Trickle-downers have captured our society, which is plain to see when looking at our government’s priorities. We spend billions to subsidize Big Oil’s toxic drilling, hand out cash to billion-dollar corporations, and spend more on our military than the expenditures of the other 10 top-spending countries combined. But when we begin talking about helping everyday people, the rampant spending comes to a screeching halt. Often, our elected leaders avoid direct aid to citizens even though, unlike the corporate handouts they favor, direct aid would actually help our economy.

This time, instead of allocating billions for a small group of wealthy people and corporations, why don’t we invest in everyday people for once? Student loan forgiveness would be a great place to start.

Student loan debt totals more than $1.7 trillion, a figure that is skyrocketing largely because student tuition as a share of total spending at public colleges and universities rose from 24% in 1988 to 46% in 2015.

Paying your way through college may have been more tenable during the ’70s and ’80s, when tuition could be paid back with less than seven weeks of full-time, minimum-wage work. Now, with tuition at public universities averaging $10,230 a year, it would take more than 35 weeks of full-time, minimum-wage work each year to do the same (living costs not included).

Millennials – 24- to 39-year-olds – have racked up a large share of that $1.7 trillion debt because they were told that, if they went to college, they’d be able to get good-paying jobs down the road. However, the wages of college graduates have not kept pace with the rising cost of tuition. Yes, college has made us more productive in our workplaces, but that hasn’t translated into higher wages. In the mid ’70s, worker productivity and wages diverged, and they haven’t come back together since. Had income distributions remained at 1975 levels, the typical American worker would be earning $42,000 more every year, which, you know, would help in paying back our student debt.

But forgiving student debt isn’t just about fairness. It’s also about prosperity. Forgiving even a fraction of student loan debt – if not entirely – would be a HUGE boon to our economy. If students weren't forced to pay $600/month tuition bills to the government, they'd spend the money in their local community. They'd fix their cars, buy more groceries, save for a house – all of which would benefit local businesses, thereby enabling them to hire more people. It’s a giant stimulus investment in everyday people that would immediately boost the economy from the middle class outward.

That’s why we were so excited to hear that Joe Biden is considering forgiving at least $50,000 in student loan debt. But we need to keep pushing him, because he’ll have a lot of lobbyists and special interests encouraging him to continue business as usual – investing in the rich and powerful instead of everyday people. Please, let the Biden administration know that this is important to you by signing our petition: