LCLAA Applauds the House’s Passage of the Build Back Better Act and Urges the Senate to Act Swiftly on the Legislation

MEDIA STATEMENT
November 19, 2021

Contact: Pablo Stein
pstein@lclaa.org | (202) 508-6989

WASHINGTON –  LCLAA applauds the House of Representatives passage of the Build Back Better Act and urges the Senate to pass the bill without delay. If enacted, the Build Back Better Act would take monumental steps to deliver affordable childcare, reduce greenhouse gas emissions, expand healthcare coverage, cut taxes for middle class families, and improve our immigration system—all of which would benefit Latino/a workers. It would also reverse grave injustices and provide much needed relief for working Puerto Ricans by allowing them to access federal aid programs from which they were previously excluded, including Supplemental Security Income, the Child Tax Credit (CTC), certain Medicaid programs, and Earned Income Tax Credits.

By extending the CTC for all families, the bill will bring economic stability to Latina working mothers, 60% of whom are main breadwinners for their household. By limiting child care spending to 7% of family income for middle class families, the bill will also ensure Latinas are not overburdened by unpaid care work and will help close the Latina pay gap—one of the widest gender and ethnic pay gaps in the country. The bill will also provide relief to nearly 2.8 million low-wage Latino/a workers without children, helping alleviate the housing, food, and medical insecurity many workers face despite working over 40 hours a week.

Finally, the bill will also invest $100 billion in updating our immigration system, allowing the US to make good on its commitments on asylum processing and limiting the inhumane conditions refugees face upon arriving to the US. Because this provision falls short of creating a path to citizenship for DACA recipients, TPS holders, and DREAMers, however, LCLAA will continue fighting for the comprehensive immigration reform our community needs so that no worker will fear retaliation based on documentation status.

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The Labor Council for Latin American Advancement (LCLAA) is the leading national organization for Latino(a) workers and their families. LCLAA was born in 1973 out of the need to educate, organize and mobilize Latinos in the labor movement and has expanded its influence to organize Latinos in an effort to impact workers’ rights and their influence in the political process. LCLAA represents the interest of more than 2 million Latino workers in the American Federation of Labor-Congress of Industrial Organizations (AFL-CIO), The Change to Win Federation, independent unions and all their affiliate unions. Visit LCLAA on the web at www.lclaa.org, on Facebook, Twitter and Instagram.