In 2008, the American people turned to Barack Obama to lead the country through the worst economic crisis since the Great Depression. His North Star was to make the economy work for the middle class and for those fighting to join it. He took steps to create jobs, rescue the auto industry, and rebuild the economy on a new foundation for growth and prosperity.
Helping the Hardest-Hit Americans
Tax Relief for Middle Class and Working Families
A Down Payment on Education
Critical Investments in the Future
Treasury invested approximately $245 billion across five bank programs. Each of these programs was established to accomplish different goals as part of the overall effort to stabilize America's banking system. Because of the aggressive response, the financial system stabilized and Treasury has recovered $275 billion, a nearly $30 billion positive return to the taxpayer.
Supervisory Capital Assessment Program & Capital Assistance Program
The Supervisory Capital Assessment Program (SCAP) and the Capital Assistance Program (CAP) were established to ensure that our major banking institutions had adequate capital buffers to withstand losses and continue to lend to businesses, large and small, and consumers to support the economy.
Restarted Crucial Lending Markets
“During our London Summit, we and our G-20 partners agreed that we will make more than $1 trillion in financial resources available to support global growth and trade. Much of that total will go to the emerging and developing countries, which as recently as the fall of last year accounted for fully 42% of all U.S. exports. That will improve their economic and financial health which, in turn, will help improve ours.” – Secretary Timothy F. Geithner
Helped Families Stay in Their Homes
Check out our latest housing scorecard for more on our response to the housing crisis.
New Issue Bond Program
The New Issue Bond Program filled in the financing vacuum for Housing Finance Agencies when the tax exempt market seized up during the crisis. It enabled tens of thousands of affordable multi-family units to be financed during the crisis and tens of thousands of mortgages for affordable homes to be funded through participating Housing Finance Agencies.
The Minimum Property Standards (MPS) establish certain minimum standards for buildings constructed under HUD housing programs. This includes new single family homes, multi-family housing and health care type facilities.
Making Homeownership More Accessible and Sustainable
In 2015, the Federal Housing Administration (FHA) reduced annual mortgage insurance premiums by 0.5 percentage point from 1.35 percent to 0.85 percent. For the typical first-time homebuyer, this reduction translates into a $900 reduction in their annual mortgage payment.
The National Mortgage Settlement
On February 9, 2012, then-Attorney General Eric Holder announced that the federal government and 49 states had reached a settlement agreement with the nation’s five largest mortgage servicers to address mortgage servicing, foreclosure, and bankruptcy abuses (the “National Mortgage Settlement”).
Protecting Taxpayer Dollars and Consumers Against Financial Fraud While Ensuring Competitive Markets
The Rental Assistance Demonstration provides public housing authorities (PHAs) with a way to rehabilitate or repair units without depending on additional money from Congress. Congress has not provided enough funding for PHAs to keep up with capital needs. As a result, PHAs have had to make tough choices between things like repairing roofs and replacing plumbing—or worse, demolishing public housing.
On December 19, 2014, Treasury announced that it had exited the last Troubled Asset Relief Program (TARP) equity investment under the Auto Industry Financing Program.
Did 'Cash-for-Clunkers' work as intended?
A plausible interpretation of the available data, in fact, is that many of the auto sales catalyzed by the CARS program were to the kinds of thrifty people who can afford to buy a new car but normally wait until the old one is thoroughly worn out. Stimulating spending by such people acted as an incredibly positive countercyclical fiscal policy in an economy suffering from temporarily low aggregate demand.
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Also required the largest, most complex firms in the U.S. to meet higher capital, liquidity, and risk management standards than other firms that pose less systemic risk.
Since the crisis, banks have added more than $600 billion of additional capital, which is money they can lend and which increases their resiliency.
Meet the Law That’s Been Quietly Protecting You and Strengthening Our Economy for the Past 6 Years
"When large, complex, or interconnected firms (like Lehman Brothers) failed during the crisis, the regulators didn’t have the tools they needed to wind them down safely, without bringing down our entire financial system. That left us with a pretty awful choice: Let our system collapse and risk another Great Depression (which nearly happened after Lehman failed), or have taxpayers step in to clean up the mess? Wall Street reform fixed that. Today, regulators have something called “orderly liquidation authority,” which is a fancy way of saying that if a big Wall Street firm implodes again, taxpayers aren’t on the hook — investors in the firm and the financial industry pick up the tab. By law, no firm is too big to fail."
