction Act fully pays for these investments, and reduces the deficit over time, by cutting wasteful spending on special interests and making big corporations and the wealthy pay more of their fair share.
Supporting American Families and Access to Care
President Biden's American Rescue Plan (ARP) provided an historic $39 billion to help keep over 225,000 child care providers open, bring hundreds of thousands of women with young children into the workforce, lower child care costs per child by $1,250, and increase wages for child care workers by 10%. The ARP also delivered $37 billion across all 50 states to enhance, expand, and strengthen home and community-based services and $145 million to help the National Family Caregiver Support Program deliver counseling, training, and short-term relief to family and other informal care providers. President Biden and Vice President Harris have also proposed major investments to increase child care worker pay and limit child care costs so that most families pay no more than $10 a day for child care as well as a comprehensive national paid family and medical leave program.
To implement President Biden's Executive Order on Increasing Access to High-Quality Care and Supporting Caregivers, the Biden-Harris Administration has taken steps to lower child care costs for military families, increased pay for Head Start teachers, reduced the cost of child care for more than 100,000 low-income working families, made sure that more than 140,000 child care providers are paid more fairly and on-time, established minimum staffing standards for nursing homes, and took steps to ensure that home care workers get a bigger share of Medicaid payments.
Reinvigorated and Strengthened NATO
Thanks to President Biden's leadership, NATO is stronger, bigger, more united, and as purposeful as at any point in history – and that makes us all safer and more secure. President Biden has revitalized and reinvigorated NATO, the greatest military alliance in the history of the world. He helped welcome two new members of the Alliance, Sweden and Finland, quickly winning strong congressional support for their accession, and he has successfully encouraged Allies to significantly increase their defense spending – nearly tripling the number of Allies that are meeting their 2% defense spending commitments.
In response to Russia's invasion of Ukraine, President Biden rallied NATO Allies to join the coalition of more than 50 nations that are providing Ukraine with the aid it needs to prevail, and President Biden hosted the historic 75th anniversary NATO Summit in 2024 in Washington, which demonstrated the strength and unity of the Transatlantic Alliance.
Strengthened Global Partnerships
America's alliances and partnerships are the strongest they've ever been at any point in recent history – and that is because of President Biden's work to revitalize our relationships with countries around the world to advance our interests and values, as well as to restore America's leadership on the world stage. President Biden has hosted high-level leader summits with partners from Africa, the Americas, and Asia. He has strengthened and expanded NATO, the greatest military alliance in the history of the world. He helped restore the G7 as the premier platform in coordinating the international response to the biggest challenges we have faced since taking office from an international pandemic to energy security, and he rallied G7 partners to impose swift economic costs on Russia for its brutal war against Ukraine.
In the Indo-Pacific, President Biden's diplomacy has made America more secure as we address the challenges posed by an increasingly assertive People's Republic of China. President Biden transformed our approach to the region, reversing America's turn inward, which China was taking advantage of.
The Biden-Harris Administration has deepened our security and economic partnerships, launching new security partnerships like AUKUS with Australia and the United Kingdom, spurred unprecedented defense and economic cooperation between the United States, South Korea and Japan, and forged new partnerships with U.S. treaty allies such as Japan and the Philippines.
The Biden-Harris Administration created the Indo-Pacific Economic Framework for Prosperity with 13 other partners to ensure America is meeting the economic challenges of today and not two decades ago, such as building secure supply chains and protecting our critical technologies, and have brought together Atlantic and Pacific partners to shape the rules of the road and strengthen our edge in the competition with China in this decisive decade.
The Biden-Harris Administration has also created important historic partnerships, such as the Americas Partnership for Economic Prosperity to drive the Western Hemisphere's recovery and growth to deliver for working people. Under the Los Angeles Declaration on Migration and Protection, the Administration has coordinated action to address the root causes of migration, expand lawful pathways, and strengthen humane enforcement against irregular migration – contributing to an approximately 58% reduction in irregular migration from Northern Central American countries since the launch of the Biden-Harris Administration's Root Causes Strategy in July 2021.
President Biden has also elevated the United States' partnership with Africa, welcoming the African Union as a permanent member to the G20, and selecting Africa for the first and flagship economic corridor under his signature Partnership for Global Infrastructure and Investment (PGI) initiative to address the global infrastructure gap.
Across the world, from Africa to the Western Hemisphere, to the Middle East and Indo-Pacific, President Biden is building the strongest possible coalition of nations to solve shared challenges and positioning the United States to shape the future of the international order.
Support for Ukraine
President Biden has worked around the clock to build a coalition of more than 50 countries that are supporting the people of Ukraine, providing aid that has been critical to helping them defend their freedom and independence and protect themselves from Russia's brutal attacks. He has worked with allies and partners to impose unprecedented costs against Russia to cut off funding for their war machine and hold them accountable for their aggression against Ukraine. He has secured robust bipartisan support at home to deliver critical weapons and equipment to Ukraine, as well as economic and humanitarian assistance. President Biden has been clear: we will stand with Ukraine until it prevails.
Protecting the American People
President Biden has worked to keep Americans safe and secure. At President Biden's direction, the United States took key leaders of ISIS and Al Qaeda off the battlefield, demonstrating our resolve and ability to defend the American people against those who seek to do us harm and in ways that do not require risking the lives of thousands of Americans in combat. These successful missions have sent a powerful message to all terrorists who threaten America and our interests around the world that the United States is committed to being relentless in these efforts.
President Biden has brought home over 70 Americans held hostage or wrongfully detained from places around the world, such as Afghanistan, Burma, Gaza, Haiti, Iran, Russia, Rwanda, and Venezuela. He and his team have worked around the clock using intense diplomacy to negotiate for the release of Americans held hostages or wrongfully detained abroad so that they can be reunited with their families.
