As people of moral conscience we must come together and support a policy agenda that centers the needs of poor and low-income people. We know that in order to heal this nation we must lift up moral policy solutions that will benefit everybody. This is a reconstruction and restoration agenda that, when implemented, can repair and transform the lives of people of every race, ethnicity, age, sexual and gender orientation, who have been suffering unjustly, for far too long.

Inequality has cost us all too much and has hurt too many in this country and in New York State. The health, healing and well-being of both the state and the nation depends on concretely and expeditiously addressing policy-based systemic racism, poverty, ecological devastation and the denial of health care, militarism and the false narratives of religious and white nationalism.

On behalf of the 8.6 million (and growing) poor and low-income people in New York, the NY State Poor People’s Campaign: A National Call for Moral Revival insists that the following policies from the Poor People’s Jubilee Platform take precedence in the governor and legislature’s 2021 Legislative Agenda.

The policy priorities include:

1. Enact comprehensive and just COVID-19 relief that provides free testing, treatment, vaccines and direct payments to the poor.

2. Guarantee quality health care for all, regardless of immigration status or any pre-existing conditions. Reverse cuts to Medicaid, fully fund public hospitals and other public health infrastructure, and pass the NY Health Act.[1]

3. Raise the minimum wage to $15/hour immediately for all workers, including tipped workers, then annually until it reaches a true housing wage (estimated at $32/hour in 2020 [2] for New York). Guarantee the right to form and join unions to all workers.

4. Update the poverty measure to accurately reflect current conditions of poverty and economic insecurity. The new measure must take into account race, age, familial status, ability, geography and sexual orientation and establish a new basis for eligibility, appropriations and allocations of resources.

5. Guarantee quality and affordable housing for all by passing the legislation recommended by Housing Justice For All [3]. Expand social and public housing. Stop all foreclosures and evictions immediately; enact a rent freeze; and cancel rent and mortgage payments that cannot be paid. Move the burden of proof off of renters and households that are in crisis to the entities with financial interests that have the most resources and are at the least risk in this moment.

6. Replace public subsidizing of private businesses [4] with a jobs program to build up investments in infrastructure, public institutions, climate resilience, energy efficiency and socially beneficial industries and jobs in poor and low-income communities. Ensure that this expanded infrastructure is publicly held for the common good, rather than corporate and private profit.

7. Protect and expand voting rights and civil rights, including giving currently and formerly incarcerated New Yorkers the right to vote, making Election Day a holiday, enacting police and criminal justice reform based on the demands of grassroots organizations and communities, including this Campaign, who are most egregiously impacted by police violence, mass incarceration and abuses of police power.

8. Guarantee safe, quality and equitable public education, with supports for protection against re-segregation. Increase public education funding at all levels, especially for poor and low-income students and communities. Fully fund the Campaign for Fiscal Equity [5] and the SUNY and CUNY systems.

9. Comprehensive and just immigration reform. Make immigrants eligible for all public welfare and social programs. Establish the Fund for Excluded Workers [6].

10. Ensure all of the rights of indigenous peoples. Protect the rights and sovereignty of First Nations and Native Americans, including the free expression of religion, sacred lands and practices. This includes respecting the monuments erected by the Shinnecock on their land and ceasing all threats and penalties against them.

11. Enact fair taxes and targeted tax credits by supporting the bills included in the Invest In Our New York package [7].

12. Revoke the expanded executive powers given to the governor in 2020.

13. Redirect the bloated Police and Prison Budgets towards these priorities. Pursue decarceration, including through passing the Fair and Timely [8] and Elder Parole [9] Acts.

Now is the time to center the needs of those impacted by poverty and demand a policy agenda that benefits everybody. The priorities above are Constitutionally consistent, morally defensible and economically sane. They come out of the lives, struggles, agency and insights of the 8.6 million and their moral, economic and legal allies. They embody a politics of love, justice and truth that can defeat the politics of death, heal the nation and bring us down the path towards genuine democracy.

[1] https://www.nyhcampaign.org/learn
[2] https://reports.nlihc.org/sites/default/files/oor/OOR_BOOK_2020.pdf
[3] https://www.housingjusticeforall.org/our-platform
[4] https://www.wgrz.com/article/news/local/new-york/new-york-state-comptroller-issues-report-on-empire-state-development-on-handling-projects-like-buffalo-billion/71-fec56aa7-0403-44e2-9b02-04c38a9fc178
[5] https://www.aqeny.org/equity/
[6] https://fundexcludedworkers.org/
[7] https://investinourny.org/
[8] https://www.fwd.us/news/fwd-us-applauds-state-senate-action-on-the-fair-and-timely-parole-bill-urges-passage-of-the-overdue-reform/
[9] https://rappcampaign.com/community-demands-nys-pass-elder-parole-no-exclusions/