Greater Transparency: Wall Street Reform re-aligned incentives in derivatives and securitization markets, hedge fund reporting requirements, and executive compensation:
Transparency: Five Years after the Dodd-Frank Act
The financial crisis demonstrated that financial markets had become unacceptably and dangerously opaque. This lack of transparency allowed risks to build and be transmitted across different sectors of the financial system. As the financial crisis unfolded, not only did federal financial regulators lack adequate tools to address these risks, they had limited knowledge of their size, nature, and interconnectedness. And market participants pulled back further during the depths of the crisis in part as a result of incomplete market information.
The Financial Crisis: Five Years Later
New rules help make large financial companies simpler to unwind by requiring “living wills” that provide a roadmap for resolving the institution. These reforms force firms to bear the costs of their own risk-taking, instead of the taxpayer.
Since its creation, this new independent watchdog has:
Manufacturing USA invests in U.S. leadership in emerging manufacturing technologies critical to our future competitiveness. Each manufacturing hub is designed to build U.S. leadership and regional excellence in critical emerging manufacturing technologies by bridging the gap between early research and product development; bringing together companies, universities, and other academic and training institutions, and federal agencies to co-invest in key technology areas that can encourage investment and production in the United States; and serving as a ‘teaching factory’ for workers, small businesses, and entrepreneurs looking to develop new skills or prototype new products and processes.
Energy Department Announces $150 Million in Tax Credits to Invest in U.S. Clean Energy Manufacturing
The Investing in Manufacturing Communities Partnership (IMCP) program is an initiative designed to revolutionize the way federal agencies leverage economic development funds. It encourages communities to develop comprehensive economic development strategies that will strengthen their competitive edge for attracting global manufacturer and supply chain investments.
FACT SHEET: President Obama Announces New Actions to Further Strengthen U.S. Manufacturing
About SelectUSA
Recognizing that the competitiveness and job-generating ability of a nation is determined by its desirability as a place for businesses to operate, SelectUSA was created at the federal level to showcase the United States as the world’s premier business location and to provide easy access to federal-level programs and services related to business investment.
FACT SHEET: Building a 21st Century Infrastructure: Increasing Public and Private Collaboration with the Build America Investment Initiative
President Obama launched the National Robotics Initiative as part of a broader effort to promote a renaissance of American manufacturing through the Advanced Manufacturing Partnership. Four agencies (the National Science Foundation, the National Institutes of Health, NASA, and the Department of Agriculture) have issued a joint solicitation that will provide research funding for next-generation robotics.
The Fixing America's Surface Transportation Act (FAST Act), a 5 year, $305 billion surface transportation bill that increases Federal surface transportation investments by 11 percent, an important first step in addressing the significant infrastructure deficit in the U.S. The FAST Act also created the country’s first dedicated freight program and reformed the Federal infrastructure permitting process.
President Obama Announces New Efforts to Improve Access to Credit for Small Businesses
Learn more about the U.S. Small Business Administration
Learn more about the U.S. Small Business Administration
BusinessUSA implements a "no wrong door" approach for small businesses and exporters by using technology to quickly connect businesses to the services and information relevant to them, regardless of where the information is located or which agency's website, call center, or office they go to for help. Looking forward, the more federal agencies continue to add resources to BusinessUSA to encompass the full range of business programs and services, the more we will be able to reduce the confusing array of websites that exist today.
FACT SHEET: The White House and Small Business Administration Launch Startup in a Day Initiative and Prize Competition
Since the President’s call to action, 38 states have boosted their investments in preschool. Between 2013 and 2016, increased investments totaled over $1.5 billion and 30 states increased their preschool enrollment from 2009-2014. Read more.
Raised the bar on quality through enactment of bipartisan child care legislation that raised health, safety, and quality standards for federally-subsidized child care. Made significant reforms to Head Start and secured funding to increase number of programs in all 50 states.
