Commerce Secretary Gina Raimondo on Wednesday held a White House Press Briefing to discuss President Biden’s American Jobs Plan.
“The Secretary is focused on a simple but vital mission: to spur good-paying jobs, empower entrepreneurs to innovate and grow, and help American workers and businesses compete,” said White House Press Secretary Jen Psaki.
Here are Raimondo’s remarks.
“it’s an honor for me to be here to talk a little bit about President Biden’s American Jobs Plan.
At its core, the American Jobs Plan is about making sure every American has the opportunity to get a decent job. A decent, well-paying job, with dignity and has opportunity.
It’s a historic investment in America, intended to create tens of millions of jobs, rebuild our country’s infrastructure, and position the United States to outcompete China.
Many have commented that it’s large, it’s bold. It’s necessarily large because, frankly, we’re behind, and we’ve neglected for too long important investments in our infrastructure.
We need to ensure that investments in infrastructure, advanced manufacturing, workforce development, and our care economy are made — are made at the scale we need and are made in every single community in America.
And as the President has — has led us to — is leading us to build back better, that means we need to do so more inclusively and ensure that these investments that we are making — in broadband, in housing, in the care economy, in water — are in every community in America: rural, tribal, urban, communities of color, and reaching everyone across America.
The fact is, we have failed for a long time to invest. And as a result, we have fallen behind. So why does that matter? It matters because it makes it harder for small businesses to compete. It makes — it matters because it makes it harder for American companies to compete, and it makes it harder for the average American to get a decent job and to get the skills they need in order to get a high-paying job in the industries that are growing today and tomorrow.
And the fact of the matter is, we know that lack of investment, particularly in public transportation, transit, water, housing, has hurt low-income folks and people of color the most. And it’s time to finally rectify that systemic inequality and build back better and more equally.
As Jen said, my job as the Commerce Secretary is to do everything I can to enable American businesses of all sizes to compete. And at its core, the American Jobs Plan is about investing in American competitiveness, strengthening our workforce, rebuilding infrastructure, and leveling the playing field so all Americans have a shot at a good job.
Now, prior to being Commerce Secretary, I was governor for six years. Prior to that, I was in the private sector. And so over the course of my career, as an entrepreneur and as governor, now as Commerce Secretary, I have had many, many, many discussions with businesses, from the biggest to the smallest. And over the years, there is something that we all seem to agree on, which is that we need to make massive investments in our infrastructure if we are going to compete and ensure America’s global competitiveness.
And most recently, I have spent a lot of time in the past few weeks talking to business leaders, and I can report to you that there’s a broad level of enthusiasm for big investments in infrastructure. And I think there is a recognition that President Biden is doing the right thing in pushing us to conceive of infrastructure as broad, as including investments in STEM, research and development, investments in basic research, investments in broadband, investments in training our workforce. And the truth of it is, that’s what it’s going to take to compete.
A key component of the American Jobs Plan is training our workforce. This is a reality. The changes in the American economy, many of which have been massively accelerated by COVID, are very scary for millions of Americans. It’s a scary place to be to need a job and not have the skills to get a good job.
And so that’s why this package calls for big investments in training our workforce. Now, as Jen said, this was a priority of mine when I was governor, and I saw it work. I know it works. We saw it work.
When I ran for governor, my state, Rhode Island — if you haven’t been, I want you to go — had the highest unemployment rate in the country. Number one in America. It was sad — very sad. The unemployment rate in the building trades when I took over was over 20 percent. Think about what that does to a community.
When I — before COVID, after a lot of our work, Rhode Island had more jobs than at any time in our state’s history, because we leaned into it in a broad fashion, similar to what this package calls for: investments in infrastructure, working with business, and big investments in work or training.
So, the fact of the matter is, in order to compete, we have to have investments in apprenticeships, community colleges, STEM education, job training.
My view is: If you have the guts, in the middle of your career, to go out and get some job training to retrain yourself to get a new job, then we need to be there for you to provide high-quality, demand-driven, affordable — if not free — job training.
The American Jobs Plan also is about strengthening our supply chains, making things in America, making critical goods in America, creating good jobs in the process, and increasing the security that we have, knowing that we aren’t overly dependent on other countries for critical supplies. We saw that on full displaying in COVID. Every governor knows what it’s like to be up in the middle of the night — can’t get your hands on PPE or ventilators or medicine because they aren’t manufactured in America.
We also need to invest in domestic manufacturing, particularly for critical industries like semiconductors. We all know semiconductors are the building blocks of our future economy. And as we go through the data and digital revolution, semiconductors underpin so much of the new technology where we’ll see job creation.
So we’ve — we are living through now a global chip shortage. We’re seeing that hurt businesses in every sector, and so we need to strengthen our domestic supply chains. The American Jobs Plan calls for a $50 billion investment in semiconductor manufacturing and research, as it’s called for in the bipartisan CHIPS Act.
Finally, we need strong investments in our broadband infrastructure. We’ve seen more clearly than ever before that high-quality, affordable broadband isn’t a luxury, but it’s a necessity for education, jobs, and healthcare. But millions and millions of Americans don’t have access to broadband, particularly in rural communities.
I finally want to address one last component, which is the investments in the care economy. You might say to yourself, “Why is the Commerce Secretary talking about investments in the care economy?” Because it matters. It is core to our competitiveness. In order for you to be able to go to work, you need to know that your loved one is being taken care of.
And also, we have millions and millions of women, mostly women of color, working full-time, caring for our loved ones, living in poverty. It’s time to make those investment so they can have a dignified job and so that we can shore up our communities.
As Jen said, I did a lot of work of this as governor. And it’s something that I’m very proud of President Biden and to be on the team of a president who’s investing in the care economy.
So, fundamentally, this plan invests in American workers and businesses, small and large alike, so they can compete and win in the global marketplace. And I’m psyched to talk to you about it and proud to be on the team that’s going to get this done.”
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