At President Biden's direction, the U.S. government also has begun issuing travel advisories warning Americans not to travel to certain countries given the risk of being wrongfully detained, and he issued a new executive order enabling the U.S. government to take action, including by imposing sanctions, to hold accountable those who take Americans hostage. President Biden has made clear that he will not stop working until every American wrongfully detained or held hostage around the world is reunited with their family.
The United States announced its first-ever National Strategy to Counter Domestic Terrorism and first-ever U.S. Strategy on Countering Corruption.
To combat the scourge of fentanyl and other synthetic drugs and to disrupt the supply of illicit opioids, the Biden-Harris Administration has coordinated international efforts through the Trilateral Fentanyl Committee with Canada and Mexico, the Global Coalition to Address Synthetic Drug Threats with over 150 countries, and counternarcotics cooperation with the PRC.
President Biden has strengthened federal disaster response by directing his Administration to enhance preparedness for disasters. The Administration has secured billions of dollars in funding to help American communities become more resilient to climate change and mitigate against the impacts of disasters, whether natural or man-made. He has directed federal response agencies, whenever possible, to preposition the federal assets required to provide for life sustaining activities for communities when disasters strike, whether that's airborne firefighting systems or specialized swift water rescue equipment. He has rapidly approved major disaster declarations to ensure federal assistance for survivors who need help repairing homes and replacing lost personal items and has expedited federal assistance for communities to rebuild after disasters.
Israel and the War in Gaza
President Biden has made it clear that his support for the security of Israel is ironclad. Immediately after Hamas launched its heinous attack on October 7, President Biden has stood strong with Israel. As President Biden has said many times, Israel has a right and duty to defend itself against the threats it faces, including terrorist groups like Hamas. At the same time, President Biden has been clear that far too many Palestinian civilians have been killed in this conflict. The way Israel defends itself matters, and President Biden has made clear that they should take every step possible to avoid civilian casualties.
President Biden has worked day and night to secure a deal that would free the hostages being held by Hamas terrorists, including Americans, result in an immediate ceasefire, create the conditions for an increased amount of humanitarian aid to get in to Gaza, and end the current conflict.
Since the beginning of the conflict in Gaza, President Biden has also led international efforts to get humanitarian aid into Gaza to alleviate the suffering of Palestinian civilians. The United States is the largest provider of humanitarian aid to the Gaza response. The United States also continues to work to build the conditions for a lasting peace in the region, including through support for a two-state solution, which is more important than ever, so that after this conflict is over, Israelis and Palestinians can live side by side in lasting peace.
Investing at Home to Out-Compete the People's Republic of China
Under the Biden-Harris Administration, we have deepened our security and economic partnerships, and we have brought together Atlantic and Pacific partners to shape the rules of the road and strengthen our edge in the competition with China. That includes building a new global partnership with Japan, strengthening extended deterrence with the Republic of Korea, deepening our alliances with Australia, and launching historic cooperation with the Philippines. President Biden has also made concrete progress with China to stem the flow of fentanyl precursors to this country.
The Biden-Harris Administration's aim in every engagement with China is to deliver for the American people. President Biden's strategic and targeted approach to dealing with China, coupled with historic steps this Administration has taken to strengthen our economy, has increased our ability to compete while preventing competition from veering into conflict or confrontation.
With foresight, diplomacy and the power of revitalized alliances and partnerships, the Biden-Harris Administration has put the United States in the best possible position to win our strategic competition with China. The key is responsible management through diplomacy.
Cancer Moonshot
Cancer is personal to the President, the Vice President, and the First Lady, as it is to virtually every American family. The Biden Cancer Moonshot has delivered progress for the American people. The Biden-Harris Administration is mobilizing the federal government, private companies, healthcare providers, research institutions, and patient and advocacy groups to accelerate progress on prevention, early detection, innovation, and support for patients and their families. The President and First Lady delivered actions to bring cancer screenings to more communities, rebounding to pre-pandemic screening levels after Americans missed nearly10 million cancer screenings during the pandemic. This included a more than $1 billion commitment from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, significant private sector action, and steps from the Department of Veterans Affairs to reach at least 1 million veterans with cancer screenings.
With the President and First Lady's leadership, the Biden-Harris Administration delivered the first-ever reimbursable navigation services for families facing cancer. This means that seniors with a cancer diagnosis will be able to have a patient navigator - someone who can help them get better informed, make treatment decisions, and access resources throughout their cancer journey.
Additionally, by securing commitments from leading insurance companies to reimburse for navigation services, more than 150 million Americans using private insurance will have paid access to these services which improve outcomes and equity. President Biden and Vice President Harris also secured a bipartisan investment of $4 billion to pioneer new breakthroughs in preventing, detecting, and treating cancer and other life-threatening diseases, and established a new research agency, the Advanced Research Projects Agency for Health (ARPA-H). ARPA-H has already committed more than $400 million in cutting-edge programs aimed at ending cancer as we know it.
The Biden-Harris Administration also prioritized life-saving innovation for our nation's military service members and veterans facing cancer through new VA and DOD investments and research programs, took steps through the Food and Drug Administration and National Institutes of Health to ensure clinical trials reach more communities, and supported the next generation of world-class scientists and cancer innovators through the National Cancer Institute's Cancer Moonshot Scholars program.
Through the Bipartisan Infrastructure Law, the Environmental Protection Agency dedicated more than $1 billion for cleanup projects at 50 toxic Superfund sites across the country and protected more than 100 million Americans from PFAS - the "forever chemicals" known to cause cancer and other health issues - by setting the first ever drinking water standard for PFAS and dedicating more than $20 billion to improve Americans' drinking water.