ESSA will maintain critical protections for equal educational opportunity and students’ civil rights by:
U.S. High School Graduation Rate Hits New Record High
Cut the number of so-called "dropout factories" — high schools where no more than 60 percent of students who start as freshmen make it to their senior year — nearly in half since 2008.
"Learning is about so much more than just filling in the right bubble. So we’re going to work with states, school districts, teachers, and parents to make sure that we’re not obsessing about testing, that the principles I just outlined are reflected in classrooms throughout the country—to make sure that our kids are enjoying learning, that our teachers are able to operate with creativity, to make sure we are preparing our kids for a lifetime of success." — President Obama (October 24, 2015)
Many states have boosted their investments in early childhood education; in FY 2014-2015 alone, 28 states and the District of Columbia increased their own investments in preschool.
Raised the bar on quality through enactment of bipartisan child care legislation, a Race to the Top in early learning, and Head Start reforms including requiring programs that don’t meet certain standards to compete for continued funding and securing funding to increase the number of programs providing a full school day and year program.
Every Student Succeeds Act: A Progress Report on Elementary and Secondary Education
Through the President’s ConnectED initiative, the Administration made unprecedented public and private investments in connectivity, teacher professional development, hardware, software, and digital content to provide personalized digital learning experiences for students.
Since launching ConnectED:
Increased the maximum Pell Grant scholarship by more than $1,000 and total Pell funding by 70 percent, helping millions of low- and moderate-income students afford college every year.
Information about college costs, graduation rates, and earnings will be featured front and center in hundreds of millions of Google searches related to colleges and universities.
FACT SHEET: Empowering Students to Choose the College that is Right for Them
America's College Promise: A Progress Report on Free Community College
Invested in strengthening more than 700 community colleges, connecting them with employers to train students for jobs in fast-growing fields like high-tech manufacturing, energy, IT, and cybersecurity.
Fact Sheet: Department of Education Launches Experiment to Provide Federal Pell Grant Funds to High School Students Taking College Courses for Credit
U.S. Department of Education Launches Second Chance Pell Pilot Program for Incarcerated Individuals
FACT SHEET: Department of Education Launches the Educational Quality through Innovative Partnerships (EQUIP) Experiment to Provide Low-Income Students with Access to New Models of Education and Training
U.S. Department of Education - The FITW program
Secured a six-year extension and expansion of Trade Adjustment Assistance (TAA) in June 2015, which provides vital job training, income support and other benefits to American workers displaced by the forces of globalization. This extension means that over 750,000 Americans will be eligible to apply for these benefits.
In his 2014 State of the Union address, the President tasked Vice President Biden with leading a review of federal employment and training programs that reach approximately 20 million people per year, with the aim of making them more job-driven. That review was completed, and the White House released a report you can read on progress and next steps. So far, the Administration has reoriented more than $1.5 billion in job training grants to align with job-driven training best practices.
WIOA is bringing job training programs into the 21st century by building on what we know works based on evidence — more partnerships with employers, tools to measure performance, and flexibilities for states and cities to innovate and run their training programs in ways best suited for their particular demographics and particular industries.
We challenged America's high schools to make sure students learn the skills that businesses are looking for in high-demand fields. And we asked high schools to develop partnerships with colleges and employers, and create classes that focus on real-life applications for the fields of the future — fields like science and technology and engineering and math.
The Trade Adjustment Assistance and Community College and Career Training grants have created 2,300 in-demand education and training programs at community colleges in all 50 states. Nearly 300,000 participants have enrolled in these programs, which are helping job seekers get the skills they need for in-demand jobs in industries like information technology, health care, energy, and advanced manufacturing. Programs targeting high-demand jobs have been launched at more than half of community colleges across the country.
This growth was the result of the largest ever federal investments in apprenticeship including $175 million in grants to 46 public-private partnerships to expand apprenticeship to new industries and $90 million provided by Congress for new investments through ApprenticeshipUSA to help states strengthen regional industry partnerships, spur partnerships in fast-growing and high-tech industries, and increase diversity among apprentices. Investing in apprenticeships leads to strong outcomes for hardworking Americans and businesses. Nearly 90% of apprentices are employed after completing their apprenticeship, with an average starting salary above $50,000. And international studies suggest that for every dollar spent on apprenticeship, employers may get an average of $1.47 back in increased productivity, reduced waste, and greater front-line innovation.
