Wally Adeyemo is the deputy secretary of the U.S. Treasury Division.

Martin Luther King, Jr.’s final speech was given in Memphis, in assist of sanitation staff on strike for safer working circumstances and higher pay. Dr. King acknowledged that financial alternative was inextricably linked to civil rights and had come to Memphis as a part of his broader Poor Individuals’s Marketing campaign for financial justice. His strategy was rooted in a perception that ending racial inequality was unimaginable with out financial fairness and that racism holds again financial progress for everybody.

As we strategy each the second anniversary of the $1.9 trillion American Rescue Plan on Saturday — and the fifty fifth anniversary of Dr. King’s speech, it’s price contemplating why financial fairness is so central to President Joe Biden’s financial technique. It’s a part of an financial agenda that Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen has referred to as “fashionable supply-side economics” — increasing our nation’s financial capability by investing in its human capital, labor provide, public infrastructure, and sustainability — particularly in underserved communities.

The Biden-Harris administration has spent the final two years making precisely these sorts of investments. The historic positive factors our economic system has made over the past two years lend assist to our financial technique of unlocking the unrealized potential of marginalized People to construct an economic system that works for everybody.

When President Biden took workplace, our nation confronted its biggest financial problem in generations. Certainly one of our key goals was to stop financial scarring. That is the long-term, everlasting financial harm from shocks like job loss or eviction that forestalls folks and households absolutely getting again on their ft. It additionally in the end holds again general progress as these affected are prevented from reaching their potential.

This began with insurance policies just like the Advance Little one Tax Credit score, which beneath the Rescue Plan provided month-to-month funds to households and helped elevate 3.5 million kids out of poverty. As well as, actions to stop evictions such because the Emergency Rental Help program, which supplies rental fee assist to households prone to eviction, contributed to the prevention of greater than 1.3 million evictions through the pandemic.

Final yr, I met a girl named Diamond who misplaced her job because of the pandemic — and almost misplaced her residence. However as an alternative, federal eviction-prevention funds saved a roof over her head, allowed her to enroll in coaching for a brand new profession, and helped maintain her daughter in the identical college. This help did greater than stop the worst-case final result — it helped unlock new alternative for Diamond and her daughter.

Increasing our labor pressure is one other space the place efforts to assist communities of coloration and different underserved communities helps to unleash financial positive factors for all People. At this time, employers throughout quite a few industries report that they’re combating a labor scarcity. We’ve got already made nice strides to deliver extra staff into the labor pressure. Besides, giving extra People in communities of coloration and rural areas the flexibility to entry robust employment alternatives would profit all the U.S. economic system by each addressing the labor scarcity and increasing our financial capability.

President Biden’s insurance policies have sought to deal with this problem head-on. Final yr, I visited Orlando, Florida, the place the mayor took me on a tour of a workforce coaching middle funded by the President’s American Rescue Plan. And final month, I visited Spelman School, a traditionally Black school in Atlanta, which can be a recipient of latest Satcher grants that may create alternatives to enter the cybersecurity discipline at HBCUs and minority-serving establishments, serving to to fill a spot of greater than 700,000 unfilled cybersecurity jobs nationwide.

Lastly, the Biden administration is constructing the bodily and digital infrastructure wanted for all People to take part and compete within the twenty first century economic system. There isn’t any higher instance of this than the greater than $75 billion we’re offering to deliver dependable, high-speed web to all People. Increasing entry to high-speed web would be the electrification of the twenty first century, bringing alternative to areas which have lengthy confronted obstacles to full financial participation.

The advantages of this effort can be notably highly effective in underserved communities. In dense city areas, Black households are twice as prone to lack high-speed web as white households. And throughout the nation, not less than 17% of rural People lack entry to fastened broadband, in comparison with 1 p.c of People in city areas. The investments we’re making will shut this hole for good and guarantee all People have the web entry wanted to thrive and compete in right this moment’s economic system.

For too lengthy, racism and discrimination have restricted the flexibility of underserved communities to completely contribute to our civic and financial development. It’s price recalling that Dr. King’s “I Have a Dream” speech was not solely about civil rights; it was delivered as a part of the March on Washington for Jobs and Freedom, which explicitly acknowledged the connection between financial and racial fairness. The one method to make Dr. King’s dream a actuality is to proceed our work constructing an economic system that works for everybody.