Meeting Our Sacred Obligation to Veteran and Military Families
In 2022, President Biden signed the landmark bipartisan Sergeant First Class Heath Robinson Honoring our Promise to Address Comprehensive Toxics (PACT) Act into law, enacting the most significant expansion of benefits and services for toxic exposed veterans and their survivors in more than 30 years. Named in honor of Sergeant First Class Heath Robinson, a decorated combat medic who died from a rare form of lung cancer, this historic legislation is delivering timely benefits and services to veterans - across all generations - who have been impacted by toxic exposures while serving our country.
Too often, military service can result in increased health risks for our veterans, and some injuries and illnesses like asthma, cancer, and others can take years to manifest. These realities can make it difficult for veterans and their survivors to establish a direct connection between their service and disabilities resulting from military environmental exposures such as burn pits – a necessary step to ensuring they receive the benefits they earned. The PACT Act eliminates these barriers and ensures veterans get the care and services they deserve. For survivors of veterans who died from a toxic related illness, the PACT Act provides a pathway to benefits including monthly stipends, access to home loans, as well as education benefits. Surviving veteran spouses with children can qualify for over $2,000 per month and funding toward college tuition.
The Department of Veterans Affairs has delivered new PACT Act related disability benefits to more than 1 million veterans and over 10,000 survivors of veterans who died of a toxic related illness. This amounts to more than $6.8 billion in earned PACT Act related benefits over the past two years. Thanks in part to the PACT Act, the VA is delivering benefits to veterans and their survivors at the fastest rate in history, processing more than 2 million total claims (both PACT and non-PACT Act combined) so far in 2024 – an all-time record. Over 5 million veterans have been screened for toxic substance exposure. Under President Biden's leadership, the Administration also reduced veteran homelessness by expanding access to permanent supportive housing, legal support, and job training for veterans and their families.
In 2021, the Administration released a comprehensive public health strategy to reduce veteran suicide and has since expanded access to mental health services for veterans by removing cost-barriers, hiring more peer support specialists, and funding more community-based programs. Finally, the Administration took executive action to better support military and veteran spouses, caregivers and survivors by expanding critical programs, including those that crack down on predatory actors out to scam our veterans and military families as well as those that address food insecurity, access to quality childcare, job security for spouses, and mental health support.
As members of a military family, the President and First Lady recognize the commitment and resilience of military-connected families as essential to the recruitment, retention, and readiness of our Armed Forces. Through the White House Joining Forces initiative led by Dr. Biden, the Biden-Harris Administration has worked to support military and veteran families, caregivers, and survivors. This includes an executive order making it easier for military spouses to obtain and keep jobs in the federal government -- the most comprehensive set of administrative actions any President has ever taken to support military spouses, with nearly 20 new actions aimed at enhancing career stability, expanding employment resources, and improving transition assistance support for military-connected spouses.
In addition, the Biden-Harris Administration is ensuring that educators have the resources and tools they need to support military-connected children in the classroom, and the Department of Defense is implementing universal Pre-K in Department of Defense Education Activity (DoDEA) schools, focusing on early childhood education access. The Biden-Harris Administration also supports military caregivers by providing resources and making child care and long-term care more accessible and affordable.
Beating the Opioid and Overdose Epidemic
When President Biden and Vice President Harris came into office, the number of drug overdose deaths was increasing by more than 30% year over year. Thanks to increased funding and resources, overdose deaths decreased by 10% year-over-year in the 12 months ending April 2024. This is the biggest decrease in overdose deaths on record. The Biden-Harris Administration has taken critical steps to make this possible, such as seizing more fentanyl at our border in the last two years than in the last five years combined, arresting and prosecuting dozens of high-level drug traffickers and cartel leaders, sanctioning over 300 entities and individuals involved in the global illicit drug trade, and forging historic counter-narcotics cooperation with China. The Biden-Harris Administration also invested historic resources in prevention and treatment, expanding access to treatment of opioid use disorder to millions more Americans.
The Biden-Harris Administration also took unprecedented steps to expand access to naloxone and other harm reduction interventions, such as permitting the use funds for local public health departments to purchase naloxone, releasing guidance to make it easier for programs to obtain and distribute naloxone to at-risk populations, and prioritizing the review of over-the-counter naloxone applications. The Administration has also fundamentally changed addiction treatment across the country by working with Congress to remove barriers that prevented medical professionals from prescribing treatment for opioid use disorder and pursuing rulemaking to make permanent the COVID-19 era flexibilities that allowed for telehealth prescribing of buprenorphine and take-home methadone doses.
Managing the Promise of AI
In October 2023, the President issued a sweeping Executive Order on Safe, Secure, and Trustworthy Artificial Intelligence. The Executive Order – which is the most comprehensive action on AI safety taken by any single government in the world - takes a comprehensive approach to advance America's global leadership in AI, encourage responsible innovation, and promote competition. Developers of powerful AI systems must now report their safety test results to the government. The Executive Order also ensures that as new technologies rapidly evolve, the government continues to protect Americans' privacy, advance equity and civil rights, and stand up for consumers, patients, students, and workers.
Already, the Executive Order has resulted in action across the federal government, including: a government-wide AI talent surge that brought hundreds of AI professionals into government; the issuance of government-wide AI guidance that empowers federal agencies to leverage AI to improve government services; and the establishment of a national AI R&D Strategic Plan outlining key priorities and goals for federal investments in AI research and development.
