Victories…
● Improved affordability and accessibility to quality early childhood education through major new investments in the RI Child Care Assistance Program (CCAP). Rates for programs that serve low-income children will increase (up to 33% for infants and toddlers and 21% for preschoolers). Low-income families will be able to access higher quality programs and programs will be able to invest in staff wages.
● Made safer roads and protected over 3,000 Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals (DACA) recipients in Rhode Island by allowing them to apply for, and receive driver's licenses in our state regardless of what happens to the program at the federal level.
● Empowered seniors and persons living with disabilities by launching an independent provider model of home care for Medicaid recipients allowing them to make informed choices as to who will provide care and in what setting they will receive it. This will also enable professional home care providers to secure the training and compensation they deserve for high-quality care.
● Protected Rhode Island’s Medicaid beneficiaries against proposed co-payments and cuts to retroactive coverage.
Ongoing Work...
● End discriminatory housing practices that allow landlords to refuse to rent to individuals/families in the Housing Choice Voucher Program (known as “Section 8”). While the Source of Income bill passed the Senate, it did not make it out of the house Judiciary Committee. However, much work was done to educate legislators on the bill and many say they approve of such policy.
● Guarantee equal pay regardless of gender, race, and sexuality. This year's Fair Pay Act would have made it illegal to pay workers less than their white male colleagues while doing comparable work, banned policies preventing workers from discussing their pay with each other, required companies to disclose salary ranges, and more. While the original bill passed the Senate, the version reworked by the House weakened many of these protections and reverted back to an old 1950s “equal work” standard instead of the “comparable work” standard.
● Raise the minimum wage to $15/hour to help working families. This bill was held for further study in both House and Senate Finance Committees.
● Improve paid family Leave by increasing time off from four to six weeks, including siblings and grandparents and improving benefits to lower wage workers. This bill was held for further study in both House and Senate Finance Committees.