The Equity Hub is a permanent policy office responsible for ensuring Treasury’s public-facing policies, programs, and practices benefit all Americans. Established in 2022 by the Counselor for Racial Equity, the Equity Hub leads the Department’s efforts in its critical role of making sure all people and parts of society, including those that have been historically excluded or experienced persistent poverty, can fully participate in and benefit from the economy. The Equity Hub is part of the Office of Diversity, Equity, Inclusion, and Accessibility (ODEIA), which reports to the Deputy Secretary.
The Equity Hub is led by Diane Lim, who coordinates and leads efforts across the Department to inform decisions with a focus on equity and works to ensure our programs create opportunity in underserved communities. Michael Sebastiani serves as the Equity Hub’s Deputy Director.
MISSION
The Equity Hub was created in 2022 after the appointment of the first Counselor for Racial Equity, Janis Bowdler. The Hub was tasked with initial goals of standing up the Treasury Advisory Committee on Racial Equity (TACRE) and implementing the first steps of the 2021 Presidential Executive Order on Equity (E.O. 13985). The Equity Hub’s larger mission is to advance economic opportunity through Treasury’s policies and practices so that all Americans can fully participate in the economy.
Treasury understands that underserved communities -- including communities of color, many rural areas and those affected by climate change, and communities still living with the impact and legacy of actions and policies that prevented intergenerational financial security -- face major barriers to reaching their full economic potential. Furthermore, the COVID-19 pandemic exposed and amplified long-standing disparities in health and economic outcomes, causing the pandemic to disproportionately affect people of color and members of underserved communities.
Treasury is working to ensure that families, businesses, and neighborhoods that have been historically excluded from economic opportunities or experienced persistent poverty are fully included in the nation's economic recovery and future growth.
The Equity Hub works alongside Treasury’s Office of Civil Rights and Equal Employment Opportunity (OCRE) and Office of Minority and Women Inclusion (OMWI) to ensure that equality, fairness and diversity are realized for all Department of the Treasury employees and applicants for employment, and with external stakeholders.
Key Programs
Equity Action Plan
Consistent with the 2021 Executive Order 13985 and the subsequent 2023 Executive Order on Further Advancing Racial Equity and Support for Underserved Communities Through the Federal Government (E.O. 14091), Treasury is building the infrastructure necessary to identify barriers to equity and continuously reexamine the Department’s efforts to meaningfully reduce access barriers and strengthen delivery of programs and services to better reach communities of color and historically underserved communities.
Read more about these efforts in Treasury’s Equity Action Plan One Year Report.
Read more about these efforts in Treasury’s 2023 update of the Equity Action Plan
Treasury Advisory Committee on Racial Equity
The Treasury Advisory Committee on Racial Equity convenes to identify, monitor, and review aspects of the domestic economy that have directly and indirectly resulted in unfavorable conditions for Black, Latino, and Indigenous and Native American persons, Asian Americans and Pacific Islanders and other persons of color. The Committee addresses topics including, but not be limited to, financial inclusion, capital access, housing stability, federal government supplier diversity and economic development. The Committee consists of 25 members.