Additionally, thanks to the leadership of the Biden-Harris Administration, 16 companies have made voluntary commitments on safe and responsible AI use. These commitments include internal and external security testing before releasing AI systems, sharing information with the public about safety risks and dangerous capabilities, and deploying AI to help address society's greatest challenges, such as climate change mitigation. The new AI Safety Institute is leading the government's efforts on AI safety and trust. The Federal Communications Commission has also taken critical action to make AI-generated robocalls illegal.
Tackling the Mental Health Crisis
President Biden signed the Bipartisan Safer Communities Act - the largest investment in youth mental health ever, with $1 billion of that funding going towards schools across the country to hire and train new mental health counselors. The Biden-Harris Administration launched 988, the Nationwide Suicide and Crisis Lifeline, which anyone can call, text, or chat to be connected to a trained crisis counselor; developed new resources to support the mental health and resilience of frontline workers; expanded Medicare coverage to include additional substance use disorder services and expand mental health services; made it easier for schools to leverage Medicaid to deliver mental health care to millions of children and youth; invested in mental health programs that help service members and veterans as well as their families, caregivers, and survivors; and finalized a rule ensuring that mental health care coverage for more than 150 million Americans is on par with their physical health care coverage.
Combating Hate of All Kinds
President Biden ran for office to restore the soul of our nation – and he has been clear that hate, bigotry, and violence have no place in America. The Biden-Harris Administration has taken numerous steps to counter hate in all its forms. In May 2021, President Biden signed into law the COVID-19 Hate Crimes Act, which includes the Khalid Jabara and Heather Heyer NO HATE Act, to ensure that hate crimes information is more accessible to Asian American and Pacific Islander communities. Since then, Attorney General Merrick Garland has appointed the Justice Department's first-ever Anti-Hate Crimes Resources Coordinator and designated staff to oversee expedited review of hate crimes, and the Federal Bureau of Investigation has elevated hate crimes and criminal civil rights violations to its highest-level national threat priority, which has increased the resources for hate crimes prevention and investigations and made hate crimes a focus for all 56 of the Bureau's field offices.
In September 2022, President Biden and Vice President Harris convened the United We Stand Summit at the White House to bring together communities from across the country to counter hate-fueled violence and put forward a shared vision and agenda for working toward a more united America. At the summit, the Administration announced The White House Initiative to Counter Hate-Motivated Violence to address violence and bias against all communities. This initiative has - and will continue to - strengthen government actions to counter violence against Black, Arab, Latino, Asian American, Native Hawaiian, Pacific Islander, disabled, Jewish, Christian, Muslim, Hindu, and LGBTQI+ individuals and communities. In December 2022, President Biden established an interagency group to increase and better coordinate U.S. Government efforts to counter Antisemitism, Islamophobia, and related forms of bias and discrimination within the United States. In 2023, the President released the first-ever U.S. National Strategy to Counter Antisemitism, which the Administration continues to implement. The Administration is also developing the first-ever U.S. National Strategy to Counter Islamophobia and related forms of bias and discrimination, including hatred against Muslims, Arabs, and Sikhs in the United States.
Democratic Principles
Since his first day in office, President Biden has taken decisive action to restore and strengthen American democracy. He immediately restored the independence of the Department of Justice to respect the rule of law and required members of his Administration to sign the strongest ethics pledge ever to limit the power of special interests. He signed the Electoral Count Reform and Presidential Transition Improvement Act into law, establishing clear guidelines for certifying electoral votes to preserve the will of the people and protect against the type of attempts to overturn our elections that led to the January 6 insurrection. Annual funding for federal civil rights offices has increased by 23% since President Biden took office. Since then, the Department of Justice has doubled its number of voting rights attorneys and enforcement staff.
President Biden released a bold plan to reform the Supreme Court, which includes term limits for Supreme Court Justices, a binding code of ethics for the Justices, and a constitutional amendment that clarifies that no president is above the law. President Biden continues to call on Congress to pass the John Lewis Voting Rights Advancement Act and Freedom to Vote Act to protect the sacred right to vote in free and fair elections, counter corruption, and ensure the government is working for the people. In response to Congressional Republicans' obstruction and refusal to debate the bills, President Biden called for reforming the filibuster to protect our democracy. As he continues to fight for this legislation, President Biden has used the tools at his disposal to strengthen our democracy, including issuing an Executive Order to expand access to voting.
Advancing Equality and Racial Justice
From Day One, the Biden-Harris Administration committed to an ambitious whole-of government agenda to advance racial equity and support underserved communities. The Administration has taken bold action to ensure the full and fair participation of all communities in American life and has delivered record results under two Executive Orders and a portfolio of federal actions to redress systemic barriers, reduce burdens, and close unjust gaps.
The Administration has achieved the smallest racial wealth gap in 20 years. Other actions include: increasing access to federal contracting dollars, capital, and lending programs for small disadvantaged businesses; reducing discrimination in the housing market; protecting overburdened communities from environmental harms and toxic pollution; addressing historic disinvestment and infrastructure neglect; tackling persistent poverty and building economic prosperity in rural communities; addressing health and health care disparities; rooting out educational inequities and preserving pathways to equal opportunity; uplifting and protecting our shared National history; promoting fairness, safety, accountability in the justice system; combating bias, discrimination and hate-based violence; and bolstering proactive enforcement that protects the civil rights of all Americans.
To affirm his commitment to racial justice, President Biden proudly signed the Juneteenth National Independence Day Act - the first new federal holiday to be established since Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. Day four decades prior to honor and preserve the significance of the African American history as U.S. history. This Act also serves as a recommitment to racial justice by uplifting our country's history, celebrating and protecting the progress made, and looking towards the work unfinished.
