Affordable Healthcare, Education and Housing

When work has dignity, everyone can afford quality healthcare, education and housing. But as wages have remained flat, the cost of these essentials has gone up.

• Healthcare is a right, and no family should have to rely on a GoFundMe page to afford a needed surgery or nursing home care. We made tremendous progress with the Affordable Care Act, but we still have a long way to go before we achieve universal coverage and affordable healthcare for everyone. Too many healthcare policies are designed to benefit pharmaceutical corporations and insurance company CEOs, not workers and families.
• A quality higher education can open the doors to economic opportunity. But hard work can’t pay off when workers are drowning in college debt. Student debt has surpassed $1.5 trillion dollars – Americans owe more money in educational debt than they do on credit cards and auto loans. We must take steps to relieve student debt and reign in the high cost of higher education.
• Every person should have access to safe, affordable housing where they live, work, and send their kids to school. But right now, nearly one-third of U.S. households are overburdened by housing costs. Home prices and rents are rising faster than incomes, shrinking the money left over each month for food, prescriptions, saving for a down payment, or paying for a child’s education. Seven of the 10 fastest-growing occupations in the U.S. do not even pay enough to afford a modest, one-bedroom apartment. And too many face homelessness or the threat of eviction. We must take steps to improve access to affordable housing. And we must combat housing discrimination, as well as historic patterns of segregation and community disinvestment that have created vast disparities within cities and towns.