VICE PRESIDENT HARRIS’ OPPORTUNITY AGENDA WILL DELIVER FOR LATINO MEN

Vice President Harris will build an Opportunity Economy where everyone—including Latino men—has the opportunity to not just get by, but get ahead. Her policy agenda will equip Latino men with more tools and opportunities to reach their aspirations and provide for themselves and their families.

As President, she will fight to lower costs for Latino men and their families, and she will support them in attaining the American dream of homeownership, starting their own businesses, and more.

Today, Vice President Harris is outlining how her policy agenda will tap into the ambition and potential of Latino men, and invest in their success and future. She will:

1. 1. Help Latino men and other entrepreneurs startup and expand small businesses with no interest loans or deferred loan repayments, as well as provide $20,000 in forgivable loans to Latino and other entrepreneurs who have a good idea but do not have the capital or connections to get it off the ground.
   2. Foster additional opportunities for the economic success and well-being of Latino men by supporting new training opportunities like registered apprenticeships and pre-apprenticeships, removing unnecessary degree requirements, investing in veterans readiness and employment programs, allowing construction workers and registered apprentices to write off the expenses of tools and equipment, and cutting red tape—helping 2 million workers get good-paying jobs and get ahead in their careers.
   3. More than double the number of first-time Latino homeowners each year, to nearly 600,000.

Vice President Harris knows that too many Latino men are struggling to cover the cost of food, gas, and housing, leaving little room for emergency expenses or for building wealth. That is why she has a plan to lower costs for Latino men and help ensure the wealthiest Americans and the largest corporations pay their fair share:

• Revitalizing competition in food and groceries and enacting the first-ever federal ban on corporate price-gouging on food and groceries—benefitting Latino families, who spend more on groceries than other demographic groups. 
   
• Lowering rent. Vice President Harris has a comprehensive housing plan that will lower rents for millions of Americans, including Latino renters. Her plan will lower rents by building 3 million additional housing units in her first term. And she will go after price-fixing schemes that raise housing costs for Latino men and their families and end unfair practices that help large corporate landlords dramatically raise rents.
  
  
• Protecting the 1 in 5 Latino Americans with preexisting conditions—like diabetes, hypertension, and cancer—and ensuring they can keep access to affordable health care by strengthening the Affordable Care Act.
  
  
• Keeping health insurance premiums down so that Latino men and their families can see a doctor and get treated without breaking the bank.
  
  
• Expanding the Child Tax Credit for 18 million Latino children. Vice President Harris will support Latino men who are working to provide for themselves and their families by expanding the Child Tax Credit to provide up to $3,600 per child and $6,000 in the first year of a child’s life when new parents need to purchase cribs, diapers, clothes, car seats and other essentials. In 2021, the expanded Child Tax Credit helped working families with 18 million Latino children and cut Latino child poverty nearly in half.
  
  
• Lowering child care costs for families by thousands of dollars and expanding access to high-quality child care options.
  
  
• Expanding the Earned Income Tax Credit for 3 million Latino workers—including many young Latino men. When this policy was previously enacted in the American Rescue Plan, for which the Vice President cast the tie-breaking vote, it provided up to $1,500 to 2.9 million Latino workers.
  
  
• Helping Latino men provide care for their aging parents and grandparents. More than one-third of Latino families have a family caregiver and Latino men spend about 38% of their yearly income on caregiving expenses. Vice President Harris will help Latino men with caregiving needs by, for the first time ever, covering the cost of home care services through Medicare so seniors can get care they need while staying in their homes.
  
  
• Providing 5.5 million Latino households support for reliable, low-cost internet access, by reenacting the Affordable Connectivity Program. Vice President Harris will reenact this popular program to ensure that Latino men and their families throughout the country are able to connect to the internet and obtain the financial, educational, and employment opportunities that come from reliable internet access.
   
• Increasing access to bank accounts and lending for Latino men. Vice President Harris has spent her career fighting bad actors to ensure that everyone has access to a fair, safe, and stable financial system. As President, Vice President Harris will fight to ensure that Latino men and others currently locked out of the banking system because of high fees and other barriers have access to affordable banking options to save, invest, and build credit. She will crack down on banks that charge hidden fees for basic services, and stand up for Americans who are exploited by predatory lenders by requiring credit reports to exclude bad debt resulting from predatory lending practices.

