Advancing Equity and Racial Justice Through the Federal Government

 “It is therefore the policy of my Administration that the Federal Government should pursue a comprehensive approach to advancing equity for all, including people of color and others who have been historically underserved, marginalized, and adversely affected by persistent poverty and inequality.  Affirmatively advancing equity, civil rights, racial justice, and equal opportunity is the responsibility of the whole of our Government.”

Executive Order 13985

---

On his first day in office, President Biden signed Executive Order 13985, Advancing Racial Equity and Support for Underserved Communities Through the Federal Government. The Order recognized that, although the ideal of equal opportunity is the bedrock of American democracy, entrenched disparities in our laws, public policies, and institutions too often deny equal opportunity to individuals and communities.  The President’s Order emphasized the enormous human costs of systemic racism, persistent poverty, and other disparities, and directed the Federal Government to advance an ambitious, whole-of-government equity agenda that matches the scale of the challenges we face as a country and the opportunities we have to build a more perfect union.

Over the last two years, the Biden-Harris Administration has championed racial equity and advanced equal opportunity for underserved communities through landmark legislation including the American Rescue Plan, Bipartisan Infrastructure Law, CHIPS and Science Act, and Inflation Reduction Act, as well as through historic executive actions. During the President’s first year in office, 90 agencies across the federal government created Equity Action Plans – first-of-their-kind roadmaps to address the barriers and discrimination that underserved communities face. These efforts have advanced the work of building a more equitable nation. Learn more about our progress in implementing the Equity Action Plans launched in 2022.

Yet members of underserved communities — many of whom have endured generations of discrimination and disinvestment — still confront significant barriers to realizing the full promise of America. The federal government has a responsibility to make every effort to remove these barriers.

Advancing equity is not a one-year project – it is a generational commitment that will require sustained leadership and partnership with all communities.  To strengthen the federal government’s equity mandate, on February 16, 2023, President Biden signed a second Executive Order on equity that directs the federal government to continue the work to make the promise of America real for every American, including rural communities, communities of color, Tribal communities, LGBTQI+ individuals, people with disabilities, women and girls, and communities impacted by persistent poverty. This second equity Executive Order requires agencies to designate senior leaders accountable for implementing the equity mandate; directs agencies to produce Equity Action Plans annually and report to the public on their progress; requires agencies to improve the quality, frequency, and accessibility of their community engagement; formalizes the President’s goal of increasing the share of federal contracting dollars awarded to small disadvantaged business by 50 percent by 2025; directs agencies to spur economic growth in rural areas and advance more equitable urban development; instructs agencies to consider bolstering the capacity of their civil rights offices and focusing their efforts on emerging threats like algorithmic discrimination in automated technology; directs the White House Office of Management and Budget to support agencies’ Equity Action Plans and invest in underserved communities each year through the formulation of the President’s budget; and further promotes data equity and transparency.

The Biden-Harris Administration has a far-reaching equity agenda, which also includes implementing the first-ever national strategy on gender equity and equality; working to ensure the federal government is a model for diversity, equity, inclusion, and accessibility in the workforce; delivering environmental justice through the Justice40 Initiative; and advancing LGBTQI+ civil rights. These commitments also reflect attention to the reality that some individuals experience discrimination based on multiple factors and are particularly underserved.

The Administration remains committed to deepening the partnership between government and communities impacted by discrimination to deliver more equitable outcomes across our nation.

Embedding equity in the everyday business of government

Agency Equity Action Plans include innovative new strategies that agencies are using for the first time to embed equity in day-to-day governing.

Delivering equity in the Biden-Harris Administration

The Biden-Harris Administration’s commitment to equity has delivered concrete results for communities that have often been underserved by the federal government:

Cut poverty by historic rates

• Brought child poverty to its lowest level on record in 2021 – with record low Black and Hispanic child poverty, through the expansion of the Child Tax Credit.
• Provided summer meals to over 30 million kids, 10 times more than the less than 3 million children who got summer meals in 2019.
• Increased the value of Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP) benefits by over $36 per person, per month through updates to the USDA’s Thrift Food Plan. 
• Nearly tripled the valued of the Earned Income Tax Credit (EITC) for 17 million workers without dependent children from $540 to $1,500, providing a lifeline to front-line workers, including cashiers and retail salespeople, cooks and food prep workers, and childcare workers.

Delivered an equitable response to the COVID-19 pandemic

• Created the COVID-19 Health Equity Task Force and invested in their recommendations to prioritize an equitable recovery from COVID-19.
• Achieved equitable rates of vaccination across communities of color.

