General Discussion

From Day One, President Biden has pushed to do more. He fought to include a
comprehensive paid leave program in legislation that ultimately became the Inflation
Reduction Act. He instructed federal agencies to expand access to paid and unpaid leave for
federal employees. He expanded the Military Parental Leave Program, so all active-duty,
new-parent servicemembers can take 12 weeks. And his budget includes the strongest paid
leave proposals in history, permanently funding the national paid leave plan that America
needs.

That plan will create America’s first, full, national paid family and medical leave program,
guaranteeing every American worker up to 12 weeks of paid time off to care for a new child
or loved one to recover from an illness, in cases of domestic violence, or military
deployment. It will help families care for one another, and it will help businesses retain
valuable talent and small businesses to compete. Millions more parents will be able to work,
and it will add hundreds of billions to our economy. Democrats have pushed for this for
decades. It’s past time that America caught up with the rest of the world.

The Administration is expanding job training partnerships that connect high schools, local
businesses, and labor unions to prepare students for good jobs in high-skill, high-wage, and
in-demand industries. It’ll make trade school and community college free for every
American. And it’s making record investments in registered apprenticeships – which already
train more than one million Americans a year across industries, including cutting-edge
industries. Some 90 percent of them stay on as full hires, earning an average starting salary
of $80,000 a year. That’s a path to the middle class that families can count on.

A majority of college students graduate with student debt. It can be an overwhelming stress,
as snowballing interest follows folks for decades, defining the choices they make and the
jobs they take, and holding back our entire economy. Although Republican appointees on
the Supreme Court blocked the President's initial student debt relief plan for 40 million
borrowers, he has not stopped using every available tool to provide relief. His Administration
already approved the cancellation of $167 billion in loans for nearly 5 million borrowers,
including nearly a million public servants like teachers, nurses, and police; and it has outlined
plans to deliver relief to 30 million borrowers in all. Meanwhile, its new SAVE plan is the most
affordable student-loan repayment plan in history, helping 8 million Americans – including
more than 4.5 million who now have a $0 monthly payment. These savings will transform
lives, freeing people to buy a house, to start a family, or to launch a business with new hope.

For young people just heading to college now, we’ve already secured the largest increase in
Pell Grants in a decade, and we’ll further expand these grants to 7 million more students, and
double the maximum award by 2029. We’ve invested a record $16 billion in Historically Black
Colleges and Universities (HBCUs); and we’re working to subsidize tuition at all Minority
Serving Institutions for anyone whose family earns less than $125,000 a year.