If We’re Serious about Jobs, Don’t Stop Job Creation

Posted by White House

Today, the Temporary Assistance to Needy Families (TANF) Emergency Contingency Fund will expire because a minority in Congress blocked the extension proposed by the President. This will put up to 100,000 jobs in jeopardy, raising unemployment and potentially even cost the government more money in additional public assistance funds. A strong commitment that the program will be restored when Congress returns could still save some of these jobs, and provide crucial help to workers, businesses and communities.

The TANF Emergency Contingency Fund lets states use Recovery Act dollars to help employers pay for the cost of hiring low-income unemployed workers. Since the inception of the program, states have provided jobs to more than 250,000 jobless parents and disadvantaged youth according to a recent analysis. In September alone, up to 100,000 Americans were employed in subsidized jobs funded through the Emergency Fund - jobs that are in jeopardy given the expiration of this successful initiative. We certainly shouldn’t let effective programs expire, especially when they’re still very much needed to help these low-income workers earn the paychecks they need to support their families.

Small businesses are hiring many of the workers supported by this program and these businesses have been able to grow as a result. A recent New York Times story highlighted an innovative program in Mississippi that used the funding to pay private companies to hire 3,200 workers and paid their salaries on a sliding scale so that the employers would end up paying the entire amount after six months. As a local employer recently told the Los Angeles Times, “It’s a win-win. We needed the help and they needed the jobs.”

Without federal funding, most states and localities won’t be able to continue to provide support for these jobs. Governors from both parties have called for the extension of the program and some will try to keep it going for a couple of months with state funds, buying Congress time to act. But the reality is that many states will be unable to fill the gap, and those that can, only temporarily. A commitment to extending this program will give more governors the confidence not to end it now and could save up to 100,000 jobs.

We should all support effective job creation programs. I hope Republicans will join with Democrats in Congress to renew funding for the Emergency Contingency Fund and provide businesses a chance to hire and the neediest Americans an opportunity to work.

Keep Putting Them on the Job!

Posted by White House

It’s hard to get more clear-cut about the right thing to do for the economy than the opening of this story from the New York Times this weekend:

Tens of thousands of people will lose their jobs within weeks unless Congress extends one of the more effective job-creating programs in the $787 billion stimulus act: a $1 billion New Deal-style program that directly paid the salaries of unemployed people so they could get jobs in government, at nonprofit organizations and at many small businesses.

In rural Perry County, Tenn., the program helped pay for roughly 400 new jobs in the public and private sectors. But in a county of 7,600 people, those jobs had a big impact: they reduced Perry County’s unemployment rate to less than 14 percent this August, from the Depression-like levels of more than 25 percent that it hit last year after its biggest employer, an auto parts factory, moved to Mexico.

If the stimulus program ends on schedule next week, Perry County officials said, an estimated 300 people there will lose their jobs — the equivalent of another factory closing.

The American economy has been growing now for the past four quarters, and private-sector employers have added jobs every month this year. But the economic hole left by the Great Recession remains very deep, and creating jobs remains the administration’s top priority.

With that in mind, when one of our programs is effectively and efficiently creating hundreds of thousands of jobs for workers who need them, the last thing we should do is shut the program down.

But unless Congress acts quickly, that’s exactly what’s going to happen to the Temporary Assistance for Needy Families (TANF) Subsidized Jobs program. This program is a proven success – more than 30 states are already using the program to put folks back on the job, and if we let it end prematurely, this highly effective job creation infrastructure that’s been created at the state level will go to waste.

Sadly, Republicans in Congress are playing politics with the future of this program at precisely the time we can least afford to shut it down.

We’ve been talking about what a great program this is for months now, because it’s been extremely effective. It lets states use Recovery Act dollars to help employers pay for the cost of hiring unemployed workers, and by lowering hiring costs, it encourages employers to hire more workers and create more jobs. And because many of these workers are being hired at private-sector businesses, the program is not only creating jobs, but also helping American businesses expand and grow.

Unfortunately, the program is scheduled to expire just a few days from now, at the end of September, even though the workers who have been placed through the program still badly need these jobs. That’s why we’ve been fighting so hard to get this program extended.

The good news is that the program is getting more and more well-deserved attention, like the New York Times article above telling the story of some of the workers and communities that depend on this program and the jobs it’s providing. And outside of Washington, the program has gotten strong bipartisan support from figures like Haley Barbour, Mississippi’s Republican governor.

But unfortunately, here in the nation’s capital, politics are still triumphing over common sense as Republicans in Congress block action to extend this highly successful job creation program.

Look, I understand there are differences of opinion about the best way to create jobs in this country, but there’s a time and a place for those disagreements. We should all be able to agree not to shut down programs that are successfully putting workers on the job at private-sector businesses across the country.

So I hope Republicans in Congress will rise above the politics and work with us to extend this program. We only have a few days left to act. Let’s keep helping businesses put these folks back on the job.

Taking America from #12 to #1

Posted by White House

As the Washington Post and New York Times report, the United States has fallen from first to 12th in terms of 25 to 34-year-olds with postsecondary degrees. The finding comes from a report conducted by the College Board and confirms what we’ve known for too long: that United States’ graduation rate is lagging behind our global competitors.

We know that economic security and educational progress go hand in hand. That’s one of the reasons why the President outlined a new national goal last year: by 2020, America will once again have the highest proportion of college graduates in the world. Already we’ve taken crucial steps to help our nation meet this goal.

We’re making sure our high schools adequately prepare students for college and careers

• Building on the reforms begun last year under the Recovery Act, and the efforts of states applying for Race to the Top grant funds, America’s K-12 education system will better prepare students by holding them to higher, clearer college- and career-ready standards, assessing their progress with improved tests and with data systems to measure student growth, and by better preparing and supporting teachers and school leaders.
• As part of these reform efforts, this year we launched a national effort to help turn around America’s persistently low-performing schools.
• We’re committed to investing in innovative dropout recovery and prevention strategies to better engage youth in their learning and to help them catch-up academically.
• And the President’s FY 2011 budget supports a new $100 million College Pathways Program to increase access to college-level, dual credit, and other accelerated courses in high-need high schools, and to support college-going strategies and models that will help students succeed.

We’re making college more affordable

• We have more than doubled our investment in the Pell Grant program to help unlock and hold open the doors of higher education opportunity for more Americans.
• We’ve tripled the largest college tax credit to ease college costs for nearly 8 million students and families.
• And to ensure that Americans can afford their student loan payments, we have expanded the income-based student loan repayment program so that new borrowers after 2014 will be eligible to cap their monthly payments at reasonable share of their income.

And we’re also strengthening our community colleges

• We’ve also made an historic investment -- $2 billion over the next four years – in community college and career training. These resources will help community colleges and other institutions develop, improve, and provide education and training.

Working together with parents, teachers, and local communities across the country, we’re committed to bringing America back to #1 in postsecondary graduation rates.