Remarks by the President on Economic Mobility
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Remarks by the President on Economic Mobility, THEARC, Washington, D.C.:
Thank you. (Applause.) Thank you, everybody. Thank you so much. Please, please
have a seat. Thank you so much. Well, thank you, Neera, for the wonderful
introduction and sharing a story that resonated with me. There were a lot of
parallels in my life and probably resonated with some of you.
Over the past 10 years, the Center for American Progress has
done incredible work to shape the debate over expanding opportunity for all
Americans. And I could not be more grateful to CAP not only for giving me a lot
of good policy ideas, but also giving me a lot of staff. (Laughter.) My friend,
John Podesta, ran my transition; my Chief of Staff, Denis McDonough, did a
stint at CAP. So you guys are obviously doing a good job training folks.
I also want to thank all the members of Congress and my
administration who are here today for the wonderful work that they do. I want
to thank Mayor Gray and everyone here at THEARC for having me. This center,
which I’ve been to quite a bit, have had a chance to see some of the great work
that’s done here. And all the nonprofits that call THEARC home offer access to
everything from education, to health care, to a safe shelter from the streets,
which means that you’re harnessing the power of community to expand opportunity
for folks here in D.C. And your work reflects a tradition that runs through our
history -- a belief that we’re greater together than we are on our own. And
that’s what I’ve come here to talk about today.
Over the last two months, Washington has been dominated by some pretty
contentious debates -- I think that’s fair to say. And between a reckless
shutdown by congressional Republicans in an effort to repeal the Affordable
Care Act, and admittedly poor execution on my administration’s part in
implementing the latest stage of the new law, nobody has acquitted themselves
very well these past few months. So it’s not surprising that the American
people’s frustrations with Washington
are at an all-time high.
But we know that people’s frustrations run deeper than these
most recent political battles. Their frustration is rooted in their own daily
battles -- to make ends meet, to pay for college, buy a home, save for
retirement. It’s rooted in the nagging sense that no matter how hard they work,
the deck is stacked against them. And it’s rooted in the fear that their kids
won’t be better off than they were. They may not follow the constant
back-and-forth in Washington or all the policy details, but they experience in
a very personal way the relentless, decades-long trend that I want to spend
some time talking about today. And that is a dangerous and growing inequality
and lack of upward mobility that has jeopardized middle-class America’s basic
bargain -- that if you work hard, you have a chance to get ahead.
I believe this is the defining challenge of our time: Making
sure our economy works for every working American. It’s why I ran for
President. It was at the center of last year’s campaign. It drives everything I
do in this office. And I know I’ve raised this issue before, and some will ask
why I raise the issue again right now. I do it because the outcomes of the
debates we’re having right now -- whether it’s health care, or the budget, or
reforming our housing and financial systems -- all these things will have real,
practical implications for every American. And I am convinced that the
decisions we make on these issues over the next few years will determine whether
or not our children will grow up in an America where opportunity is real.
Now, the premise that we’re all created equal is the opening
line in the American story. And while we don’t promise equal outcomes, we have
strived to deliver equal opportunity -- the idea that success doesn’t depend on
being born into wealth or privilege, it depends on effort and merit. And with
every chapter we’ve added to that story, we’ve worked hard to put those words
into practice.
It was Abraham Lincoln, a self-described “poor man’s son,”
who started a system of land grant colleges all over this country so that any
poor man’s son could go learn something new.
When farms gave way to factories, a rich man’s son named
Teddy Roosevelt fought for an eight-hour workday, protections for workers, and
busted monopolies that kept prices high and wages low.
When millions lived in poverty, FDR fought for Social
Security, and insurance for the unemployed, and a minimum wage.
When millions died without health insurance, LBJ fought for
Medicare and Medicaid.
Together, we forged a New Deal, declared a War on Poverty in
a great society. We built a ladder of opportunity to climb, and stretched out a
safety net beneath so that if we fell, it wouldn’t be too far, and we could
bounce back. And as a result, America
built the largest middle class the world has ever known. And for the three
decades after World War II, it was the engine of our prosperity.
