VOTE JAKE YOUNG

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I’m a fifth-generation Chippewa Township native, a Blackhawk High School graduate,  now a resident of New Brighton.  Beaver County isn’t simply where I’m running for office.  It’s home, and my family’s roots here go back generations to 1864.
 

I was educated at the University of Pittsburgh, Penn State, Denison University and Pittsburgh Filmmakers, while my working life has taken me through a remarkably varied collection of jobs. I’ve worked as a steelworker, sales rep/territory manager, postal worker, Membership & Development Director for the Greater Pittsburgh Chamber of Commerce, and political campaign director.  Today, I work for the YMCA of Greater Pittsburgh.
 

I also spent years helping care for both of my parents as they lived with Alzheimer’s disease. That experience taught me something no policy paper ever could about the enormous responsibilities families assume when someone they love becomes elderly, sick or unable to care for themselves.

All of those experiences have helped shape my politics.
 

Politically, I’m an FDR–New Deal Democrat.

For me, being a Democrat isn’t simply a party affiliation.  It means believing that government can—and should—be a powerful force for making people’s lives better.
That’s the Democratic tradition I identify with.
 

Franklin Roosevelt and the New Deal gave America Social Security, stronger protections for workers, the minimum wage and a new understanding that economic security for ordinary people is a legitimate responsibility of our government.
 

The generations of Democrats who followed continued building on that foundation.

Democrats championed the GI Bill and helped build the great American middle class.  We gave America’s seniors Medicare and created Medicaid.  We enacted landmark civil-rights and voting-rights protections.  We strengthened workplace safety, consumer protections and environmental protections.  We expanded access to health insurance through the Affordable Care Act and made enormous investments in America’s infrastructure, manufacturing and clean-energy future.

These weren’t abstract political accomplishments.

They made people’s lives better.

They helped people retire with dignity.

They helped working families earn a decent living.

They helped seniors see a doctor without facing financial ruin.

They opened college and homeownership to millions of Americans.

They made our workplaces safer, our air cleaner and our water healthier.

They expanded opportunity and helped make the promise of American democracy available to more Americans.

That is a political tradition worth celebrating—and continuing.
 

What government does matters.

I reject the idea that government is inherently the problem.  Government is simply one of the tools Americans have created to accomplish together what individuals cannot always accomplish alone.
 

The real question isn’t whether government should do things.

The question is:  Who does our government work for?  Does it work primarily for billionaires, giant corporations and powerful special interests?

Or does it work for the steelworker, the teacher, the nurse, the small-business owner, the retiree, the family trying to buy its first home, and the parents wondering how they’re going to afford child care, health care or college?

I know which side I’m on.
 

I believe working people should be able to earn enough to build a good life.  I believe health care should be available to everyone, not treated as a privilege determined by income or employment. I believe Social Security and Medicare are promises to be protected, not programs to be dismantled.  I believe strong public schools, infrastructure, organized labor, consumer protections and responsible environmental stewardship make both our economy and our communities stronger.

And I believe we should have the ambition to create the next generation of great Democratic accomplishments rather than merely defending the achievements of the last one.
 
The next chapter:
 

The Democrats of Roosevelt’s generation didn’t inherit Social Security.  They created it.

The Democrats of Lyndon Johnson’s generation didn’t inherit Medicare.  They created it.
 

Previous generations looked at enormous problems confronting ordinary Americans and decided that government had both the ability and the responsibility to do something about them.

Our generation should have the same ambition.

We should be asking what we can accomplish now that Americans 50 or 100 years from today will consider indispensable.
 

How do we finally guarantee affordable health care?

How do we make housing affordable again?

How do we provide long-term care without bankrupting families?

How do we build the energy infrastructure we’ll need for the next century?

How do we rebuild communities like those throughout Beaver County that helped create America’s industrial prosperity?

And how do we make sure that economic growth rewards the people who actually do the work?

Those are the kinds of questions that interest me.
 

I’m running for the Pennsylvania House of Representatives because I believe politics should ultimately be about accomplishing things that improve people’s lives.

That’s what Democrats have done at our best for generations.

I’m proud of that history.

And I want to help write its next chapter.