WASHINGTON, D.C. — Today, The Debt Collective officially announces a ‘Pick Up The Pen, Joe’ action in Washington, D.C on April 4th, 2022. The Debt Collective — along with dozens of activist organizations, unions and partners — will rally at the U.S. Department of Education to pressure President Biden to cancel all federal student loan debt through executive order.
Expanding the coalition of support for broad-scale student debt cancelation, The Debt Collective’s Pick Up The Pen, Joe action in Washington, D.C. will be one of student debtors’ strongest showings to date. Debtors and their allies from across the country will gather in Washington to force the Biden administration to take executive action on student debt elimination. Amid looming midterm elections, record high inflation, a deadly pandemic and a two-year pause on federal student loan interest and payments, the mandate for President Biden to keep a key campaign promise to unilaterally eliminate student loans is greater than ever before.
“All President Biden has to do to cancel student debt is sign an executive order,” said Co-Founder of the Debt Collective Astra Taylor. “He made a promise on the campaign trail and debtors are going to make sure he keeps it. Turning student debt payments on in the middle of a public health emergency and an election year would be both cruel and politically suicidal and debtors won’t stand for it.”
“The millions of people with student debt are the people that kept this country from capsizing during the pandemic, said Jason Wozniak, Co-Founder of the Pennsylvania branch of Debt Collective. “Teachers, healthcare workers, farmers, the parents at home with their kids—President Biden owes these pandemic heroes and others immediate and full student debt cancelation.”
Read the dozens of organizations, unions and partners joining the Debt Collective in Washington, D.C. for the ‘Pick Up The Pen, Joe’ Action on April 4th, 2022:
Hip Hop Caucus
Justice Democrats
Working Families Party
Kairos Center for Religions, Rights and Social Justice
Sunrise Movement
NextGen America
Indivisible
Alliance for Youth Action
Americans for Financial Reform
Higher Ed Labor United
Code Pink: Women for Peace
Progressive Democrats of America
RISE
American Association of University Professors
People’s Parity Project
PeoplesHub
MORE UFT, Movement of Rank and File Educators
Committee of Interns and Residents - SEIU
Gallatin Human Rights Initiative
Scholars for a New Deal for Higher Education
Scholars for Black Lives
The New Georgia Project Action Fund
Zero Debt Massachusetts
Lancaster Stand Up
Social Change Fundraising
Maryland Consumer Rights Coalition
NYU-AAUP
CFPB Union NTEU 335
Graduate Student Organizing committee (GSOC)--UAW
Ohio Student Association
Student Workers of Columbia
Georgetown Alliance of Graduate Employees (GAGE)
Metro DC DSA
Towson YDSA
Claudia Jones School for Political Education
PHENOM (Public Higher Education Network of Massachusetts)
UMD AAUP
RSVP to the Pick Up The Pen, Joe Action Here: bit.ly/PickUpThePenJoe
The Debt Collective is a national union for debtors, and a leading activist organization pressuring Biden to abolish all student loan debt. The Debt Collective wrote the executive order that President Biden could sign to immediately eliminate federal student loan debt.
