LGBTQI+ Organizations Urge Congress to Include Additional Supports like Paid Leave in the White House’s Build Back Better Framework
Washington, D.C.—Today, Family Equality, along with eleven other national LGBTQI+ organizations, sent a statement to Congress asking that they vote to pass a robust, inclusive Build Back Better bill as soon as possible to help our families recover from the economic and health impacts of the COVID-19 pandemic. The letter was drafted by Family Equality, Center for LGBTQ Economic Advancement & Research, CenterLink: The Community of LGBT Centers, Equality California, the Equality Federation, FORGE, Inc., GLSEN, the Hispanic Federation, the Modern Military Association of America, the National LGBTQ Task Force Action Fund, Oasis Legal Services, and Silver State Equality.
LGBTQI+ families and individuals, particularly families and individuals of color, experienced disproportionately higher rates of poverty compared to our non-LGBTQI+ counterparts, even prior to the COVID-19 pandemic. These inequities were compounded by the effects of the pandemic with nearly two-thirds of LGBTQ+ households facing job or wage disruption.
The statement applauds the crucial family and community supports in the Build Back Better framework released today by the White House, including universal preschool, making tax breaks provided to the lowest income families through the child tax credit permanent, affordable high-quality child care, affordable in-home care for the elderly and people with disabilities, rental assistance, expanding health care coverage to millions of low-income and older people, investments in immigration reform, and addressing climate change.
The statement also urges Congress to add urgently needed elements to the bill, including permanent, comprehensive, and inclusive paid family and medical leave; inclusion of immigrant children in the Child Tax Credit; equitable access to all Build Back Better programs by LGBTQI+ people and families, and ensuring workforce development and small business programs serve the most economically marginalized, including transgender people.
“Build Back Better is a once in a generation, transformational effort to ensure everyone in the United States can survive and thrive. It will be critical to ensuring the LGBTQI+ families and community members recover from the COVID-19 pandemic.,” says Stacey Stevenson, CEO of Family Equality. “It’s time to push forward these meaningful solutions, create more economic stability for working families, promote healthcare for all, and address the unique needs of the LGBTQI+ community.”
A copy of the full statement can be found here.
About Family Equality
Family Equality advances legal and lived equality for LGBTQ+ families, and for those who wish to form them, through building community, changing hearts and minds, and driving policy change. Family Equality believes every LGBTQ+ person should have the right and opportunity to form and sustain a loving family, regardless of who they are or where they live. Learn more at familyequality.org.
# # #
Press Contact
Anna Libertin,
Chief Communications Officer/
646-880-3005 ext. 157
communications@familyequality.org