BOSTON (WHDH) - Rep. Ayanna Pressley and Sen. Elizabeth Warren visited Worcester and Springfield Tuesday to spread the word about the Biden administration’s debt cancellation plan.
The lawmakers started their tour with a visit to Boston and Brockton, then traveled to Worcester and Springfield, all to encourage people to sign up for federal student loan cancellation.
At their first stop at the Grove Hall Branch of the Boston Public Library, Pressley and Warren delivered remarks alongside Boston NAACP President Tanisha Sullivan and former Boston Mayor Kim Janey, before beginning workshops with advocates to help borrowers sign up for cancellation.
They said the goal of the programming was to let eligible people know what their options for debt cancellation are.
“It is an issue for people who have gone to community college. It is an issue for people who have gotten technical degrees. It is an issue for people who have their four-year degree. It is an issue of working people across this nation,” Warren said. “It only works if it moves for all of us who have been talking about this for a long time, right down to every one of the over 800,000 people here in our Commonwealth who are eligible for student loan debt relief.”
Pressley said the cancellation plan addresses real American racial disparities in wealth.
“Black Americans have been locked out of every major federal relief program in this country, from the Homestead Act to the GI Bill, to the New Deal, and of course, disproportionately targeted by redlining,” Pressley said. “Black Americans earn in some instances more income, but we don’t have wealth. And so Black borrowers borrow at higher rates, 85%, that of our white counterparts, and 65%. And then we are five times more likely to default on those loans.”
“And so, when you think about those things that create generational justice, a policy like this student debt relief,” Pressley said, “this is transformative.”
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