LGBTQI+ Rights
From Day One, President Biden has been instrumental in remedying historical injustices and advancing equality for LGBTQI+ Americans. In 2021, President Biden rescinded the ban on transgender service members. The President championed and signed into law the Respect for Marriage Act, ensuring that same-sex and interracial marriages are recognized as legal in every state in the nation. And the President also reversed the discriminatory ban on blood donations by gay and bisexual men.
President Biden issued a categorical pardon for certain former military service members convicted of crimes based solely on their sexual orientation and gender identity. As a result of this action, these former service members may be eligible for a pardon and, once granted, to apply for an upgrade to their military discharge status, which could unlock access to additional VA benefits, such as medical care, disability benefits, home loan guarantee, and burial benefits.
President Biden also signed several historic Executive Orders to prevent and combat discrimination on the basis of gender identity or sexual orientation and advance equality for LGBTQI+ individuals. These Executive Orders formed the basis for dozens of executive actions and rules the whole Administration has taken to advance civil rights and improve the lives of LGBTQI+ Americans. These rules offer protections to the LGBTQI+ community against discrimination in a number of critical areas, including several groundbreaking rules that protect against discrimination in health care, advance protections for LGBTQI+ students, protect LGBTQI+ youth in foster care, and more.
Advancing Gender Equity and Equality
From defending reproductive freedom, investing in women's health research, and delivering the highest women's labor force participation—to fighting to end violence against women, advancing the human rights of women and girls globally, and promoting women's political participation and leadership, President Biden and Vice President Harris are investing in the future of women and girls. President Biden established the first-ever White House Gender Policy Council to advance the rights of women and girls at home and abroad and issued our nation's first-ever National Strategy on Gender Equity and Equality to guide these efforts. He has signed Executive Orders to advance women's rights by directing his Administration to defend reproductive freedom, eliminate discriminatory pay practices in the federal government, promote accountability for conflict-related sexual violence, implement bipartisan military justice reforms, and strengthen our nation's recognition of women's history.
Because of the Vice President's leadership, the Administration has also taken action to address the maternal health crisis, lower health care costs for women, close gaps in women's health research, and extend Medicaid postpartum coverage from 2 months to 12 months of post-pregnancy care.
The Biden-Harris Administration is also fighting to end violence against women and girls in the United States and around the world - a cornerstone of the President's career. As a U.S. Senator, President Biden wrote and championed the Violence Against Women Act (VAWA), a landmark law that he has worked across the aisle to reauthorize and strengthen ever since. In 2022, he signed the VAWA Reauthorization Act of 2022 securing the highest-ever funding levels to support implementation of the law's new protections and programs.
President Biden also signed the Bipartisan Safer Communities Act, the most significant gun safety law in nearly three decades, to narrow the "boyfriend loophole" and help keep guns out of the hands of domestic abusers. The Administration is strengthening protections for survivors of sexual assault and harassment in the workplace, as well as ending gender-based violence wherever it occurs - at home, at work, at school, in the military, and online - guided by the White House's first-ever U.S. National Plan to End Gender-Based Violence.
President Biden also appointed a record number of female Cabinet Secretaries as well as the nation's first Black woman to serve on the U.S. Supreme Court, Justice Ketanji Brown Jackson, and the first woman ever elected as Vice President, Kamala Harris.
Reproductive Rights
In 2022, the Supreme Court overturned Roe v. Wade. As a result, millions of Americans now live under extreme state abortion bans that are putting women's health and lives at risk, along with threatening doctors and nurses with jail time for providing the health care they have been trained to provide.
The Biden-Harris Administration has taken meaningful executive action to protect access to reproductive health care, including abortion, contraception, and IVF. These actions include: helping ensure that women receive the care they need in an emergency, protecting access to safe and effective, FDA-approved medication abortion, defending the right to travel for medical care, supporting access to reproductive health care for service members and veterans, expanding access to affordable contraception; and strengthening privacy protections for patients and health care providers.
Reducing Gun Violence and Other Violent Crimes
2023 had one of the lowest rates of violent crime in more than 50 years, and the murder rate saw its sharpest decrease in history. President Biden made historic investments in law enforcement and community violence interventions.
President Biden established the first-ever White House Office of Gun Violence Prevention – overseen by Vice President Harris - to reduce gun violence, and to implement and expand upon key executive and legislative action taken to help save lives.
In 2022, President Biden succeeded in expanding background checks by signing into law the Bipartisan Safer Communities Act. This law broadened the category of gun sellers required to become licensed dealers and run background checks. It also contains the first ever federal gun trafficking and straw purchasing law, which has allowed the Department of Justice to charge more than 500 defendants. The Administration has secured over $350 million specifically for community violence intervention and has also announced dozens of executive actions to reduce gun crimes, including by going after ghost guns and keeping illegal guns out of our cities.
Judges Matter
These judges are exceptionally well-qualified. They come from every walk of life, and collectively, they form the most diverse group of judicial appointees ever put forward by a President – 64% are women and 62% are people of color. Before their appointment to the bench, they worked in every field of law—from labor lawyers fighting for working people to civil rights lawyers fighting to protect the right to vote. And despite differences in background and experience, they are all committed to principles that are at the core of our democracy: independence, freedom, and liberty.
Judges matter. These men and women have the power to uphold basic rights or to roll them back. They hear cases that decide whether women have the freedom to make their own reproductive healthcare decisions; whether Americans have the freedom to cast their ballots; whether workers have the freedom to unionize and make a living wage for their families; and whether children have the freedom to breathe clean air and drink clean water.
Securing the Border
Since his first day in office, President Biden has called on Congress to pass legislation to secure our border and fix our broken immigration system. After Congressional Republicans twice voted against the toughest and fairest set of bipartisan immigration reforms in decades, President Biden announced an executive action that has reduced unlawful border crossings by over 50%. Today, there are fewer border crossings than at the end of the previous administration. President Biden has also surged law enforcement personnel and technology to the Southern border and seized record amounts of fentanyl at our ports of entry. Border officials stopped more illicit fentanyl at ports of entry in 2022 and 2023 than the previous five fiscal years combined.
