Jobs & the Economy
Throughout the 117th Congress, House Democrats have partnered with President Biden to enact policies that expand economic opportunity for businesses, workers, and communities across America. Under President Biden and Congressional Democrats, the unemployment rate is at its lowest in more than 50 years with more than 10 million jobs created, helping more of our people get ahead in today’s economy and Make It In America.
Democrats pursue an economic agenda that helps American businesses create good-paying jobs and ensure that workers have the tools not only to get by but to get ahead in our global economy. From raising the minimum wage to providing skills training and apprenticeship opportunities to ensuring equal pay for equal work, from making childcare more affordable to making it easier to save for retirement, Democrats’ economic policies are aimed at helping workers and their families attain real economic security at every stage of life.
Democrats have also delivered historic legislation investing in infrastructure and greater access to high-speed internet, taking the lead in the clean-energy economy, and supporting innovation and entrepreneurship. The generational Bipartisan Infrastructure Law has already begun to expand economic opportunity for Americans in communities across the country and takes action to repair our nation’s roads, bridges, ports, and other infrastructure while creating nearly 1.5 million jobs annually over the next decade. It contains the first major American investment in climate resilience to help communities upgrade their critical infrastructure and mitigate the impact of climate change-driven extreme weather. Likewise, the Inflation Reduction Act also advances America’s clean energy goals, turbocharging clean energy research and transmission while promoting electric vehicle domestic manufacturing to reduce American dependence on gasoline while revitalizing our auto industry.
The CHIPS and Science Act includes bipartisan measures to revitalize the domestic semiconductor industry and spur research. By strengthening domestic supply chains, this law acts directly to accelerate American innovation in the long-term while acting immediately to address inflation and create good paying jobs. House Democrats will continue to champion skills training and education at every level – from early childhood learning through higher education – to prepare our people for success and advancement in a changing economy. In all of these efforts, Democrats will continue to look for ways to make access to opportunities more equitable and to combat the lingering effects of legalized discrimination that continue to make it harder for minorities to access credit for loans, seek investment capital for startups, and build wealth to pass on to the next generation.
With historic job creation under President Biden, House Democrats will continue to advance policies that expand economic opportunity for working families, support small businesses, and create better-paying jobs.
Today, Republicans are wasting taxpayers’ time and money by bringing a debt limit extension to the Floor that they intend to defeat. Rather than working with Democrats to ensure America pays its bills and lay out a responsible plan to reduce the deficit, Republicans have put forward this political stunt.
After this week’s stunning electoral upset in Western New York, Republicans have gone into overdrive trying to defend their misguided budget plan to end Medicare as we know it and more than double costs for seniors.
Last night, voters in Western New York sent a clear message that the Republican plan to end Medicare as we know it is the wrong choice. But today, Senate Republicans chose to ignore that message and instead voted for the Republican budget that does not balance and puts insurance company bureaucrats in charge of seniors’ health care – a move that will more than double seniors’ health care costs.
This week, Senate Republicans vote on the Republican budget that makes the wrong choices for how to address our nation’s deficits: it ends Medicare as we know it, raises costs for seniors, and gives tax breaks to the wealthiest Americans.
But though Hoyer called for compromise, he minced no words calling out Republicans for their refusal to support using increases in tax revenue, achieved by tax reform, to help close the deficit gap. He suggested that Republicans still believe that tax cuts are ‘a fiscal and economic cure-all,’ despite the economic growth experienced under higher tax rates during the Clinton administration and the assertions of economists that the Bush administration’s tax policy is a major driver of the national debt.
If the United States fails to pay the bills it has incurred, it ‘would be a financial disaster not only for our country, but for the world economy.’ Those are the words of Speaker Boehner in January...
Families and small businesses have been hurting, and for far too long. Since 1979, the number of manufacturing employees has shrunk from 20 million to 12 million. And in the last decade, that process has accelerated. As a result, America's middle-class families have lost $2,000 in yearly income. And in St. Louis, from 2004 to 2010, the region lost 28 percent of its manufacturing jobs.
Now that the U.S. has reached the debt limit today, it is past time for Republicans to get serious and work with Democrats to ensure our nation pays its bills while laying out a path to reduce the deficit. The longer we wait to take responsible action, the more damaging it is to our economy. I agree with Speaker Boehner’s statement yesterday that an agreement doesn’t ‘have to wait until the eleventh hour.’ Businesses – and the global economy – need certainty that the U.S. will continue to pay its bills. By choosing to hold the economy hostage by risking a default on our nation’s debt, Republicans are endangering our economic recovery. I hope now that we’ve reached the debt limit, and the Treasury has been forced to employ extraordinary measures, Republicans stop putting the economy at risk and work with us to meet our obligations and set forward a serious, balanced approached to deficit reduction.
This week, House Republicans are working to dismantle protections against speculation in the oil markets, which may drive gas prices up for American families. Democrats believe that aggressive oversight of oil speculation is an important part of an energy policy that can bring down gas prices for consumers and ensure that businesses have the fuels they need at a reasonable cost. But Republicans are once again failing to meet the challenge of high gas prices.
After more than four months in the majority, Republicans have made their priorities clear – and it is not the middle class. They have not produced a jobs agenda to get more Americans back to work, they’ve proposed ending Medicare as we know it, they are fighting to protect taxpayer subsidies for oil companies and now they are moving forward on a bill that could take away extended unemployment benefits for over four million Americans. This would harm families as well as our economic recovery.