Mayor Bill de Blasio said the plan addresses racial and economic inequalities in education, which were exposed and exacerbated during the pandemic. NBC New York’s Adam Harding reports.
New York City will launch a broad savings and education program, including thousands of college scholarships for Black and low-income students, in a move tied to Juneteenth and economic recovery.
Mayor Bill de Blasio said the Juneteenth Economic Justice Plan would include universal "baby bonds" for all city school districts, and 2,800 four-year CUNY scholarships for disadvantaged students.
The mayor said the goal of the program was to build generational wealth, citing the wide disparity in the average net worth of white and Black households.
"The answer is redistribution. The answer is purposeful, focused efforts to right the wrongs," De Blasio said at a news conference Thursday.
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Baby bonds have become a hot-button political issue in particular in the last couple of years, with a number of candidates for office touting their merits.
