COVID-19 has upended our lives and made us more vulnerable than ever. State and local government officials from across the country are preparing to unleash devastating cuts to education, transit, and public services as tax revenues drop. This wave of austerity will have an outsized impact on Black, Latinx, and Indigenous people who have already borne the brunt of casualties from COVID-19 and past austerity policies. It doesn’t have to be this way: we can avoid austerity and the damage to our communities.

We’ve joined with the Action Center on Race and the Economy to demand that city and state officials fight to reclaim more than $160 billion in loan interest from Wall Street to fund the services our communities need. This would allow our public officials to refinance all of our existing debt into new interest-free loans, freeing up billions for public services.

The Federal Reserve has a long history of making loans on very generous terms to banks and corporations in the private sector. Workers, families, and communities deserve the same generosity. Join us in calling on Chair Powell to put the Federal Reserve to work for the people.