President Biden has also taken historic steps to improve our immigration system and expand lawful pathways to the United States, including actions to keep American families together. He has overseen an historic expansion of lawful pathways, including working towards a new family reunification program that allow U.S. citizens to more quickly reunite with their family members while they go through the process to receive permanent residence.
Issued a Review to Reschedule Marijuana
President Biden issued categorical pardons of federal offenses of simple possession of marijuana - lifting barriers to housing, employment, educational opportunities, and more for thousands of Americans. He has called on called on governors to follow his lead and issue similar pardons for state offenses. To help remedy our country's failed approach to marijuana, including racial disparities, the Administration also launched the process to reclassify marijuana under federal law. Marijuana is currently a Schedule I drug, higher than the classification for fentanyl and methamphetamine – drugs driving our nation's overdose epidemic.
Student Debt Relief
From Day One of the Biden-Harris Administration, the President promised to fight to ensure higher education is a ticket to the middle class - not a barrier to opportunity - because he knows that debt cancellation benefits borrowers and the entire economy. Since taking office, the Biden-Harris Administration has approved student debt relief for nearly 5 million Americans, each of whom have been approved for an average of roughly $35,000 in student debt cancellation.
The Biden-Harris Administration fixed the Public Service Loan Forgiveness program, so public service workers like nurses, teaches, firefighters, first responders and more get the relief to which they are entitled to. As a result, almost 950,000 public servants have been approved for Public Service Loan Forgiveness since President Biden took office – up from 7,000 in total who had ever received debt relief through this program prior to this Administration.
The Biden-Harris Administration has also taken unprecedented steps to improve the broken loan system and bring higher education more in reach for millions of people, including by: providing a $900 increase to the maximum Pell Grant award, the largest increase in over a decade; fixing Income-Driven Repayment so borrowers get the relief they are entitled to under the law; and holding colleges accountable for taking advantage of students and families.
In 2024, President Biden laid out his Administration's new plans that would cancel student debt for more than 30 million Americans when combined with everything the Administration has done so far.
Protecting Social Security and Medicare
President Biden strengthened Medicare by allowing Medicare to negotiate lower drugs costs – saving taxpayers $160 billion and helping extend Medicare solvency by a decade while lowering costs for seniors and people with disabilities. President Biden has a plan to protect and strengthen Social Security and Medicare by making the wealthy pay their fair share, improving benefits for seniors and people with disabilities, and continuing to lower prescription drug prices.
Clean Energy Future
The Biden-Harris Administration's Investing in America agenda has unleashed a boom in American solar, wind, battery storage, and other clean energy technologies, with 2024 expected to break the record set in 2023 for the most clean energy added to the grid in a year. These investments are also strengthening the power grid itself, by supporting new and upgraded transmission lines to deliver more affordable, reliable electricity and prevent outages. The Administration has made the largest investment in rural electrification since the 1930s, jumpstarted the American offshore wind industry by approving enough projects to power over five million homes, surpassed targets for new clean energy projects on public lands, and helped low-income households benefit from solar energy savings—all while making the permitting process more efficient so that projects can get built and start benefitting Americans, strengthening American clean energy manufacturing to make these technologies at home, and spurring economic development in energy communities that have powered our nation for generations.
This clean energy boom is part of historic efforts by the Biden-Harris Administration to combat the climate crisis and provide communities with clean air, clean water, and healthy neighborhoods. The Administration created the first-ever National Climate Task Force to bring together federal agencies and take hundreds of new actions toward bold goals including cutting U.S. climate pollution by 50-52% below 2005 levels in 2030. These actions include launching the American Climate Corps to prepare tens of thousands of young people for good-paying jobs in the clean economy, saving Americans money on utility bills through more efficient homes and commercial buildings, rallying automakers and autoworkers to advance electric vehicle opportunities, helping make American manufacturing the cleanest and most competitive in the world, setting smart standards to reduce super-pollutants, investing in the nation's farmers to support climate-smart agriculture, strengthening America's forests, and making communities more resilient to extreme weather. The Administration has prioritized environmental justice across all these efforts and made historic strides on replacing lead pipes, protecting communities from PFAS pollution and other toxic chemicals, and cleaning up Superfund sites and other areas burdened by past pollution.
Conservation
Since their first day in office, President Biden and Vice President Harris have delivered on the most ambitious climate and conservation agenda in history. This includes the President's America the Beautiful Initiative, which is supporting locally led conservation efforts across the country with a goal to protect, conserve, and restore at least 30 percent of U.S. lands and waters by 2030. The Biden-Harris Administration has already conserved more than 42 million acres of lands and waters.
Since taking office, the Biden-Harris Administration has established or expanded eight national monuments and restored protections for three more; created five new national wildlife refuges and significantly expanded five more; established two new national marine sanctuaries and begun the process to designate or expand protections for five more; created one new national estuarine research reserve; protected the Boundary Waters of Minnesota, the nation's most visited wilderness area; safeguarded Bristol Bay in southwest Alaska from mining and protected the Arctic Ocean from oil and gas development; and withdrawn Chaco Canyon in New Mexico and Thompson Divide in Colorado from further oil and gas leasing which will protect pristine lands and thousands of sacred sites. The Biden-Harris Administration launched the first ever United States Ocean Climate Action Plan.
