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.
A stable and growing economy creates jobs, and this legislation will help ensure that our financial system can never again cause the type of damage that it did to our economy in 2008.
This bill puts in place a financial system that is required to be more accountable and transparent. Financial institutions will bear the full cost of unwinding any failing institution, so under this bill, the Bush-era days of taxpayer-funded bailouts are over.
Throughout the 111th Congress, Republicans have opposed every effort to help Main Street Americans, while supporting those corporate interests that wreaked havoc on Wall Street and unleashed disaster in the Gulf.
The Labor Department reported that the “number of people filing new claims for unemployment insurance fell last week and large-scale layoffs for May hit the lowest level since the earliest days of the recession [April 2008],” both encouraging signs of our economic recovery.
More than a million Americans have lost their unemployment insurance because a minority of obstructionist Republicans has, for the third time, blocked the Senate from extending this vital protection for the middle class.
...delivered remarks this morning on the imperative for solving the nation’s fiscal crisis, the need for bipartisan cooperation on this issue, and how to balance economic recovery with long-term deficit reduction, at a Third Way event at Union Station...
This week, top economists predicted that the economy will continue to recover in the next two years.