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Earlier today, President Joe Biden released his Fiscal Year (FY) 2022 Discretionary Budget Request – his “skinny budget.” 

The release did not include detailed agency-by-agency budget estimates, which will be sent out in the month of May, but the initial funding targets will allow the FY22 budget process to begin on Capitol Hill.  Congressional appropriators will now start drafting the spending bills for the upcoming fiscal  year starting Oct. 1, 2021. His Budget includes significant increases for programs that align with many of America Forward’s education and workforce priorities including our Education Preparedness Initiative. You can find a press release announcing the Request here.

Please see America Forward’s full statement below, and look out for a more detailed breakdown of key priorities within the Request: 

President Joe Biden’s FY2022 Discretionary Request, which provides Congress with a roadmap of the President’s discretionary budget recommendations, advances potentially transformative investments in our education and workforce systems.

Especially now, as communities across the country work to recover from the COVID-19 pandemic, the priorities outlined by the President would provide critically-needed resources to expand and improve early learning; massively increase funding available to schools through Title I, IDEA, and other K-12 programs, along with an intentional focus on student mental health; support for institutes of higher education, specifically those that focus on communities of color (i.e., HBCUs, TCCUs, MSIs) and community colleges; provide the largest increase in Pell Grant awards in more than a decade; deepen support for national service; provide billions more for effective workforce programs that help prepare workers, connect them with jobs, and strengthen local economies; and much more.

Many of President Biden’s recommendations directly reflect priorities that America Forward has fought for – and that will meaningfully benefit the more than one hundred innovative, community-serving organizations across the country that make up the America Forward Coalition.

Helping communities recover from COVID-19 and building more equitable education and workforce systems in the long run requires bold investments that allow for innovation, measurement, and the expansion of best practices that lead to better outcomes for students, workers, and families. The President’s Discretionary Request represents just such a bold investment.

As Congress begins its work to develop the FY2022 budget, we urge lawmakers to keep in mind the unprecedented challenges of the past year, and maintain these vital, historic investments in our education and workforce systems.