Jobs News

The American Jobs Act Bus Tour: President Obama Talks Education in Emporia

This afternoon, the American Jobs Act Bus Tour made its way into Virginia. 

Just after 3:00, President Obama arrived at Bluestone High School in Skipwith, where he received a tour of a computer lab and met Skrappy -- the robot built by students in the Bluestone Robotics Program. 

After handing the President a pair of safety glasses, the high school students demonstrated Scrappy's capabilities. 

From there, the President was off  to Emporia, where he visited Greensville County High School. 

Over the past three years, the high school has cut six teaching positions due to budget cuts. In the year ahead, school officials might need to layoff more teachers if they can't secure additional funding. 

Under the American Jobs Act, Greensville County Public Schools -- including the high school -- would be eligible for $1.6 million in federal money for retaining educators. 

Why Teachers Say We Need the American Jobs Act

Vice President Joe Biden talks with children in Mrs. Keebaugh's 4th grade classroom at Goode Elementary School in York, Pennsylvania, October 18, 2011. (Official White House Photo by David Lienemann)

Lenid Keebaugh is a fourth-grade teacher at Goode Elementary School in York, Pennsylvania. The school was forced to cut 11 of its 45 teachers last year due to budget cuts, and Keebaugh says that passing the American Jobs Act  will help ensure the school is fully staffed to help students succeed.

Keebaugh said that in addition to cutting grade level teachers, the school also lost all its special subject teachers—those who teach enrichment classes like music, art, and physical education. As a result, the remaining teachers must teach larger classes, and have less time to plan and discuss student progress, which previously took place during enrichment periods. With greater demands on their teachers’ time, students receive less attention and support in the classroom. Besides threatening the students’ academic success, Keebaugh said that the cuts mean they are missing out on things like physical education, which helps teach healthy habits students will carry with them for life.

Vice President Biden spoke at Goode Elementary today to explain how the American Jobs Act would put teachers back in the classroom. The plan includes funding to support 400,000 teaching jobs, including protecting up to 280,000 teachers who are at risk of being laid off due to state and local budget cuts as well as rehiring tens of thousands of teachers who have lost their jobs in the last three years. Putting teachers back in the classrooms does more than create jobs, it helps ensure students are prepared for the future. Keebaugh said that it would be “so fantastic” to get the needed staff back so she and her colleagues can give students the support and attention they need to be successful.

The American Jobs Act will help our schools in other ways, too. The President has proposed a $25 billion investment in school infrastructure that will modernize at least 35,000 public schools. This investment will create jobs while improving classrooms and upgrading our schools to meet 21st century needs. Funds can be used for a range of emergency repair and renovation projects, greening and energy efficiency upgrades, asbestos abatement and removal, and modernization efforts to build new science and computer labs and to upgrade the technology infrastructure in our schools.  

The American Jobs Act Bus Tour: President Obama at Guilford Technical Community College

President Barack Obama holds a roundtable meeting with teachers at Guilford Technical Community College in Jamestown, N.C., during the American Jobs Act Bus Tour, Oct. 18, 2011. (Official White House Photo by Lawrence Jackson)

Jamestown, North Carolina is a small community of about 3,000 situated between Greensboro and High Point. It's home to Guilford Technical Community College, where President Obama this morning spoke at a roundtable with educators and addressed a crowd of teachers and students.

As the President sat down for his discussion with the group of teachers and soon-to-be teachers, he talked about how cuts to education at the state and local level have become an alarming trend:

[One] of the concerns that I've had over the course of the last several months -- in fact, the last couple of years -- are the layoffs that we've seen in education and the cutbacks we've seen in education all across the country. States and local governments are under a big crunch. And at precisely the time when we need to be emphasizing education and putting our resources into education, we're seeing cutbacks all across the board. Teachers are losing their jobs. Schools are having to cut back on vital programs that are helping young people.

And the American Jobs Act, the bill that I put before Congress, would help to curb some of those trends.

Now, Congress will have an opportunity to take steps to alleviate the crisis.

