- The DC Council unanimously passed a resolution calling on Biden to cancel student debt.
- The resolution said cancelling debt will help close the racial wealth gap in the country.
- Civil rights leaders have recently criticized Biden for excluding debt cancellation in his budget.
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As Democrats in Congress continue to pressure President Joe Biden to cancel $50,000 in student debt per borrower, cities are also joining in on the fight to relieve 43 million borrowers of a $1.7 trillion student debt burden.
Washington, DC can now be added to the list.
On Wednesday, the DC Council unanimously passed a resolution calling on Biden to cancel student debt, following similar resolutions passed by the cities of Cambridge, Boston, and Philadelphia earlier in the year. The resolution noted that the student loan crisis impacts nearly one in five Americans, with DC residents having the nation's highest amount of average student loan debt at $55,400 per borrower, with the debt burden disproportionately falling on borrowers of color.
"Student debt is a contradiction in terms," DC Councilmember Janeese Lewis George in a statement. "Students should not have to accrue debt to be educated, and education should be a public good."
She continued: "The student debt crisis hits communities of color, women, and low-income families hardest. That is true both in the District and across the United States. We call on the federal government to act on its authority to cancel student debt."
The resolution highlighted four key benefits to cancelling student debt:
- It will present an economic opportunity for DC to increase spending, support residents' wealth-building, and provide a "deeply needed stimulus" during the pandemic;
- It will considerably advance equitable and more accessible higher education for residents;
- It will improve a range of health outcomes by alleviating debt-associated stress;
- And it will address the racial and gender wage and wealth gaps.
Advocates have argued that a key way to close the racial wealth gap in the country is by cancelling student debt. On Tuesday, the president of the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP), Derrick Johnson, said Biden's failure to include student debt cancellation in his recent budget proposal is a missed opportunity.
"Student loan debt continues to suppress the economic prosperity of Black Americans across the nation," Johnson said in a statement. "You cannot begin to address the racial wealth gap without addressing the student loan debt crisis. You just can't address one without the other. Plain and simple."
This followed 36 civil rights organizations, including the NAACP, calling on Biden in April to cancel $50,000 in student debt per person to close the racial and wealth disparities in the country.
The organizations noted that upon graduation, Black borrowers typically owe 50% more than white borrowers in student debt, and after four years, Black borrowers owe 100% more. Canceling $50,000 per borrower would eliminate student debt for 75% of all federal borrowers, including full cancellation for 85% of Black borrowers and 96% of Latino borrowers in the lowest income quintile.
Meanwhile, Democratic lawmakers are pushing for Biden to cancel $50,000 in student debt immediately using executive action - something the president has asked the Education and Justice Departments to review despite Democrats being adamant he has the authority to do so.
"A lot of young people would open up new small businesses in empty storefronts if they weren't weighed down by tens of thousands of dollars in student debt," Massachusetts Sen. Elizabeth Warren wrote on Twitter on Thursday. "We need President Biden to #CancelStudentDebt to release more entrepreneurship and boost our whole economy."