Ensured an inclusive economic recovery

• Signed and implemented the American Rescue Plan, legislation that has powered historic jobs recovery, delivered 170 million Economic Impact Payments to 85% of all Americans, expanded rent relief for millions of households, and got people back to work. Released a historic assessment of how the federal government’s economic recovery efforts impacted underserved communities by releasing the American Rescue Plan Equity Report, reviewing the outcomes of 32 different American Rescue Plan programs that represent nearly $900 billion or 60 percent of American Rescue Plan. 
• Released $260 million to eliminate administrative barriers that disproportionately prevent workers of color from completing benefit applications, like accessing unemployment insurance. 
• Provided Restaurant Revitalization Funds to support over 72,000 restaurants owned by women and people of color.
• Made Emergency Rental Assistance payments to over 4 million renters, 80% of whom make below 30% of area median income.
• Oversaw the largest calendar year drop in Hispanic Unemployment on record.
• Invested $500 million in workforce training partnerships across 31 states and Puerto Rico to help secure high-quality jobs that include good pay, benefits, and career mobility for an expected 50,000 Americans, prioritizing workers from underserved communities in urban and rural areas.
• Invested nearly $100 million in grants to help minority and other underserved entrepreneurs seeking capital to grow and scale their businesses. 
• Provided $3.1 billion in funding to distressed USDA farm loan borrowers and $2.2 billion in assistance to farmers who have experienced discrimination in USDA’s farm lending programs, under the Inflation Reduction Act.

Signed historic legislation to address the climate crisis and lower costs for working families

• Signed the Inflation Reduction Act to deliver on the promise to build an economy that works for working families, and communities that have been on the frontline of climate change. The Inflation Reduction Act lowers costs, advances environmental justice while building a cleaner future, and grows the economy from the bottom up and the middle out by creating good-paying, union jobs across the country. The Inflation Reduction Act will:
  • Lower health care costs, including prescription drug costs, and expand health insurance coverage – advancing health equity and access for low-income and underserved communities. The law caps the amount that Medicare beneficiaries pay for prescription drugs at $2,000 per year and caps the amount that seniors will have to pay for insulin at $35 for a month’s supply. The law also lowers health insurance premiums and expands health care coverage, disproportionately helping communities of color who are more likely to be uninsured. 
  • Take the most aggressive action on climate and clean energy in American history by making it more affordable for families to purchase energy efficient appliances, and protecting communities of color who are more likely to be impacted by pollution and environmental hazards.
  • Create Environmental Justice Block Grants, a dedicated program to tackle pollution in port communities – where air pollution is especially dense and deadly.
  • Advance transportation equity and resilience with a new Neighborhood Access and Equity Grant program to improve walkability, safety, and affordability, including projects to protect against extreme heat, flooding, and other impacts.
  • Expand urban forestry programs with tree-planting projects that help cool neighborhoods, with a priority for projects that benefit underserved communities.
  • Lower the deficit and ask the ultra-wealthy and corporations to pay their fair share. 
  • Ensure that no one earning under $400,000 per year will pay a penny more in taxes. 

Delivered equitable infrastructure investments

• Signed and implemented the Bipartisan Infrastructure Law providing an historic opportunity to advance equitable outcomes in underserved communities, and making long overdue investments in communities of color, rural communities, and persistent poverty communities that have faced decades of disinvestment and harmful investments in infrastructure. The Bipartisan Infrastructure Law will:
  • Bring clean drinking water to the 10 million American households that still face lead pipe exposure.
  • Close the digital divide by connecting the 30 million Americans who live in areas where there is no broadband or high-speed internet.
  • Invest $21 billion to address the legacy of pollution that harms the health of disadvantaged communities.
  • Invest $92 billion to repair and modernize our public transportation systems – which communities or color are twice as likely to rely upon to get to work.
  • Fund a new $1 billion program to reconnect communities harmed by previous infrastructure investments, like communities of color that were further segregated by federal highway construction.
  • Create millions of good-paying, union jobs, expanding employment opportunities for underserved communities, and addressing the barriers that workers of color, women, and people with disabilities face in accessing jobs in high growth trades industries.
• Invested nearly $1.9 billion in underserved rural communities for projects such as expanding access to housing and water infrastructure in FY22. 
• Launched the Rural Partners Network, an all-of-government program led by the U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA) to transform the way federal agencies partner with rural places to create economic opportunity. The RPN helps rural communities find resources and funding to create jobs, build infrastructure, and support long-term economic stability on their own terms. The RPN has expanded and now includes 36 community networks across 11 states and Puerto Rico. 
• Launched the Thriving Communities Network, a multi-agency program to support underserved communities access federal support and technical assistance to take transformative infrastructure projects from concept to completion. The Network provides place-based technical assistance and capacity-building resources to urban, rural, and Tribal communities experiencing a history of economic distress and systemic disinvestment. This effort includes resources to help disadvantaged communities with grant and financial management, pre-development assistance, community engagement, planning, and project delivery support.
• Targeted the deployment of federal place-based technical assistance and capacity-building resources, through the Thriving Communities Network, to urban, rural, and Tribal communities with a history of economic distress and systemic disinvestment. Resources will support financial management, community engagement, planning, and delivery of infrastructure and equitable development projects.
• Launched a new Voluntary Community-Driven Relocation program to assist Tribal communities severely impacted by climate-related environmental threats, leveraging the Bipartisan Infrastructure Law and Inflation Reduction Act to commit $115 million for 11 severely impacted Tribes to advance relocation efforts and adaptation planning.

