Biden will highlight benefits for Latinos in his State of the Union speech

President Joe Biden will refer to Latinos in the United States during his State of the Union address, highlighting the achievements of his Administration to improve the lives of that community, such as reducing the cost of medicines, creating jobs and the expansion of internet access.

One of Biden’s closest advisors, Tom Pérez, of Dominican origin and director of the White House Office of Intergovernmental Affairs, advanced this topic of the speech to the EFE news agency.

Biden’s speech will air Thursday at 9 pm EST from Congress, and can be viewed here.

Biden’s main objective, as Pérez explained, will be to highlight the contrast between his vision in defense of “democracy” and “freedom” and the setback represented by his predecessor, Donald Trump, who is now heading unopposed towards the Republican nomination. in the 2024 elections.

“Joe Biden wants to improve the lives of our community, he wants to make sure that we have a job that pays a living, middle-class wage and that we can access health insurance, that we have access to housing. “Biden wants to make sure we can fulfill the American dream,” Pérez said.

One of the star measures that Biden will highlight will be the limits imposed on the price of insulin, which has now cost $35 a month instead of the between $400 and $600 that patients previously cost.

That measure especially benefits Latinos, who are 70% more likely to be diagnosed with diabetes and 1.3 times more likely to die from the disease than other people, according to 2018 data from the Department of Health.

Another of the achievements that Biden will highlight will be the generation of employment among the Hispanic community, investments to improve the infrastructure of the United States and the expansion of internet access to prevent, for example, parents from being forced to park at a McDonald’s to so your children can do their homework.

According to Pérez, Biden will also defend the “freedom” of women to make decisions about their reproductive health after the revocation in June 2022 of the Roe vs. Wade ruling, which since 1973 protected the right to abortion at the federal level, and which, being annulled, it opened the door for each state to establish its own rules regarding abortion and family planning.

Finally, the president will talk about the defense of “democracy”, one of the main axes of his re-election campaign, in contrast to what he considers Trump’s “authoritarianism”.

The vote of the Hispanic electorate will be especially important for Biden ahead of the November elections.

According to the Pew study center, it is estimated that 36.2 million Hispanics will be able to exercise their right to vote this year, compared to the 32.3 million who exercised it in 2020.

In 2020, the percentage of Latinos who supported Trump was 38%, ten points more than in 2016. Despite this progress, the majority of Hispanic voters (59%) then opted for Joe Biden, according to the Pew center.

Historically, the Hispanic community votes at a lower rate than other demographic groups, so the challenge for Biden is to appeal to the issues of greatest importance to that electorate and thus achieve a massive influx of Hispanics to the polls.