Now, we can’t look at the past through rose-colored glasses.
The economy didn’t always work for everyone. Racial discrimination locked
millions out of poverty -- or out of opportunity. Women were too often confined
to a handful of often poorly paid professions. And it was only through
painstaking struggle that more women, and minorities, and Americans with
disabilities began to win the right to more fairly and fully participate in the
economy.
Nevertheless, during the post-World War II years, the
economic ground felt stable and secure for most Americans, and the future
looked brighter than the past. And for some, that meant following in your old
man’s footsteps at the local plant, and you knew that a blue-collar job would
let you buy a home, and a car, maybe a vacation once in a while, health care, a
reliable pension. For others, it meant going to college -- in some cases, maybe
the first in your family to go to college. And it meant graduating without
taking on loads of debt, and being able to count on advancement through a
vibrant job market.
Now, it’s true that those at the top, even in those years,
claimed a much larger share of income than the rest: The top 10 percent
consistently took home about one-third of our national income. But that kind of
inequality took place in a dynamic market economy where everyone’s wages and
incomes were growing. And because of upward mobility, the guy on the factory
floor could picture his kid running the company some day.
But starting in the late ‘70s, this social compact began to
unravel. Technology made it easier for companies to do more with less,
eliminating certain job occupations. A more competitive world lets companies
ship jobs anywhere. And as good manufacturing jobs automated or headed
offshore, workers lost their leverage, jobs paid less and offered fewer
benefits.
As values of community broke down, and competitive pressure
increased, businesses lobbied Washington
to weaken unions and the value of the minimum wage. As a trickle-down ideology
became more prominent, taxes were slashed for the wealthiest, while investments
in things that make us all richer, like schools and infrastructure, were
allowed to wither. And for a certain period of time, we could ignore this
weakening economic foundation, in part because more families were relying on
two earners as women entered the workforce. We took on more debt financed by a
juiced-up housing market. But when the music stopped, and the crisis hit,
millions of families were stripped of whatever cushion they had left.
And the result is an economy that’s become profoundly
unequal, and families that are more insecure. I’ll just give you a few
statistics. Since 1979, when I graduated from high school, our productivity is
up by more than 90 percent, but the income of the typical family has increased
by less than eight percent. Since 1979, our economy has more than doubled in
size, but most of that growth has flowed to a fortunate few.
The top 10 percent no longer takes in one-third of our
income -- it now takes half. Whereas in the past, the average CEO made about 20
to 30 times the income of the average worker, today’s CEO now makes 273 times
more. And meanwhile, a family in the top 1 percent has a net worth 288 times
higher than the typical family, which is a record for this country.
So the basic bargain at the heart of our economy has frayed.
In fact, this trend towards growing inequality is not unique to America’s
market economy. Across the developed world, inequality has increased. Some of
you may have seen just last week, the Pope himself spoke about this at eloquent
length. “How can it be,” he wrote, “that it is not a news item when an elderly
homeless person dies of exposure, but it is news when the stock market loses
two points?”
But this increasing inequality is most pronounced in our
country, and it challenges the very essence of who we are as a people.
Understand we’ve never begrudged success in America. We aspire to it. We admire
folks who start new businesses, create jobs, and invent the products that
enrich our lives. And we expect them to be rewarded handsomely for it. In fact,
we've often accepted more income inequality than many other nations for one big
reason -- because we were convinced that America is a place where even if
you’re born with nothing, with a little hard work you can improve your own
situation over time and build something better to leave your kids. As Lincoln once said, “While
we do not propose any war upon capital, we do wish to allow the humblest man an
equal chance to get rich with everybody else.”
