In the early days of his administration, President Joe Biden has spoken at length about the need to unify the country, attempting to bring together conservative members of Congress as well as those who may not have voted for him in the election.
But has the President’s unifying message succeeded so far?
“We are recovering from a very deep economic crisis,” said Dr. Manuel Pastor, Head of the Equity Research Institute and a Professor of Sociology at the University of Southern California. “And I think that his promise to ‘build back better’ is the kind of thing that can maybe bring people together.”
But Pastor said that the challenge lies in the fact that COVID-19 brought out some more complicated issues in the U.S., not only a struggling economy and lowered employment opportunities, but also a racial wealth gap.
“These economic and racial divides need to be addressed for the country to recover,” Pastor said. “And so Biden has a very difficult task of trying to both center equity, which means delivering resources to those communities that have been left behind and kept behind, and at the same time paint a broad vision and create a broad tent that includes everyone.”
Dr. Pastor said that the demographic distress that the U.S. as a whole is under is something that Californians have been familiar with in the past, which he said makes him hopeful for the change ahead in the future.
“If you recall the 1980s and the 1990s, there were times of economic distress and also times of trying to blame that economic distress on immigrants,” Pastor said. “Proposition 187 seeking to strip services away from undocumented residents in the state - got rid of bilingual education in the state, affirmative action, passed the Three Strikes Law.”
He added that the demographic change that occurred during that time, fear of other people was driving politics, and that in many ways that same occurrence is happening in the U.S., particularly in the Trump era.
“The nation is slated to become a majority of people of color by the year 2042,” Pastor said. “That’s struck delight in some people’s hearts and minds, thinking ‘gosh, it’ll be just like California.’”
But he said the nation still has far to go to become fully accepting of the changes that are re-sculpting the scope of the nation’s economic outlook, which is a challenge President Biden will have to face in the months ahead.
Dr. Pastor advised that, if President Biden is going to succeed in his promises to the nation, he will have to address the racial wealth gap, and to make sure that women who have been hard hit by economic hardships get childcare assistance and other needs met, so they can get back to their jobs.
Pastor also said that promoting minimum wage and expanding infrastructure spending to improve environmental conditions are key.
“When we do that, we can as a nation acquire a first mover advantage on the technologies that everybody is going to want to buy,” Pastor said.
He said that the second biggest issue that the nation is facing centers on the aging of the nation, how more people are getting older and thus need more care.
“The need for a caring economy, an economy that treasures the old, that understands that people at working age have all sorts of conflict in regards to taking care of their elders and taking care of their kids,” Pastor said. “The caring economy is part of our infrastructure as well. We’re going to need to expand (the number of) home care workers and make sure they’re getting better wages.”
He said companies also would need to provide paid family leave in order for more people to attend to their needs and familial obligations.
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