Because of his belief that conservation helps tell a more complete story of our Nation's history, President Biden issued an Executive Order on Recognizing and Honoring Women's History and preserved places significant to civil rights history, including the Springfield 1908 Race Riot and Emmett Till and Mamie Till-Mobley National Monuments. The Biden-Harris Administration also directed the conservation of old growth and mature forests, put conservation on equal footing with development in managing our public lands and protected the Western Arctic for future generations. The Administration is leading by example on the global stage by launching the domestic America the Beautiful Freshwater Challenge, setting ambitious goals to restore, reconnect, and conserve 8 million acres of wetlands and 100,000 miles of rivers and streams by 2030, and leveraged the partnership of Tribes, states, cities, businesses, and non-profits to act in support of clean water.
Education
Through the American Rescue Plan, the Biden-Harris Administration secured $130 billion for America's K-12 schools, the single-largest investment in K-12 education in history to help schools safely reopen and address the impact of COVID-19 on students' academic, mental and physical health, and other needs. This investment is delivering results, including notable student achievement gains. The Administration is particularly focused on communities with high rates of poverty, driving almost $800 million to under-resourced schools. In addition to this investment, the Administration secured a $2 billion annual increase in Title I funding for our most underserved schools. The Biden-Harris Administration also provided a $1.5 billion increase in funding to support special education and related services for 7.5 million students with disabilities in America. Finally, the Administration is investing in our teachers, increasing investments by $112 million in preparing, recruiting, developing, and retaining teachers and securing $23 million in first-ever funding for the Augustus F. Hawkins Centers of Excellence Program to increase the number of teachers of color and multilingual educators across the country. Federal investments have helped create more than 643,000 education jobs.
To help make our schools safer and meet the mental health and other needs of our students, the Administration provided $1 billion through the Bipartisan Safer Communities Act (BSCA) for school-based mental health professionals, which will prepare 14,000 additional mental health professionals to serve America's. And to further help meet the needs of students, the Administration increased investments in full-service community schools fivefold, including providing $253 million to create over 2,000 new full-service community schools that provide critical support to more than 1 million students to meet their physical, mental health, and academic needs.
Importantly, the Administration has invested billions of dollars in Historically Black Colleges and Universities, Tribal Colleges and Universities, and Minority Serving Institutions, such as Hispanic-Serving Institutions and Asian American and Native American Pacific Islander-Serving Institutions, including a record of over $17 billion for Historically Black Colleges and record $15 billion for Hispanic-Serving Institutions. The Administration also provided over $5 billion for American colleges, universities, nonprofits, and community organizations to increase college access and success for students from low-income backgrounds, first-generation students, and students with disabilities.
Finally, President Biden and Vice President Harris have expanded pathways to good-paying jobs – particularly those that do not require a four-year degree, growing Registered Apprenticeship opportunities and programs at community and technical colleges that connect growing sectors like clean energy, manufacturing, and infrastructure.
Advancing Women's Health Research and Innovation
The President issued an Executive Order that directed the most comprehensive set of executive actions ever taken to advance research on women's health, ensuring that women's health is integrated and prioritized across the federal research portfolio and budget and galvanizing new research on a wide range of topics, including women's midlife health. Agency members of the White House Initiative on Women's Health Research have collectively committed to more than 100 short- and long-term actions that will advance women's health research. This includes the launch of a new NIH-wide effort that will direct key investments of $200 million in Fiscal Year 2025 to fund new, interdisciplinary women's health research and the Advanced Research Projects Agency for Health Sprint for Women's Health, which committed $100 million towards transformative research and development in women's health.
During the President's State of the Union address, the President called on Congress to make a bold, transformative investment of $12 billion for women's health research. This investment would be used to create a Fund for Women's Health Research at the National Institutes of Health (NIH) to advance a cutting-edge, interdisciplinary research agenda and to establish a new nationwide network of research centers of excellence and innovation in women's health—which would serve as a national gold standard for women's health research across the lifespan.
Delivering for Diverse Communities
- Accomplishments for Black Americans
President Biden and Vice President Harris have delivered results for Black communities, including cutting child poverty nearly in half in 2021 and lifting 800,000 Black children out of poverty; tackling the Black maternal health crisis by expanding Medicaid postpartum care; increasing Black enrollment in Affordable Care Act coverage by 95%, or over 1.7 million people since 2020; signing an Executive Order that established the White House Initiative on Advancing Educational Equity, Excellence, and Economic Opportunity for Black Americans; investing over $17 billion in Historically Black Colleges and Universities (HBCUs); and creating 2.4 million jobs for Black workers—achieving the lowest Black unemployment rate on record going back more than 50 years.
Under the Biden-Harris Administration, Black Americans are starting new businesses at the fastest rate in three decades, owning more homes and enjoying higher home appraisal values, and attaining increased educational opportunities at record rates—all contributing to a 60% increase in Black wealth compared to before the pandemic.
The Biden-Harris Administration delivered on a Day One commitment to protect civil rights and fight back against systemic injustice. In July 2024, President Biden delivered over $2 billion in financial assistance to over 43,000 farmers, ranchers, and forest landowners— including many Black individuals— who previously experienced discrimination when applying to USDA farm loan programs.
The Biden-Harris Administration has also taken historic steps to support small businesses and entrepreneurship within Black communities, including spending over $10 billion in Federal contracts with Black-owned small businesses in Fiscal Year (FY) 2023; and expanding access to capital that supports business creation and expansion, tripling lending of Small Business Administration-backed loans to Black-owned businesses compared to FY 2020.
- Accomplishments for Latino Americans
Under the Biden-Harris Administration, more Latino communities are achieving the American dream than ever before. President Biden and Vice President Harris have created 5 million jobs for Latino workers; Latino-owned businesses are being created at the fastest rate in over a decade.