TechHire is a bold, multi-sector initiative and call-to-action to empower Americans with the skills they need, through universities and community colleges but also nontraditional approaches like “coding boot camps,” and high-quality online courses that can rapidly train workers for a well-paying job, often in just a few months. Since the President launched TechHire in March 2014, more than 70 cities, states, and rural areas working with nearly 1,500 employers have signed on, and over 4,000 people have been trained and placed into tech jobs.
In his 2014 State of the Union address, the President launched the Upskill Initiative, calling on businesses to help workers of all ages earn a shot at better, higher-paying jobs, even if they do not have a higher education. To date, over 100 employers have committed to best practices to give their workers more opportunity to grow and contribute in the workplace.
As more jobs are created, it is critical that Americans with skills, experience, and a desire to work have every opportunity to get back to work to maximize the full potential of our talent pool. That’s why the White House has partnered with employers to ensure that the long-term unemployed have a fair shot at the same opportunities as other job-seekers. From the time businesses responded to the President’s call to action in January 2014 through November 2016, the long term unemployment rate was cut in half, accounting for roughly two-thirds of the total drop in unemployment.
Weekly Address: Ensuring Hard-Working Americans Retire with Dignity
Watch on YouTube, Read the Transcript
We’re cracking down on conflicts of interest in retirement advice to protect your savings.
Press Release: State retirement initiatives get guidance from US Labor Department
About myRA
Blog Post: Treasury’s Continued Work to Promote Retirement Security
An America Built to Last: Strengthening Economic Security in Retirement
Economic Record of the Obama Administration: Progress Reducing Inequality
Seven Things You Need to Know About the Tax Deal
The Budget Agreement Permanently Expands Important Tax Credits for Working Families
As part of the President’s balanced approach to deficit reduction, he fought to reverse tax cuts for the highest-income Americans – pushing back on inequities in our tax code that leave some wealthy families paying a lower rate than many working families. The Bush tax cuts enacted in 2001 and 2003 cut the top tax rates for high-income Americans. The American Taxpayer Relief Act the President signed into law reversed these costly tax cuts, including by:
After these changes became effective in 2013, effective tax rates increased sharply for the highest-income Americans, reversing a decade-long trend of tax cuts for the highest-income Americans. Altogether, reversing the high-income Bush tax cuts will reduce the deficit by more than $800 billion over the next decade. Overall, relative to the tax code in place before the Administration, in 2017:
Although Congress has not acted on the President’s proposal to stop corporate tax inversions, Treasury has used its authority under existing law to reduce the tax benefits of – and when possible, stop – corporate tax inversions. Treasury’s actions significantly diminish the ability of inverted companies to escape U.S. taxation.
Treasury proposed regulations to end a specific abuse of the carried interest loophole – the use of “management fee waivers” to convert fees into low-taxed carried interest.
Treasury proposed regulations to close a loophole that allows wealthy families to use certain estate planning strategies to claim large discounts on the value of their assets to reduce their estate and gift taxes.
Treasury.gov: Foreign Account Tax Compliance Act (FATCA)
A Critical Step Forward for a Stronger Economy and a Simpler, Fairer Tax Code
A Critical Step Forward for a Stronger Economy and a Simpler, Fairer Tax Code
The CTC and EITC expansions provide an average tax cut of about $900 for roughly 16 million working families a year. If a single mother of two works full-time all year for the federal minimum wage – earning $14,500 a year – she receives an additional CTC of $1,725 each year as a result of the expansion. She would not receive any CTC without this provision. The tax cut expansions increase the EITC for families with more than two children, a group with disproportionately high poverty rates, and reduce the EITC’s “marriage penalty,” making married couples eligible for the EITC at higher levels of combined income. The benefits of these changes are widespread: according to the Center on Budget and Policy Priorities, among the 16 million families who benefit from CTC and EITC expansions are:
Lilly Ledbetter Fair Pay Act
FACT SHEET: Helping Working Americans Get Ahead by Expanding Paid Sick Leave and Fighting for Equal Pay:
Affordable Child Care
Paid Sick and Family Leave
FACT SHEET: Helping Working Americans Get Ahead by Expanding Paid Sick Leave and Fighting for Equal Pay:
FACT SHEET: Growing Middle Class Paychecks and Helping Working Families Get Ahead By Expanding Overtime Pay
Read more about the final rule to protect workers from silica.
