SIGN THE PETITION:
Demand Joe Biden forgive student loan debt!

Goal: 10,000 Signatures

On the campaign trail, candidate Joe Biden promised to forgive $10,000 of student loan debt – but President Joe Biden still hasn’t delivered on this campaign promise. Admittedly, he has temporarily paused student loan payments and stopped interest from accruing for the majority of this year – but until he forgives their loans, 45 million Americans are still trapped under a blanket of student loan debt. Just because it’s not smothering them today doesn’t mean it won’t tomorrow.

Those 45 million Americans currently owe more than $1.7 trillion, and many of them are struggling – all because they thought they’d be able to keep up with paying back their student loans and be on strong economic footing. But the truth is, the wages of college graduates have not kept pace with the rising cost of tuition – not by a long shot. 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 each year, which might have helped with all that student debt.

Civic Action, along with progressive leaders like Sen. Elizabeth Warren, is doing everything we can to hold our leaders accountable and force them to prioritize people over corporate profit. Just recently, Sen. Warren, chair of the Subcommittee on Economic Policy at the Senate Banking, Housing, and Urban Affairs Committee, hosted her first hearing. And what issue did she think was worth devoting the subcommittee’s very first hearing to? You got it, she devoted it to student loan forgiveness. Sen. Warren called on President Biden to forgive student loan debt up to $50,000, which would entirely eliminate the debt of the vast majority of Americans who are currently paying off student loans.

Student loan forgiveness is not, like trickle-downers would have you believe, a handout. It is a direct investment in everyday Americans and the middle class that would jumpstart our economy. Those Americans who are no longer paying $600 monthly checks to the government will now be able to get their cars fixed, buy houses, and pump the money that used to go to paying off the interest on student loans back into their local communities and businesses. The money they spend at local businesses will allow those businesses to hire more people, who will then spend their extra money investing in the same community. This is how we invest in our country’s future and boost our economy from the middle class outward. Contrary to what trickle-downers want you to believe, this is a simple way to help our economy and strengthen our communities.

For too long, trickle-downers have dominated our society, our economy, and our government. 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 suddenly, when we talk about helping everyday people, the rampant spending comes to a screeching halt. Too often, our elected leaders avoid direct aid to citizens even though, unlike the corporate handouts they give out time and time again, investing in our own people would actually help our economy.

It’s beyond time to invest in the millions of Americans who are struggling with student loan debt – and our president has shown he’s open to the idea. But he’s going to have rich, powerful lobbyists and special interests trying to convince him to stick with the status quo and continue prioritizing corporate profits over people – so we need to keep pushing. Please, let the Biden administration know that this is important to you by signing our petition:

SIGN THE PETITION:
Demand Joe Biden forgive student loan debt!

Goal: 10,000 Signatures