Since Vice President Harris took office, 5.1 million more Latinos have jobs—this is 3.1 million more Latino workers who have jobs than before the pandemic. Latino unemployment saw its fastest one-year drop under Harris and reached the lowest rate over a two-year period in history. As President, she will make sure that Latino men have the resources and investments needed to succeed, including through new efforts to expand registered apprenticeships and opportunities for good-paying jobs for Latinos without a college degree. Vice President Harris will:

• Create opportunities for 2 million workers—including Latino men—to move up and get good-paying jobs in skilled trades and emerging industries. The Vice President’s ambitious housing construction goals, her American Forward strategies to invest in manufacturing and critical industries of the future, and implementation of the Bipartisan Infrastructure Act, CHIPS and Science Act, and Inflation Reduction Act will create good-paying jobs. She wants to ensure that these jobs are filled by diverse workforces—including Latino men—in the communities they are designed to benefit. She will ensure that all workers have every opportunity to move up, get ahead, take home larger paychecks and be able to start their own businesses if they choose. She will:
  
  

• • Invest in high-quality sector-based training programs, a proven model, that lead to good jobs in all 50 states through partnerships among businesses, unions and worker centers, community colleges, Hispanic-Serving Institutions, trusted organizations such as UnidosUS, and faith-based groups. These partnerships can provide pathways to high-demand jobs that offer opportunities for career advancement—like those in finance, health care, advanced manufacturing, the electrician trade, and tech jobs—through high-quality training, while also providing needed services like child care and transportation to help workers fully participate and successfully complete their training. Her administration will directly fund, incentivize, and support these partnerships, as well as launch a job opportunity innovation fund for local government leaders to enable their own communities to meet the job demands created by major investments like the Vice President’s initiatives to incentivize the private sector to build 3 million affordable homes and bolster the nation’s industrial strength in critical industries of the future.
    
    

• • Double registered apprenticeships and fund other high-quality workforce training programs. In particular, Vice President Harris will set a goal to double the number of registered apprenticeships in America—which provide quality training in high-demand industries with a clear pathway to good-paying jobs for Latino men, from the trades like electricians, clean energy, advanced manufacturing, cybersecurity, health care, other STEM fields, teaching, and commercial driving. She will incentivize the use of registered apprentices to fill the jobs created by  her new investments like American Forward tax credits, significantly increase funding for pre-apprenticeships leading to registered apprenticeships, and boost other quality on-the-job training programs and labor-management partnerships. And, she will fight for the right to join a union, leading to better training and higher-quality jobs.
    
    

• • Fund programs like small business boot camps, business mentoring and navigators, and support community colleges, to give Latino men and others the tools to start a business or take a more managerial job. Many workers—including Latino men—have the experience, expertise and entrepreneurial energy to start their own business and be their own boss. Yet, some need resources to develop a business plan and get the financing they need. Vice President Harris will support proven small-business boot camp models and industry-community college partnerships that are designed to give aspiring entrepreneurs and small business owners the tools they need to succeed as a small business owner or executive. She will also seek to expand small business navigators that help small business owners learn how to access the financing they need from the Small Business Administration and financial institutions.
    
    
    
  • Expand innovative high school-to-career partnerships in 1,000 high schools to reach hundreds of thousands of students. Across the nation, there is a rise of high school career academies, and innovative partnerships with companies, hospitals and colleges, that allow young people to start working toward a good career while they are in high school—whether through a guaranteed job at a participating employer or through a head start on a college or a technical degree. Students across the country are gaining skills in the technology, health care, and other STEM fields to give them a head start on high-demand jobs. Vice President Harris will provide funding to support the expansion of 1,000 high school partnerships with employers, unions and institutions of higher education to give Latino young men and other high school students a faster and more clear path toward a rewarding career— by opening up access to Advanced Placement courses, dual enrollment, and career-credentialing opportunities.
    
    
  • Cut more red tape to help people find the right training program and get jobs faster, including by:
    
    
    • Eliminating unnecessary degree requirements and promoting meaningful job opportunities and pathways for Latino men without college degrees for 500,000 federal jobs—while encouraging the private sector to do the same.
      
      
    • Reducing unnecessary occupational licensing requirements by providing grants to states to expand multistate licensing agreements to recognize substantially similar credentials, and speed implementation of multi state or universal licensing recognition.
      
      
    • Working to coordinate and consolidate workforce programs which are fragmented across the federal government—65 programs across 15 agencies—to make it easier for Latino men and other workers to identify and take advantage of workforce training opportunities.
      
      
    • Help individuals navigate training programs and careers by investing in expanded career services through the federal workforce system.
      
      
  • Expand bilingual education and adult literacy. Language barriers can diminish economic opportunities for some Latino men and their families, but Vice President Harris knows that bilingualism is a tremendous competitive advantage. That is why she will ensure Latinos can harness these advantages by investing in high-quality bilingual education and English language acquisition programs while also supporting adult literacy programs from early childhood education to adulthood.
    
    
  • Support pathways to college, including by supporting Hispanic-Serving Institutions, which Trump’s Project 2025 agenda will defund, and creating a path to doubling college and career guidance counselors in low-income schools. 
    
    

• Unleash a construction boom across the country. To make sure that Latino men and all communities are sharing in the jobs and economic benefits of the construction boom, Vice President Harris will:
  
  

• • Subsidize construction tools. Vice President Harris will push Congress to pass the bipartisan Tools Tax Deduction Act, so that registered apprentices and construction workers can write off the expense of the tools and equipment—from hand tools to personal protective equipment to stationary power tools—to reduce barriers for young Latino men to enter building trades professions.
    