Monday in the Senate, Democrats introduced the Teachers and First Responders Act -- a $35 billion program designed to preserve jobs for educators, police officers, and fire fighters. Their proposal is the first part of the American Jobs Act, and Senator Harry Reid, the Majority Leader, pledged to bring it to a vote, perhaps before the end of this week.

But as the President told folks in Jamestown, that's just the first step. The American Jobs Act is about getting people all over the country back on the job:

Congress will have a chance to say whether unemployed Americans should continue to struggle -- or whether we are going to put them back to work, making our schools state-of-the-art; making sure that our roads and bridges aren’t crumbling. They’re going to have a chance to vote on whether or not we’re going to give people who are long-term unemployed a chance to get back on the job and reform our unemployment insurance system, and build a better life. They’re going to get a chance to take a stand on whether we should ask people like me to pay our fair share so that middle-class families and small businesses can get a tax cut.

American Jobs Act by the Numbers: 150

This morning, President Obama kicked off the American Jobs Act Bus Tour at Asheville Regional Airport to talk to communities about the pieces of the American Jobs Act that will put more people back to work and more money in the pockets of those who are working.

Throughout the week, we'll bring you numbers from the road to highlight aspects of the jobs bill, numbers like 150 miles. The American Jobs Act includes an immediate investment in employing construction workers to restore 150 miles of runway at American airports and put in place a next-generation air-traffic control system to reduce travel time and delays.

President Obama has made it clear that investing in infrastructure is not a partisan issue and it's time to put those in industries hit hardest by the recession back to work rebuilding America. As the President said, "now people go to Beijing Airport and they say, I wish we had an airport like that. We can't compete that way, playing for 2nd or 3rd or 4th or 8th or 15th place."

American Jobs Act Bus Tour: President Obama speaks at Asheville Regional Airport

The first stop on the American Jobs Act Bus Tour was Asheville, North Carolina, a city of 76,000 located in the Blue Ridge Mountains.

Air Force One landed at Asheville Regional Airport, where President Obama was greeted by Senator Kay Hagan and Asheville Mayor Terry Bellamy. He spoke just before 11:00.

The American Jobs Act includes a proposal to provide $2 billion to improve safety, add capacity and modernize infrastructure at airports across the country .

Asheville Regional Airport could be eligible for $60 million of those funds. And as the President said, there's plenty of work to go around:

In this airport right here in Asheville, you've got a runway that needs to be widened and repaired. You've got a taxiway that's in the wrong spot –- which means that planes sometimes get too close together. So we could be doing some work right here at the Asheville Airport that would help boost tourism, help to boost the economy here, put people to work right now.

But it's not just here in Asheville. All across the state, you've got highways that need to be built. You've got bridges that need to be fixed. You've got schools that need to be modernized. And that's what America used to do best. We used to build things -- built the Transcontinental Railroad; built the Golden Gate Bridge; the Hoover Dam; the Grand Central Station. There's no reason why we should sit here and watch the best highways and the newest airports being built in China. We should be building them right here in the United States of America. Right here in North Carolina.

This afternoon, the President will stop for a BBQ lunch and later visit West Wilkes High School in Miller's Creek, North Carolina.

President Barack Obama delivers remarks on the American Jobs Act at Asheville Regional Airport, Asheville, N.C., Oct. 17, 2011. The event kicks off the President’s three-day American Jobs Act Bus Tour. (Official White House Photo by Lawrence Jackson)

Weekly Address: "Made in America"

From a GM plant in Detroit, President Obama highlights the landmark trade agreements passed this week which will support tens of thousands of American jobs, level the playing field for American workers, and help us meet our goal of doubling our exports.

Transcript | Download mp4 | Download mp3

Vice President Joe Biden Discusses the American Jobs Act in Flint, Michigan

Vice President Joe Biden greets members of the audience after speaking about the American Jobs act at the fire station in Flint, Michigan, October 12, 2011. (Official White House Photo by David Lienemann)

Vice President Biden traveled to two Michigan cities this week to highlight how the American Jobs Act would help put cops and firefighters back on the beat and help modernize schools.

