Joe Biden had better deliver on his promise to help with student loans – or the voters will make him pay | Arwa Mahdawi

Just like Kier Starmer's Labour, Biden's Democrats need to stop taking young people's support for granted. It's not enough to say that they're better than the competition

Donald Trump started it. In March 2020 the former president froze federal student loan repayments as an emergency pandemic measure. Since then the payment pause has been extended eight times by two administrations. More than 40 million Americans haven't had to pay a penny on their federal student loans for three years, and there was hope that the extensions would keep coming. Those hopes were dashed last week, however, when the White House confirmed that the pandemic emergency was over and payments will resume later this year.

So when is D-day? Bear with me here, because the US government doesn't like making things simple. Payments are to resume 60 days after 30 June or, if it comes first, 60 days after the supreme court issues its ruling on whether or not president Joe Biden is allowed to follow through on his campaign promise of forgiving up to $20,000 of student loans for millions of borrowers.