Democrats have fought to achieve universal health care for a century. We are proud to be the party of Medicare, Medicaid, and the Affordable Care Act. Because of the Obama-Biden Administration and the Affordable Care Act, more than 100 million Americans with pre-existing conditions, from heart disease to asthma, are secure in the knowledge that insurance companies can no longer discriminate against them. Women can no longer be charged more than men just because of their gender. And more Americans are able to get health coverage than ever before.

 Democrats will keep up the fight until all Americans can access secure, affordable, high-quality health insurance—because as Democrats, we fundamentally believe health care is a right for all, not a privilege for the few.

Protecting Women’s Rights

Democrats will fight to guarantee equal rights for women, including by ratifying the Equal Rights Amendment and at long last enshrining gender equality in the U.S. Constitution. We will take aggressive action to end pay inequality, including by increasing penalties against companies that discriminate against women and passing the Paycheck Fairness Act. Democrats are committed to ending sexual assault, domestic abuse, and other violence against women, including the epidemics of violence against Native American women and transgender women of color.

Like the majority of Americans, Democrats believe every woman should be able to access high-quality reproductive health care services, including safe and legal abortion. We oppose and will fight to overturn federal and state laws that create barriers to women’s reproductive health and rights, including by repealing the Hyde Amendment and protecting and codifying the right to reproductive freedom. And Democrats will take action to protect the rights of pregnant women in the workplace, including by requiring employers to make reasonable accommodations for pregnant and breastfeeding workers and those who have recently given birth and at last joining other advanced economies by enacting paid sick days and universal paid family and medical leave.

Education is fundamental to the idea of America and to fulfilling our nation’s promise. It is the key to addressing the challenges before us—to growing our economy, maintaining American competitiveness on the world stage, and building a more just, equitable, civically engaged, and socially conscientious nation. As Democrats, we believe that education is a critical public good—not a commodity—and that it is the government’s responsibility to ensure that every child, everywhere, is able to receive a world-class education that enables them to lead meaningful lives, no matter their race, sex, sexual orientation, gender identity, national origin, religion, disability status, language status, immigration or citizenship status, household income or ZIP code.

President Biden will take swift action to tackle the climate crisis. To meet the demands of science, the President is mobilizing a whole-of-government effort to reduce climate pollution in every sector of the economy and increase resilience to climate impacts. The Biden Administration will create good-paying, union jobs to build a modern and sustainable infrastructure, deliver an equitable clean energy future, and put the United States on a path to achieve net-zero emissions, economy-wide, by no later than 2050.

President Biden will take bold steps to address the inequities in our economy and provide relief to those who are struggling during the COVID-19 pandemic. The President will also work with Congress to pass the American Rescue Plan to change the course of the pandemic, build a bridge towards economic recovery, and invest in racial justice. And, he will build our economy back better from the pandemic and create millions of jobs by strengthening small businesses and investing in the jobs of the future. 

Protecting LGBTQ+ Rights

President Biden will reform our long-broken and chaotic immigration system. President Biden’s strategy is centered on the basic premise that our country is safer, stronger, and more prosperous with a fair and orderly immigration system that welcomes immigrants, keeps families together, and allows people across the country—both newly arrived immigrants and people who have lived here for generations—to more fully contribute to our country. 

President Biden will reform our long-broken and chaotic immigration system. President Biden’s strategy is centered on the basic premise that our country is safer, stronger, and more prosperous with a fair and orderly immigration system that welcomes immigrants, keeps families together, and allows people across the country—both newly arrived immigrants and people who have lived here for generations—to more fully contribute to our country. 

President Biden issued an executive order requiring federal contractors to pay a $15 minimum wage to hundreds of thousands of workers who are working on federal contracts. These workers are critical to the functioning of the federal government: from cleaning professionals and maintenance workers who ensure federal employees have safe and clean places to work, to nursing assistants who care for the nation’s veterans, to cafeteria and other food service workers who ensure military members have healthy and nutritious food to eat, to laborers who build and repair federal infrastructure.

This executive order:

Increases the hourly minimum wage for federal contractors to $15. Starting January 30, 2022 all agencies will need to incorporate a $15 minimum wage in new contract solicitations, and by March 30, 2022, all agencies will need to implement the minimum wage into new contracts.  Agencies must also implement the higher wage into existing contracts when the parties exercise their option to extend such contracts, which often occurs annually.

Continue to index the minimum wage to an inflation measure so that every year after 2022 it will be automatically adjusted to reflect changes in the cost of living.

Eliminate the tipped minimum wage for federal contractors by 2024. Federal statute allows employers of tipped workers to pay a sub-minimum wage as long as their tips bring their wage up to the level of the minimum wage. The Obama-Biden executive order raised the wages for tipped workers, but didn’t completely phaseout the subminimum wage for these workers. This executive order finishes that work and ensures tipped employees working on federal contracts will earn the same minimum wage as other employees on federal contracts.

Ensure a $15 minimum wage for federal contract workers with disabilities. To ensure equity, similar to the Obama-Biden minimum wage executive order for federal contractors, this executive order extends the required $15 minimum wage to federal contract workers with disabilities.

Restore minimum wage protections to outfitters and guides operating on federal lands by revoking President Trump’s executive order 13838 “Exemption From Executive Order 13658 for Recreational Services on Federal Lands.”

This order will build on the Obama-Biden Executive Order 13658, issued in February 2014, requiring federal contractors to pay employees working on with federal contracts $10.10 per hour, subsequently indexed to inflation. The minimum wage for workers performing work on covered federal contracts is currently $10.95 per hour and tipped minimum wage is $7.65 per hour.  

In recognition of National Kinship Month, the Biden-Harris Administration is building on this progress and releasing three landmark regulations to strengthen services and supports for children and families in the child welfare system. Specifically, the regulations will:

Support kinship caregivers – family members and loved ones who step forward to care for a child in foster care – by making it easier for them to access resources and financial assistance.

Protect LGBTQI+ youth in foster care from abuse and mistreatment and ensure they have the services they need to thrive.

Expand access to legal services for children and families at risk of entering or in the child welfare system.

Taken together, this landmark package of new rules, issued by the Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) Administration for Children and Families, will advance equity in the child welfare system and have a profound impact on the safety and wellbeing of families across the country.