In Flint, Michigan, the Vice President made clear how the Jobs Act would both create jobs and protect the nation's "most basic obligation" to keep our citizens safe by putting cops and firefighters back to work. Over the past 18 months, Flint has been has been forced to cut its police force in half due to budget cuts at the same time violent crime has increased in the city.

Nationally, in the past 18 months, 10,000 cops have been laid off around the country, while 30,000 police vacancies have gone unfilled. Thousands of firefighters were laid off between 2009 and 2010, and another 7,000 could face possible layoffs this year.

"It's hard enough to do your job in good economic times. It's a tough job in good times," the Vice President told a group of Flint cops and firefighters assembled inside the city's fire department on Wednesday. "But it's almost impossible to serve the total needs of the community in bad economic times when you get cut in half."

The American Jobs Act includes $5 billion to support public safety jobs across the country. It will also dramatically improve the way cops, firefighters and other first responders are able to communicate with each other during emergency situations by deploying a nationwide public safety broadband network.

"I don't buy people who say there is nothing we can do," said the Vice President. "This is a fight for the soul of this country. It's a fight for the middle class. ... It's about making sure America's fire departments, police departments continue to be a large part of the American fabric and be able to do their job. It's about reversing the cycle of crime and fire and unemployment, and starting a new cycle of jobs and prosperity. It's about keeping you safe so you can keep all of us safe. And it's about a President and I who are prepared to fight like crazy to do whatever we can to make sure that you have the resources to be able to protect us."

Congress Passes President Obama’s Trade Measures to Support American Jobs and Exports

Last night, Congress passed four significant trade initiatives President Obama has advanced to help increase U.S. exports that support additional American jobs, and help American workers who need retraining and assistance when their jobs are affected by global competition.  The trade agreements with Korea, Colombia, and Panama – which we at USTR worked hard to make better at the President’s insistence – will strengthen and expand ties with strategic partners in Asia and Latin America even as they support tens of thousands of jobs here at home, from shop floors to farms to service firms across our country. And the renewal of Trade Adjustment Assistance (TAA) reforms will ensure that workers get retraining and assistance for the 21st-century jobs they want and need.  

As I mentioned last week, when the President sent the legislation to Congress, there have recently been questions about whether trade supports jobs, and how.  We have a saying at USTR: “more exports, more jobs.”  Because every $1 billion of exports of American goods is estimated to support more than 6,000 additional jobs here at home.  And every billion dollars of services exports is estimated to support more than 4,500 jobs.  Since these trade agreements are estimated to increase U.S. goods exports alone by a combined total of at least $12 billion, they will support tens of thousands of real jobs and put more money in the pockets of hard-working Americans across the country. 

Furthermore, the U.S.-Korea trade agreement will open Korea’s $580 billion services market to highly competitive American companies – creating additional jobs for American service providers in sectors from delivery and telecommunications services to distribution, and energy and environmental services.  The Colombia and Panama agreements open up services sectors to American companies selling into those markets as well.  

Helping America’s Small Businesses Build a Clean Energy Future

Small businesses in emerging industries – like clean energy – have cutting-edge ideas that are strengthening our country and changing the world.  Today, we’re helping them continue to do just that in two major ways.

First, unlike larger firms, many small firms don’t have the staff or time to search for all of the federal opportunities that can help them grow and create jobs.

We’re pleased to announce that today, they’ve got a new tool with green.sba.gov, where they can find all federal opportunities in a single location.

How did this come about?  For the past year, the U.S. Navy and the U.S. Small Business Administration worked together to help Navy tap into the innovation that is happening throughout America’s strong and growing number of small, clean-energy businesses.

One of the first, simplest efforts was to create a single web page where all of Navy’s green and renewable energy contracts could be easily found by small businesses.  Navy created that site in just a couple of months. 

When it was completed, we thought, “Why don’t we do this across the entire federal government?”

So we did.