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Weekly Address: President Obama – We do better when the middle-class does better

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The President’s Weekly Address post is also an Open News Thread. Feel free to share other news stories in the comments.

 

From the White House – Weekly Address

In this week’s address, the President highlighted that six years after the Great Recession, thanks to the hard work of the American people and the President’s policies, our economy has come back further and faster than any other nation on Earth. With 10.3 million private-sector jobs added over 55 straight months, America’s businesses have extended the longest streak of private-sector job gains on record.

But even with this progress, too many Americans have yet to feel the benefits. The President reiterated the vision he set out earlier this week for steps that can lay a new foundation for stronger growth, rising wages, and expanded economic opportunity for middle-class families.

Transcript: Weekly Address: We Do Better When the Middle Class Does Better

Hi, everybody.  I’m at Millennium Steel in Princeton, Indiana, to have a town hall with workers on National Manufacturing Day.  Because in many ways, manufacturing is the quintessential middle-class job.  And after a decade of losing jobs, American manufacturing is once again adding them – more than 700,000 over the past four and a half years.

In fact, it’s been a bright spot as we keep fighting to recover from the great recession.  Last month, our businesses added 236,000 new jobs.  The unemployment rate fell to under six percent for the first time in more than six years.  Over the past 55 months, our businesses have added 10.3 million new jobs.  That’s the longest uninterrupted stretch of private sector job creation in our history.  And we’re on pace to make 2014 the strongest year of job growth since the 1990s.

This progress has been hard, but it has been steady, and it is real.  It is a direct result of the American people’s drive and determination, and decisions made by my administration.

During the last decade, people thought the decline in American manufacturing was inevitable.  But we chose to invest in American auto industry and American workers. And today, an auto industry that was flatlining six years ago is building and selling new cars at the fastest pace in eight years.  American manufacturing is growing almost twice as fast as the rest of the economy, with new factories opening their doors at the fastest pace in decades.  That’s progress we can be proud of.

What’s also true is that too many families still work too many hours with too little to show for it.  And the much longer and profound erosion of middle-class jobs and incomes isn’t something we’re going to reverse overnight.  But there are ideas we should be putting into place that would grow jobs and wages faster right now.  And one of the best would be to raise the minimum wage.

We’ve actually begun to see some modest wage growth in recent months.  But most folks still haven’t seen a raise in over a decade.  It’s time to stop punishing some of the hardest-working Americans.  It’s time to raise the minimum wage.  It would put more money in workers’ pockets.  It would help 28 million Americans. Recent surveys show that a majority of small business owners support a gradual increase to ten dollars and ten cents an hour.  The folks who keep blocking a minimum wage increase are running out of excuses.  Let’s give America a raise.

Let’s do this – because it would make our economy stronger, and make sure that growth is shared.  Rather than just reading about our recovery in a headline, more people will feel it in their own lives.  And that’s when America does best.  We do better when the middle class does better, and when more Americans have their way to climb into the middle class.

And that’s what drives me every single day.  Thanks, and have a great weekend.

Bolding added.

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7 comments

  1. JanF

    Read about it here: Jason Furman, White House Council of Economic Advisors: The Employment Situation in September

    With today’s report, America’s businesses extended the longest streak of private-sector job gains on record. The data underscore that six years after the Great Recession-thanks to the hard work of the American people and in part to the policies the President has pursued-our economy has bounced back more strongly than most others around the world. But even as we take stock of the progress that has been made, too many Americans do not yet feel enough of the benefits. Yesterday, the President set out his vision for steps that can lay a new foundation for stronger growth, rising wages, and expanded economic opportunity.

  2. JanF



    Transcript: Remarks by the President on the Economy

    I’m also happy to be here because this is a university that is brimming with the possibilities of a new economy — your research and technology; the ideas and the innovation; the training of doctors and educators, and scientists and entrepreneurs.  But you can’t help but visit a campus like this and feel the promise of the future.

    And that’s why I’m here — because it’s going to be young people like you, and universities like this, that will shape the American economy and set the conditions for middle-class growth well into the 21st century.

    So here’s our challenge.  We’re creating more jobs at a steady pace.  We’ve got a recovering housing market, a revitalized manufacturing sector — two things that are critical to middle-class success.  We’ve also begun to see some modest wage growth in recent months.  All of that has gotten the economy rolling again, despite the fact that the economies of many other countries around the world are softening.  But as Americans, we measure our success by something more than our GDP, or a jobs report.  We measure it by whether our jobs provide meaningful work that give people a sense of purpose, and whether it allows folks to take care of their families.  And too many families still work too many hours with too little to show for it.  Job growth could be so much faster and wages could be going up faster if we made some better decisions going forward with the help of Congress.  So our task now is to harness the momentum that is real, that does exist, and make sure that we accelerate that momentum, that the economy grows and jobs grow and wages grow.  That’s our challenge.

    Today, American manufacturing has added more than 700,000 new jobs.  It’s growing almost twice as fast as the rest of the economy.  And more than half of all manufacturing executives have said they are actively looking at bringing jobs back from China.  To many in the middle class, the last decade was defined by outsourcing good jobs overseas.  If we keep up these investments, we can define this decade by what’s known as “insourcing” — with new factories now opening their doors here in America at the fastest pace in decades.  And in the process, we’ve also worked to grow American exports and open new markets, knock down barriers to trade, because businesses that export tend to have better-paying jobs.  So today, our businesses sell more goods and services made in America to the rest of the world than ever before.  Ever.

    It is a positive speech, promoting the promise of America and worth a read.

  3. JanF

    TPM: What’s Behind The Lowest Jobless Numbers Of Obama’s Administration?

    Stock prices jumped after the release of the jobs report. The Dow Jones industrial average was up 139 points in early-afternoon trading.

    The job gains for September were broad-based and included many higher-paying industries. Professional and business services, which includes engineers, accountants and architects, added 81,000 jobs, the most in seven months. Construction companies added 16,000 jobs, manufacturing 4,000.

    Government jobs, which usually pay solid wages, rose 12,000, the most in five months. Retailers added 35,000 jobs and hotels and restaurants 23,000. […]

    The average work week rose for the first time in six months, to 34.6 hours from 34.5 in August. Sam Coffin, an economist at UBS, predicted that employers won’t be able to increase that figure much and will likely instead have to step up hiring.

    The average hourly wage, though, fell a penny to $24.53. In the past year, the average has increased just 2 percent. That’s scarcely higher than inflation, which rose 1.7 percent in the past year. In a healthy economy, wages usually rise 3.5 percent to 4 percent a year.

  5. Diana in NoVa

    It is disheartening that many voters fail to perceive they’re voting against their own best interests. Don’t know how to correct the situation.  

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