Expanded opportunities for small disadvantaged business 

• Set a government-wide goal to increase the share of federal contracting dollars awarded to small disadvantaged businesses, including minority-owned businesses, by 50% by 2025 and thereby investing $100 million in such businesses to help close the racial wealth gap. The first two years of the Biden-Harris Administration have marked record performance in terms of share of contracting dollars reaching small disadvantaged businesses. 
• Announced reforms to the federal procurement process to help meet the President’s ambitious target and deliver new opportunities for small disadvantaged businesses, including minority-owned businesses.

Addressed discrimination in the housing market

• On June 2, 2021, the 100^th anniversary of the Tulsa Race Massacre, launched the interagency Task Force on Property Appraisal and Valuation Equity (PAVE) to address inequity in home appraisals. On March 23, 2022, the Task Force published the PAVE Action Plan, the most wide-ranging set of reforms ever put forward to advance equity in the home appraisal process. The Administration is implementing the action plan to make the appraisal industry more accountable, empower homeowners and homebuyers, and help ensure that every American to have a chance to build generational wealth through homeownership. 
• Signed a Presidential Memorandum directing HUD to  redress the Federal Government’s history of discriminatory housing policies and practices.
• Proposed a new “Affirmatively Furthering Fair Housing” rule that aims to remedy the long history of discrimination and patterns of segregation and proposes mechanisms that would provide greater accountability and transparency to ensure that underserved communities have equitable access to affordable housing opportunities.

Defended the sacred right to vote and civil rights

• Took all-of-government action to promote voting access and to further the ability of all eligible Americans to participate in democracy.
• Called for Congress to pass comprehensive voting reform, including essential steps to restore the Voting Rights Act, even if it takes ending the Senate filibuster to get it done.
• Protected our democracy by signing the bipartisan Electoral Reform Count Act into law, which establishes clear guidelines for our system of certifying and counting electoral votes for President and Vice President,  to preserve the will of the people and to protect against the type of attempts to overturn our elections that led to the January 6 insurrection.

Advanced health equity and access to affordable health care

• Expanded access to zero-premium and low-premium health insurance plans for uninsured disadvantaged communities and increased enrollment in quality, affordable health coverage, including 16.3 million people who signed up for insurance through the ACA Marketplaces.
• Implemented policies to reduce unacceptably high maternal mortality rates among Black and Native American women.
• Secured, for the first time in history, advance appropriations for the Indian Health Service, which will ensure a more predictable funding stream and improve health outcomes across Indian Country.
• Launched a new national strategy for expanding access to mental health care which will address the disproportionate burden of mental illness in communities of color and other low-income communities.

Advanced climate justice

• Launched the Justice40 Initiative to ensure that federal agencies deliver 40% of the overall benefits of climate, clean energy, affordable and sustainable housing, clean water, and other investments to disadvantaged communities.
• Launched the Climate and Economic Justice Screening Tool, which measures burdens such as legacy pollution and projected climate risk and has identified 27,251 geographically-defined disadvantaged communities across the U.S. that can benefit from the Justice40 Initiative.
• Deployed funding through the Weatherization Assistance Program to help low-income households ensure that their homes are dry, clean, and safe, and that their energy bills are more affordable.
• Launched new programs to maximize the benefits of climate and clean energy investments directed to disadvantaged communities.
• Helped underserved communities that are often most vulnerable to the impacts of climate change fund hazard mitigation needs for a more resilient future.
• Launched new funds to replace the nation’s existing fleet of school buses with clean and zero-emission buses, ensuring cleaner and healthier air for children and families.