The problem is that alongside increased inequality, we’ve
seen diminished levels of upward mobility in recent years. A child born in the
top 20 percent has about a 2-in-3 chance of staying at or near the top. A child
born into the bottom 20 percent has a less than 1-in-20 shot at making it to
the top. He’s 10 times likelier to stay where he is. In fact, statistics show
not only that our levels of income inequality rank near countries like Jamaica
and Argentina, but that it is harder today for a child born here in America to
improve her station in life than it is for children in most of our wealthy
allies -- countries like Canada or Germany or France. They have greater
mobility than we do, not less.
The idea that so many children are born into poverty in the
wealthiest nation on Earth is heartbreaking enough. But the idea that a child
may never be able to escape that poverty because she lacks a decent education
or health care, or a community that views her future as their own, that should
offend all of us and it should compel us to action. We are a better country
than this.
So let me repeat: The combined trends of increased
inequality and decreasing mobility pose a fundamental threat to the American
Dream, our way of life, and what we stand for around the globe. And it is not
simply a moral claim that I’m making here. There are practical consequences to
rising inequality and reduced mobility.
For one thing, these trends are bad for our economy. One
study finds that growth is more fragile and recessions are more frequent in
countries with greater inequality. And that makes sense. When families have
less to spend, that means businesses have fewer customers, and households rack
up greater mortgage and credit card debt; meanwhile, concentrated wealth at the
top is less likely to result in the kind of broadly based consumer spending
that drives our economy, and together with lax regulation, may contribute to
risky speculative bubbles.
And rising inequality and declining mobility are also bad
for our families and social cohesion -- not just because we tend to trust our
institutions less, but studies show we actually tend to trust each other less
when there’s greater inequality. And greater inequality is associated with less
mobility between generations. That means it’s not just temporary; the effects
last. It creates a vicious cycle. For example, by the time she turns three
years old, a child born into a low-income home hears 30 million fewer words
than a child from a well-off family, which means by the time she starts school
she’s already behind, and that deficit can compound itself over time.
And finally, rising inequality and declining mobility are
bad for our democracy. Ordinary folks can’t write massive campaign checks or
hire high-priced lobbyists and lawyers to secure policies that tilt the playing
field in their favor at everyone else’s expense. And so people get the bad
taste that the system is rigged, and that increases cynicism and polarization,
and it decreases the political participation that is a requisite part of our
system of self-government.
So this is an issue that we have to tackle head on. And if,
in fact, the majority of Americans agree that our number-one priority is to
restore opportunity and broad-based growth for all Americans, the question is
why has Washington
consistently failed to act? And I think a big reason is the myths that have
developed around the issue of inequality.
First, there is the myth that this is a problem restricted
to a small share of predominantly minority poor -- that this isn’t a
broad-based problem, this is a black problem or a Hispanic problem or a Native
American problem. Now, it’s true that the painful legacy of discrimination
means that African Americans, Latinos, Native Americans are far more likely to
suffer from a lack of opportunity -- higher unemployment, higher poverty rates.
It’s also true that women still make 77 cents on the dollar compared to men. So
we’re going to need strong application of antidiscrimination laws. We’re going
to need immigration reform that grows the economy and takes people out of the
shadows. We’re going to need targeted initiatives to close those gaps.
(Applause.)
But here’s an important point. The decades-long shifts in
the economy have hurt all groups: poor and middle class; inner city and rural
folks; men and women; and Americans of all races. And as a consequence, some of
the social patterns that contribute to declining mobility that were once
attributed to the urban poor -- that’s a particular problem for the inner city:
single-parent households or drug abuse -- it turns out now we’re seeing that
pop up everywhere.
A new study shows that disparities in education, mental
health, obesity, absent fathers, isolation from church, isolation from
community groups -- these gaps are now as much about growing up rich or poor as
they are about anything else. The gap in test scores between poor kids and
wealthy kids is now nearly twice what it is between white kids and black kids.
Kids with working-class parents are 10 times likelier than kids with middle- or
upper-class parents to go through a time when their parents have no income. So
the fact is this: The opportunity gap in America is now as much about class
as it is about race, and that gap is growing.