In Fiscal Year (FY) 2023, Latino-owned small businesses were awarded more than $10 billion in Federal contracting dollars, and Small Business Administration-backed lending to Latino entrepreneurs has doubled since FY 2020.
The Biden-Harris Administration has worked to further educational equity for Latino students, including signing an Executive Order establishing the White House Initiative on Advancing Educational Equity, Excellence, and Economic Opportunity through Hispanic-Serving Institutions (HSIs) and investing a record of over $15 billion in Hispanic-serving colleges and universities.
This year, the Administration also proposed a rule to expand eligibility for TRIO college access programs to Dreamers and others—allowing up to an estimated 50,000 more students from low-income backgrounds to access TRIO programs and services, and thousands more to attend college.
The Administration has made healthcare more accessible, including by launching a grant program to train medical providers on culturally competent care for individuals with limited English proficiency; launched the National Maternal Mental Health Hotline, in English and Spanish; added Spanish text and chat services to the National 988 Suicide & Crisis Lifeline; and is fighting to expand eligibility for Affordable Care Act coverage to Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals (DACA) recipients—potentially helping more than 100,000 young people gain health insurance. President Biden and Vice President Harris are committed to supporting Latino Americans, both on the mainland and in Puerto Rico. The Administration launched the Puerto Rico Economic Dialogue and delivered more than $140 billion in Federal resources that have driven the island's economic turnaround. Under the Biden-Harris Administration, Puerto Rico has added more than 100,000 new jobs, and the unemployment rate is now at a historic low of six percent compared to the long-term average of over 14 percent.
- Accomplishments for Asian American, Native Hawaiian, and Pacific Islanders
The Biden-Harris made historic investments in Asian American, Native Hawaiian, and Pacific Islander (AA and NHPI) small business growth.
In Fiscal Year 2023, Federal contracting awards to Asian American-owned small businesses totaled more than $20 billion, an increase of $2.7 billion over the previous year.
The Small Business Administration also backed 7,500 loans to AAPI-owned businesses, totaling more than $6.4 billion.
The Biden-Harris Administration has worked to secure the promise of America for AA and NHPI communities—including by issuing an Executive Order establishing the White House Initiative on Asian Americans, Native Hawaiians, and Pacific Islanders and delivering $5 billion in American Rescue Plan funds to AA and NHPI-serving colleges and universities.
In the wake of rising hate-based incidents targeting AA and NHPI communities in 2021, President Biden signed the COVID-19 Hate Crimes Act into law and deployed Federal resources to improve hate crime reporting.
To improve the Federal Government's ability to serve all communities, the Administration revised Federal data standards on race and ethnicity for the first time in 27 years—including updates that will help ensure AA and NHPI individuals can more fully self-identify by specific ethnicity.
The Administration has also strengthened language access, reducing barriers to Federal services for individuals with limited English proficiency and expanding the availability of several Asian languages across government programs.
President Biden and Vice President Harris are committed to preserving Indigenous heritages and lands of Native Hawaiians and Pacific Islanders, including investing $11 million in educational programs for Native language revitalization and the preservation of Indigenous knowledge; expanding affordable housing options to Native Hawaiians, allowing more families to reside on the Hawaiian home lands; and leveraging the full force of the Federal Government and over $1.7 billion in emergency relief funds to support communities recovering from the disastrous Maui wildfires.
- Accomplishments for Indigenous communities
The Biden-Harris Administration has made historic investments in Tribal Nations and Native communities through the American Rescue Plan ($32 billion), the Bipartisan Infrastructure Law ($13 billion), and the Inflation Reduction Act ($700 million).
President Biden also issued Executive Order 14112, which establishes that it is the policy of the United States to design and administer Federal funding and support programs for Tribal Nations in a manner that better recognizes and supports Tribal sovereignty and self-determination.
For the first time ever, the Biden-Harris Administration successfully secured Advance Appropriations for the Indian Health Service (IHS) and the President has requested mandatory funding for IHS moving forward.
President Biden has mobilized an all-of-government approach to supporting the federal trust responsibility and Tribal treaty rights by reconstituting the White House Council on Native American Affairs and the White House Tribal Nations Summit.
In addition, the President has followed through with his commitment to have an Administration that looks like America by appointing the first ever Native American Cabinet Secretary with Department of the Interior Secretary Deb Haaland in addition to over 80 Native Americans in senior administration roles across the Administration.
The President has also reinforced Tribal Consultation by signing two Presidential Memorandums directing federal agencies to submit plans of action to implement meaningful consultation with Tribal Nations and establishing uniform standards for Tribal Consultation.
In addition, the Biden-Harris Administration underscored the Administration's respect for Indigenous Knowledge (IK) by issuing a Presidential Memorandum directing agencies to respect and incorporate IK in federal science policies and by entering into an unprecedented number of co-stewardship agreements among Tribes, Native groups, and Federal Departments for management of federal lands.
Built New Workforce Pathways to Good-Paying Jobs
The President and Vice President have invested over $700 million in Registered Apprenticeship programs, leading to more than 1 million apprentices since they took office. The Biden-Harris Administration has also invested hundreds of millions of dollars in community and technical college programs, including through American Rescue Plan funds and the Strengthening Community Colleges program. First Lady Jill Biden has championed career-connected learning, traveling the country to highlight innovative models and launch the first Career-Connected High School grant program to support evidence-based and promising ways to connect high schools to colleges and careers. She also launched the White House Workforce Hub initiative, an effort to build local partnerships between cities, states, employers, unions, high schools, and community colleges in areas of the country that have received significant federal and private investments. There are now nine Workforce Hubs.
Source:
"The Biden-Harris Record". whitehouse.gov. Retrieved 2024-12-02