Advanced public safety and criminal justice reform

• Signed and is implementing a historic Executive Order in May 2022 to advance police reform and build public trust and public safety. The order requires federal law enforcement agencies to ban chokeholds, adopt stricter use-of-force policies, greatly restrict no-knock warrants, implement body-worn cameras, provide de-escalation and anti-racial profiling training, establish a national database of officer misconduct records, enhance use-of-force data reporting, ban the transfer of certain military equipment to local law enforcement, improve officer recruitment and retention, and more. 
• Cracked down on profiteering by signing and implementing the Private Prisons Executive Order, resulting in over 8,000 people in federal custody being moved out of privately operated facilities to date. 
• Secured the first dedicated federal funding for community violence intervention (CVI) programs in history—$100 million in each of FY22 and FY23—through the Bipartisan Safer Communities Act and appropriations.  CVI programs have been shown to reduce violence by up to 60%.
• Signed an Executive Order to improve public safety and criminal justice for Native Americans, and address the crisis of missing and murdered Indigenous people.
• Directed $1 billion in supplemental funding for domestic violence and sexual assault services, including $49.5 million for culturally-specific community-based organizations that help survivors from historically underserved communities access the services and support they need. 
• The President took bold action to address our failed approach to marijuana. The criminalization of marijuana possession has upended too many lives—for conduct that is now legal in many states. While white, Black, and brown people use marijuana at similar rates, Black and brown people are disproportionately arrested, prosecuted and convicted for it. In October 2022, the President announced a full, unconditional, and categorical pardon for prior federal and D.C. offenses of simple possession of marijuana. This pardon lifts barriers to housing, employment, and educational opportunities for thousands of people with those prior convictions. The President also called on every state governor to follow his lead, as most marijuana prosecutions take place at the state and local level. And because this Administration is guided by science and evidence, he called on the Department of Health and Human Services and the Department of Justice to expeditiously review how marijuana is scheduled under federal law.

Fought for gender equity and LGBTQI+ rights

• Released an ambitious gender equity agenda in the first-ever National Strategy on Gender Equity and Equality, which outlines an approach to advance gender equity and equality at home and abroad with attention to compounded  burdens that some individuals and communities experience.  The strategy’s government-wide implementation is underway, as each federal agency develops an action plan to execute on key priorities.
• Took historic actions to advance LGBTQI+ equality, including signing the Respect for Marriage Act, expanding non-discrimination protections for LGBTQI+ people in housing, healthcare, education, and the criminal justice system, restoring open service for transgender service members in the military, and addressing the crisis of anti-transgender discrimination and fatal violence, taking on the discredited practice of so-called “conversion therapy”, and strengthening the federal government’s collection of data on LGBTQI+ communities and the barriers they face.
• Proposed new rules to strengthen Title IX’s protections for students against sexual harassment, misconduct, and assault to ensure that all students, including women, girls, and LGBTQI+ students, can access equal educational opportunity.  

Promoted education excellence and equality

• Provided $130 billion to help schools safely reopen and stay open, address learning loss and support student mental health, with $122 billion in funds distributed according to states’ and districts’ Title I share, benefitting high-poverty communities. This funding is being used to help schools safely operate, and implement high-quality summer learning and enrichment programs, hire nurses and counselors, support the vaccination of students and staff, and invest in other measures to take care of students.
• Implemented a first-of-its-kind maintenance of equity requirement to ensure that high-poverty school districts and schools are protected from funding cuts.
• Delivered $5.8 billion in cumulative investment for Historically Black Colleges and Universities (HBCUs) and increased the maximum value of Pell Grants by $400, helping 75% of students in HBCUs, Minority-Serving Institutions, and Tribal Colleges and Universities afford their education.
• Signed Executive Orders on advancing educational equity, excellence, and economic opportunity for Black, Hispanic, and Native students.
• Working to provides student loan debt relief to low- and middle-income borrowers to make sure financial harms related to the pandemic don’t leave borrowers worse off with respect to their loans. President Biden’s one-time debt relief plan provides up to $20,000 in debt relief to Pell Grant recipients with loans held by the Department of Education, and up to $10,000 in debt relief to non-Pell Grant recipients. Borrowers are eligible for this relief if their individual income is less than $125,000 ($250,000 for married couples). More than 70% of Black undergraduate borrowers are Pell Grant recipients and Black borrowers are twice as likely to have received Pell Grants compared to their white peers. No one in the top 5% of incomes will benefit from this action. By targeting relief to borrowers with the highest economic need, the Administration’s actions are likely to help narrow the racial wealth gap. While litigation is currently preventing the Administration from providing this debt relief, the Administration remains confident that the program is legal. 
• Proposing an income-driven repayment plan that will cut monthly payments in half for undergraduate student loans and caps monthly payments for undergraduate loans at 5% of a borrower’s discretionary income—half of the rate that borrowers must pay now under most existing plans. This means that the average annual student loan payment will be lowered by more than $1,000 for both current and future borrowers.
• Approved a total of $48 billion in student loan relief to date to nearly 2 million student loan borrowers who were defrauded by their colleges, enrolled in a college that abruptly closed, are permanently disabled and unable to work, and borrowers who serve our country through government or non-profit work. Achieved the largest increase to Pell Grants – increasing the maximum award by $900 over the last two years – to ensure students have more money in their pockets to pay for college and expanded access to Pell Grants for incarcerated individuals. 
• Launched a Science Mission Directorate Bridge Program to foster partnerships between the agency and HBCUs, Minority-Serving Institutions (MSIs), Tribal Colleges and Universities (TCUs), community colleges, and very high research-intensive universities.