    

• • Provide America Forward Tax Credits. Vice President Harris will increase the construction boom that is already underway through her “America Forward” tax credits, which will bring new business to the over 70,000 Latino-owned U.S. construction firms across the country as companies build and improve facilities that will power critical industries of the future, like data centers.
    
    

• • Build more, faster. It takes too long and costs too much to build in America. Vice President Harris will be laser focused on accelerating projects and unleashing the full potential of the American construction industry by cutting red tape that slows projects down, including through permitting reform that ensures projects are built quickly and efficiently, reflect public input and public priorities, and protect our environment and public health while taking all steps needed to protect and improve worker safety.
    
    
• Enable Latino men and other workers to profit when company executives profit. Right now, Latino employment rates are near all-time highs, but too many Latino Americans do not have assets, such as stocks or homes, that allow them to build wealth. Vice President Harris will help Latino men own more assets by reforming our tax laws to encourage more employers to participate in employee stock ownership plans, profit-sharing plans, and other similar arrangements that have the necessary guardrails to make sure that participants actually benefit from these policies. Giving low- and moderate-income workers a stake in the business has been shown to close the racial wealth gap and fuel business growth—a win-win proposition.

Although home ownership is a key engine of wealth building in America, less than 50% of Latino households own their homes—a figure that is nearly 25 percentage points lower than white households. As more Latino men and their families strive to break into the ranks of American homeowners, they know that the impacts of homeownership extend well beyond their bank accounts. Studies show that promoting first-generation homeownership is associated with not only building wealth but also improved health and educational outcomes for children in the home. To address this problem, Vice President Harris has proposed an ambitious plan to make it easier for all Americans—including Latinos—to afford a home and obtain the American dream. She will:

• More than double the annual number of new Latino first-time homeowners to nearly 600,000 to expand wealth and security for Latino men and their families. To make this ambitious proposal a reality, Vice President Harris will build 3 million new affordable homes, creating thousands of construction jobs across the county. She will also provide $25,000 in downpayment assistance for first-time homebuyers who lack inherited wealth—lowering the cost of both renting and buying a home for those who have historically been shut out of this market.
  
  
• Lower housing prices by preventing abusive practices by corporate landlords and cracking down on predatory investors. Latino men and their families are not just facing the pressure of a uniquely tight housing market, they are also competing with unrestrained corporate investors who buy up homes in their neighborhoods and jack up prices on homebuyers and renters alike. In fact, some of the housing markets with the most significant investor activity are also the most popular markets for Latino homebuyers and renters, including the Phoenix and Las Vegas metropolitan areas. Vice President Harris will go after price-fixing schemes that raise housing costs and end unfair practices that help large corporate landlords dramatically raise rents.
  
  
• Fight to end racial bias in home appraisals. Research shows that homes in more majority-Latino neighborhoods are more than twice as likely to be appraised below the contract price than those in majority-white neighborhoods, limiting wealth building opportunities for Latino families interested in selling their homes in a strong market. To address these disparities, Vice President Harris took on appraisal bias by ensuring consumers can appeal a low appraisal and by providing greater training and professional development for appraisers. As a result, the rate of difference between Latino and white home values has declined nearly 40%. As President, she will ramp up efforts to root out racial bias in home appraisals to make it easier for Latino men and Latino Americans to build wealth for their families.

Vice President Kamala Harris believes that every Latino family deserves to live in a safe community and knows what it means to prioritize public safety. Through her leadership, violent crime is at a 50-year low and Latino communities across the country are safer today than they were when Donald Trump left office. She will work tirelessly to ensure this success continues, so that no one has to live in fear of gun violence, gangs, or illicit drugs in the places they call home. Through her plan, she will:

• Vice President Harris will crack down on cartels operating in the United States, including the Sinaloa, Gulf, and Juarez cartels. To do so she will create a joint task force to coordinate federal agencies in their critical efforts to find, apprehend, prosecute, and eliminate the cartels with a presence in our communities. This task force will also surge federal resources to local strike forces—led by local U.S. Attorneys’ Offices and FBI field offices—located in the communities most affected.
  
  
• End the police shortage. In the White House, Vice President Harris helped deliver the largest investment in public safety ever, investing $15 billion in supporting local law enforcement and community safety programs across 1,000 cities, towns, and counties. As President, she will work to end the shortage of police officers by hiring 100,000 new police officers across the country and giving existing officers a raise.
  
  
• Combat gun violence. Vice President Harris passed the first major gun safety law in nearly 30 years, which included funding to hire and train over 14,000 school mental health professionals. As head of the first-ever White House Office of Gun Violence Prevention, she spearheaded policies to expand background checks and close the gun show loophole. When elected, she will ban assault weapons and high-capacity magazines—like those used in Uvalde and El Paso— require universal background checks, and support red flag laws that keep guns out of the hands of dangerous people.
  
  
• Invest in proven Community Violence Intervention programs. Vice President Harris will continue to invest millions of dollars in proven Community Violence Intervention programs made available through the Safer Communities Act to support local community-based organizations that are working with law enforcement to reduce violence and crime, empower local communities, and strengthen neighborhood services.