San Francisco Chronicle Op-Ed, Feb. 2, 2021: Biden’s ‘Build Back Better’ should include a ‘War on Inequity’

San Francisco Chronicle, Feb. 2, 2021 — In today’s Op-Ed, GLIDE President, and CEO, Karen Hanrahan writes:

As the Biden-Harris administration assumes office, our newly elected leaders will be navigating our country through historic hardship and loss. President Biden announced his immediate priority is to vaccinate Americans against the virus, and he introduced the American Rescue Plan to boost the U.S. economy and provide an immediate easing of economic inequality as the virus rages. Biden has said that economic structural reform depends first on reining in the pandemic, and rightly so.

However, in the longer term, believe me when I say that no lasting recovery from the pandemic is possible without addressing the extreme inequities festering in America. We need a response of epic scale to tackle the deepening inequality tearing at the fabric of our democracy. Like the Marshall Plan and the War on Poverty, we need massive, game-changing approaches to expand economic opportunity, weaken systemic racism, break cycles of poverty — and fortify our democracy.

In decades of work for the United Nations and non-government organizations, and as a State Department official in the Obama administration, I have seen how easy it is for countries to slide from systematic injustice into instability and violent conflict — and how hard it is to pick up the pieces from catastrophe. Poverty is not what fuels conflict and instability; it’s systematic inequality and lack of opportunity. In my work, I witnessed a common thread that causes fragile states to unravel across South Asia, the Middle East, and Africa. Wherever ethnic or racial identity was a determining factor in getting access to economic resources and social power, democracy is vulnerable.

We need a War on Inequity, not only to repair the longstanding cracks in our country’s foundation that the COVID-19 pandemic has deepened to the point of rupture but also to end the inequities that caused these cracks in the first place, with racial justice as the cornerstone. The appalling gaps in sickness, death, and economic losses from the pandemic made it clear — lifelong disparities in health, wealth, educational opportunity, jobs, housing and access to justice are pre-existing conditions for too many communities of color, and in particular, for Black Americans.

Inclusive Economic Growth must be at the center. This concept holds that economic opportunities (not outcomes) have to be distributed fairly to all, including those marginalized because of gender, race, religion, or some combination of factors. These opportunities include equal access to investment, credit, banking, and other financial services, opportunities for business creation, as well as social determinants such as housing, education, and health care. And decades of work around the world supporting inclusive economic growth and equality have taught me that meaningful progress across three pillars will drive progress across other sectors — secure livelihoods, housing security, and education security.

If we leave inclusive growth out of any economic recovery plan, the ditch we are in will grow deeper, and we risk a K-shaped recovery, in which upper-line indicators (such as stock market performance, corporate profits, and white-collar job gains) rise for a relative few, while the lower-line indicators (related to food and housing security, access to health care, and educational and economic opportunities) continue to sink for the rest. A K-shaped recovery means the causes of instability and conflict continue to rise — to the peril of all Americans.

Unlike President Lyndon Johnson’s War on Poverty in the 1960s, a 21st century War on Inequity cannot be a project of the federal government alone. The scale of America’s crisis is so huge, that no government agency, corporation, or nonprofit organization, however well-intentioned, can innovate and deliver solutions at the speed and scale needed. We must instead mount an unprecedented collaboration by the public, private and philanthropic sectors, and incentivize them to work together at the community level, and scale best practices, rather than the top-down, government-knows-best models of the past.

At GLIDE, the social justice organization I lead in San Francisco, the diverging lines of the K-shaped economy already exist within shocking proximity. Each day, in front of our building a few blocks from the high-rise headquarters of Twitter, Salesforce, and Zendesk, thousands line up for free meals, health care, and vouchers for temporary housing. Many of our clients experience homelessness, addiction, and mental health challenges unrelated to the pandemic, although their odds for recovery are made far worse by it. While San Francisco may be one of the first cities to grapple with such stark and visible inequality, we will not be the last.

The ongoing crisis on the streets of San Francisco and other cities around the country shows that without disruptive solutions, the exponential trajectories of homelessness, hunger, and inequity will continue to worsen, no matter how much money we throw at relief in the short term.

Without the courage to wage a War on Inequity, the Biden administration’s slogan “Build Back Better” will remain just that.

The incoming administration has a once-in-a-generation opportunity to crush the racial wealth gap and create real opportunity for all Americans — especially for groups that previous generations left behind. This work will require making some of the pillars of Biden’s American Rescue Plan permanent, such as the expanded tax credits for children and low-income workers, increases in SNAP benefits, and additional funding for health services to underserved populations. It will also require a full embrace of programs that ensure marginalized communities have access to expanded preventative health care, mortgage and rent assistance, small business loans, climate justice, and programs specifically targeting Black and brown unemployment rates.

If we fail to address these issues, our already expansive inequalities will expand, Americans will continue to suffer needlessly, and the U.S. will continue to flounder and fall further behind the industrialized democracies we once led.

Karen J. Hanrahan is president and CEO of GLIDE. She served in the Obama administration as deputy assistant secretary of state for democracy, human rights, and labor and as chief innovation officer at the UK Department for International Development.

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