MEETING HELD TO DISCUSS JOBS AND JUSTICE ACT OF 2018
Meeting Held To Discuss Jobs And Justice Act of 2018
BY KATHERINE NEWMAN
The Chicago Urban League recently hosted the Jobs and Justice Town Hall to discuss H. R. 5785, a house bill better known as the Jobs and Justice Act of 2018, which was introduced by the Congressional Black Caucus in May. The meeting was held in collaboration with Illinois members of the Congressional Black Caucus who were able to give the community an opportunity to ask questions and get a better understanding of the proposed bill.
“On May 10th of 2018, the Congressional Black Caucus introduced H.R. 5785, the Jobs and Justice Act, a comprehensive bill based on the National Urban League’s Main Street Marshall Plan to address the lack of opportunity and economic equality in America’s urban communities. H.R. 5785, The Jobs and Justice Act of 2018, has several key objectives. One is to invest some $100 billion in public schools for physical and digital infrastructure and two is to eliminate mandatory minimums for federal drug offenses,” said Darryl Dennard, journalist and moderator of the Jobs and Justice Town Hall.
The National Urban League’s Main Street Marshall Plan: From Poverty To Shared Prosperity, was unveiled last year and provides a potential solution to the nation’s persistent social and economic disparities. The plan calls for a $1 trillion investment over five years in areas of education, living wages, urban infrastructure funding, small business financing and minority inclusion, summer youth programs, and an expansion of the social safety net, according to a press release from the Chicago Urban League.
“The Jobs and Justice Act of 2018 is really the legislative vehicle for the National Urban League’s Main Street Marshall Plan which addresses economic and social inequities and injustices in a comprehensive way to improve the lives of all American families,” said Congresswoman Robin Kelly, (D-IL) member of the Congressional Black Caucus. “Our plan really falls into three major buckets that hopefully everyone can support, better jobs, better skills, and better wages.”
As Kelly said, the Jobs and Justice Act of 2018 supports the National Urban League’s Main Street Marshall Plan in many ways by proposing hundreds of billions of dollars in investment in urban communities and people.
H.R. 5785 will not only pave the way for jobs through investment in schools and public infrastructure, but it will also establish a baseline for what justice means and how it can be achieved in urban communities.
“Justice means an end to the indignity to racial profiling in communities and putting money into local resources and not into efforts that seek to incarcerate vulnerable populations but rather, putting money into efforts that uplift those populations. That’s just the baseline on justice,” said Kelly.
The National Urban League’s full report and Main Street Marshall Plan can be found at www.stateofblackamerica.org. To learn more about the Jobs and Justice Act of 2018,visit www.congress.gov/bill/115th-congress/house-bill/5785.
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