From rhetoric criticizing “woke” policies to efforts to ban diversity initiatives on college campuses, “the narrative Republicans are giving voters is that Democrats are educated elites in college that doesn’t represent the rest of America,” Lacy said. “They try to portray people who go to college and come out with student loans as a privilege and that everyone is paying off the loans.”
That’s a message Republican presidential candidates are getting, too. Senator Tim Scott of South Carolina said in his presidential campaign announcement on Monday that Biden “wants to pay waitresses and mechanics for the student loans of lawyers and doctors who make six figures.”
While some doctors and lawyers earning more than $100,000 would qualify for loan cancellation under the plan, the Penn Wharton Budget Model estimates that about two-thirds of the benefits would accrue to households earning $88,000 or much less, according to FactCheck.org, a nonpartisan project. at the Annenberg Public Policy Center. The White House says 90 percent of the loan assistance will go to those earning less than $75,000 per year.
Democrats say the working class is hurting
House Democrats say the GOP’s effort to derail Biden’s debt relief plan will disproportionately harm women, Black, Latino and first-generation college students, as well as working-class voters. that works the GOP is looking for.
Twelve percent of people ages 18-29 say student loan debt and college affordability are among their top three issues in 2022, according to a survey by the Center for Information and Research on Civic Learning and Engagement at Tufts University. Among Black respondents, the number is nearly 1 in 4.
