As the Biden administration embarks on its first 100 days, multiple urgent national crises demand its attention and action. By Inauguration Day, the unchecked COVID-19 pandemic had infected over 25 million people in the U.S. and taken the lives of more than 400,000.
In addition to the heavy toll on human health, the pandemic continues to roil the economy: on January 21st the nation marked 44 straight weeks of total initial Unemployment Insurance claims that outstripped the worst week of the Great Recession. The country has also increasingly felt the effects of a climate crisis that, in the span of just a few months, saw historic wildfires sweep across the West and a record-breaking hurricane season on the Atlantic Coast. The legacy and perpetuation of systemic racism—a crisis that has long manifested itself in racial segregation and racial and ethnic disparities in lifetime health and economic outcomes—has also meant that these calamitous trends have disproportionately impacted Black, Indigenous, and Hispanic or Latinx people and communities.