We released first ever Federal policy to guide the responsible testing and deployment of automated vehicles, which has the potential to save tens of thousands of lives in the United States.
Read more about the policy. See what President Obama had to say.
We released a proposed rule that would mandate vehicle-to-vehicle (V2V) communication on light vehicles, allowing cars to “talk” to each other and prevent hundreds of thousands of vehicle crashes.
We released a groundbreaking rule that provides the first national, uniform guidelines for non-recreational operation of unmanned aircraft systems (UAS). These systems will create jobs, enhance public safety, and advance public inquiry.
We partnered with Columbus, OH to prototype the transportation system of the future, supported by $40 million from the Smart City Challenge.
We tackled climate, transportation, and public safety by working with over 70 cities and communities to use technology to solve urban challenges.
This critical agreement will help grow the more than $260 billion in digital services trade already conducted across the Atlantic each year.
Learn more here: https://www.usds.gov/, https://presidentialinnovationfellows.gov, and https://18f.gsa.gov/
Read more about how this Administration strengthened organic agriculture and local food systems.
The Initiative was issued through an Executive Order ("Steps to Increase Competition and Better Inform Consumers and Workers to Support Continued Growth of the American Economy").
Thinking Outside the Cable Box: How More Competition Gets You a Better Deal
Three USDA Actions to Help Farmers Get a Fair Shake, Explained
President Obama asked each member of his Cabinet to write an Exit Memo on the progress we’ve made, their vision for the country’s future, and the work that remains in order to achieve that vision. Here are their key points on the work ahead on economic progress.
Raising the Minimum Wage
“Congress must increase the federal minimum wage. The current minimum wage of $7.25 is simply not enough to sustain an individual, not to mention a family; too many Americans work 40- or 50-hour weeks and still have to need help from their local food pantry. Congress has repeatedly failed to respond to President Obama’s call to action. It’s time for them to stop their obstruction.”
—Secretary Perez
Giving Every Child a Shot from the Start
“Despite significant progress over the past eight years, six out of every 10 four-year-olds are still not enrolled in publicly funded preschool programs. States and districts, in collaboration with the federal government, must take additional steps to expand access to high-quality early learning so that all children enter kindergarten ready for success in school and beyond. More also must be done to ensure early learning is inclusive of students who are historically underserved and most vulnerable, including children with disabilities and dual language learners.”
—Secretary King
Investing in the Infrastructure of the Future
“The next Secretary of Transportation will not simply work on building roads and bridges and ensuring safe travel. The next administration is entering a period of advanced automated technologies in transportation, an infrastructure system that continues to work for some and against others in society, dramatic demographic shifts, an increase in extreme weather events due to climate change, and a backlog of projects needed across the country with not enough resources to address it. Future administrations should, if the United States is to remain competitive in the global economy, devote significant time and energy to securing the resources needed to keep America competitive.”
—Secretary Foxx
Building the Digital Economy
“The federal government is currently not properly organized to face the challenges posed by the 21st century digital economy. Looking forward, there needs to be a government-wide focus to address five critical issues: access, trust and security online, promoting a free and open Internet globally, addressing the challenges and opportunities of emerging technologies, and preparing workers for jobs in the digital economy.”
—Secretary Pritzker
Reforming our Business Tax Code
“President Obama’s proposed plan for business tax reform sets out a framework for modernizing our business tax system…Enacting such a plan would enhance our competitiveness and create an environment in which business rather than tax considerations drive decision-making. The President’s framework is also fiscally responsible, ensuring that business tax reform does not add to deficits over the long-term. I am hopeful that this framework will help to equip the new Congress to take responsible action on business tax reform.”
—Secretary Lew