Addressed hate-fueled violence and hate crimes

• Directed all commanding officers and supervisors in the Department of Defense to conduct a “stand-down” to discuss extremism in the ranks with their personnel.
• Embraced the protection of civil rights and civil liberties as a national security imperative, releasing the first-ever National Strategy for Countering Domestic Terrorism.
• Signed COVID-19 Hate Crimes Act into law, committing to stop the increase in violence against Asian American communities.
• Hosted the historic United We Stand Summit at the White House. Established the White House Initiative on Hate-Motivated Violence to strengthen interagency coordination, leverage federal research and resources, and enhance engagement in preventing and responding to hate-motivated violence, as well as initiated the mobilization of over $1 billion in new investments to increase support for programs that build bridges among Americans of different backgrounds to foster unity. Established an interagency group with more than 20 agencies to counter antisemitism, Islamophobia, and related forms of bias and discrimination. The interagency group’s first order of business is to develop a national strategy to counter antisemitism. 
• Issued new guidance aimed at raising awareness of hate crimes during the COVID-19 pandemic and the rise in incidents targeting the Asian American, Native Hawaiian, and Pacific Islander communities. 

Ensured our nation’s public servants look like America

• Appointed a historically diverse Cabinet, including achieving gender parity among the President’s Secretaries, confirming the most Latino Secretaries ever, and confirming the first openly LGBQTQI+ Cabinet Member, first Native American Secretary, and first Black Secretary of Defense.
• Hired appointees that look like America – more than half of all Biden appointees are women, and half identify as people of color.
• Nominated historically diverse judges, and confirmed the first Black woman in American history to serve as a Justice of the Supreme Court – Judge Ketanji Brown Jackson. In his first two years in office, 65% of President Biden’s judicial nominees were people of color, and 67% were women. In fact, President Biden has confirmed more African American women as circuit court judges than all other previous presidents combined. During his first two years in office, President Biden saw 21 Latino federal judges and 17 Asian American, Native Hawaiian, and Pacific Islander federal judges confirmed. President Biden also saw confirmed the first Muslim American federal judge in our country’s history, and the first two openly LGBTQI+ women ever to serve as federal circuit court judges. President Biden has confirmed more federal circuit court judges with experience as public defenders than all prior presidents combined.
• Signed an Executive Order to advance diversity, equity, inclusion, and accessibility in the federal workforce, ensuring public servants at all levels have equal opportunity to succeed and thrive.

Enhanced engagement with communities that have been historically excluded from decision-making processes.

• Hosted the second White House Tribal Nations Summit in November 2022 to help foster Nation-to-Nation relationships and provide Tribal leaders with an opportunity to engage directly with senior Administration officials. The President signed a new Presidential Memorandum on Uniform Standards for Tribal Consultation, establishing uniform standards to be implemented across all federal agencies regarding how Tribal consultations are conducted. 
• Established new advisory committees at agencies to better engage impacted Americans and equity experts in shaping federal policy. 
• Incorporated Community Benefits Plans requirements into funding opportunities that require applicants to include a description of stakeholder engagement activities and detailed plans to deliver Justice40 benefits to disadvantaged communities, to contract and partner with underrepresented groups, and to create high-quality jobs.

In Photos