Audience: African Americans

Americans are worried about “triple threat” of hurricanes, COVID, & climate change. 52% of Black Americans and 49% of Latinos/Latinas say they are more worried about hurricane season this year amidst the pandemic. Half of adults in southeastern coastal states say they are more worried about hurricane season this year and 66% say addressing climate change should be a priority.

In response to the police killings of George Floyd, Ahmaud Arbery, Beronna Taylor, Tony McDade, and too many others, the Lab’s Executive Director, Sean Kosofsky, wrote to the Lab community to share the Lab team’s commitment to Black & Brown Lives.

Frames that include social and economic reforms increase public support for climate change mitigation. Combining increased minimum wage, affordable housing with job guarantees are effective frames, particularly among people of color. Advocates should consider linking climate policy to social and economic reforms. Policy bundling can expand the scope of political discussion and sidestep gridlock. In a series of experiments, the authors find that compared to frames that did not include any economic policy, hypothetical proposals that included a job guarantee, the retraining of fossil fuel workers, or provide unionized clean energy jobs increases support for the bundled policy by 6-14 percentage points.  Importantly: while the increase in support was higher for Democrats, NONE of the economic frames was associated with a decrease in support among Republicans.