Presumptive Democratic presidential nominee Joe Biden released a broad new policy Monday aimed at black voters to reduce racial and wealth gaps.
According to NBC News, Biden’s plans include opening a new public credit reporting agency that will compete with Equifax Inc, Experian Plc, and TransUnion to minimize racial disparities in lending.
“Today’s credit reports, which are issued by just three large private companies, are rife with problems: they often contain errors, they leave many ‘credit invisible’ due to the sources used to generate a credit score, and they contribute to racial disparities, widening the African American homeownership gap,” Biden’s campaign said in a statement.
Biden also unveiled a new tax credit for first-time homeowners allocating $900 million over eight years to finance the program. The plan would also expand the Small Business Administration’s efforts to lend money to African American-owned businesses.
African American voters were paramount to Biden winning southern states in the primaries. However, late last month, Biden backtracked on his commitment to choose a black woman as his vice president.
A Biden campaign official said the campaign is still introducing more relevant policies on environmental issues and other areas of concern to progressives and black voters in coming weeks.
Biden, who recently received the endorsements of Elizabeth Warren and Bernie Sanders, is also trying to appeal to their supporters. Last month the former vice president called for widespread student loan forgiveness for those making less than $125,000.
The forgiveness would apply to tuition-related expenses for public colleges and universities as well as private institutions primarily serving minority populations.
“I would finance this new student debt proposal by repealing the high-income ‘excess business losses’ tax cut in the CARES Act,” Biden wrote. “That tax cut overwhelmingly benefits the richest Americans and is unnecessary for addressing the current COVID-19 economic relief efforts.”
Biden also released a plan last month to lower the minimum age to qualify for Medicare from 65 to 60.