So if we’re going to take on growing inequality and try to
improve upward mobility for all people, we’ve got to move beyond the false
notion that this is an issue exclusively of minority concern. And we have to
reject a politics that suggests any effort to address it in a meaningful way
somehow pits the interests of a deserving middle class against those of an
undeserving poor in search of handouts. (Applause.)
Second, we need to dispel the myth that the goals of growing
the economy and reducing inequality are necessarily in conflict, when they
should actually work in concert. We know from our history that our economy
grows best from the middle out, when growth is more widely shared. And we know
that beyond a certain level of inequality, growth actually slows altogether.
Third, we need to set aside the belief that government
cannot do anything about reducing inequality. It’s true that government cannot
prevent all the downsides of the technological change and global competition
that are out there right now, and some of those forces are also some of the
things that are helping us grow. And it’s also true that some programs in the
past, like welfare before it was reformed, were sometimes poorly designed,
created disincentives to work.
But we’ve also seen how government action time and again can
make an enormous difference in increasing opportunity and bolstering ladders
into the middle class. Investments in education, laws establishing collective
bargaining, and a minimum wage -- these all contributed to rising standards of
living for massive numbers of Americans. (Applause.) Likewise, when previous
generations declared that every citizen of this country deserved a basic
measure of security -- a floor through which they could not fall -- we helped
millions of Americans live in dignity, and gave millions more the confidence to
aspire to something better, by taking a risk on a great idea.
Without Social Security, nearly half of seniors would be
living in poverty -- half. Today, fewer than 1 in 10 do. Before Medicare, only
half of all seniors had some form of health insurance. Today, virtually all do.
And because we’ve strengthened that safety net, and expanded pro-work and
pro-family tax credits like the Earned Income Tax Credit, a recent study found
that the poverty rate has fallen by 40 percent since the 1960s. And these
endeavors didn’t just make us a better country; they reaffirmed that we are a
great country.
So we can make a difference on this. In fact, that’s our
generation’s task -- to rebuild America’s
economic and civic foundation to continue the expansion of opportunity for this
generation and the next generation. (Applause.) And like Neera, I take this
personally. I’m only here because this country educated my grandfather on the
GI Bill. When my father left and my mom hit hard times trying to raise my
sister and me while she was going to school, this country helped make sure we
didn’t go hungry. When Michelle, the daughter of a shift worker at a water
plant and a secretary, wanted to go to college, just like me, this country
helped us afford it until we could pay it back.
So what drives me as a grandson, a son, a father -- as an
American -- is to make sure that every striving, hardworking, optimistic kid in
America
has the same incredible chance that this country gave me. (Applause.) It has
been the driving force between everything we’ve done these past five years. And
over the course of the next year, and for the rest of my presidency, that’s
where you should expect my administration to focus all our efforts. (Applause.)
Now, you'll be pleased to know this is not a State of the
Union Address. (Laughter.) And many of the ideas that can make the biggest
difference in expanding opportunity I’ve presented before. But let me offer a
few key principles, just a roadmap that I believe should guide us in both our
legislative agenda and our administrative efforts.
To begin with, we have to continue to relentlessly push a
growth agenda. It may be true that in today’s economy, growth alone does not
guarantee higher wages and incomes. We've seen that. But what's also true is we
can’t tackle inequality if the economic pie is shrinking or stagnant. The fact
is if you’re a progressive and you want to help the middle class and the
working poor, you’ve still got to be concerned about competitiveness and
productivity and business confidence that spurs private sector investment.
And that’s why from day one we’ve worked to get the economy
growing and help our businesses hire. And thanks to their resilience and
innovation, they’ve created nearly 8 million new jobs over the past 44 months.
And now we’ve got to grow the economy even faster. And we've got to keep
working to make America
a magnet for good, middle-class jobs to replace the ones that we’ve lost in
recent decades -- jobs in manufacturing and energy and infrastructure and
technology.
And that means simplifying our corporate tax code in a way
that closes wasteful loopholes and ends incentives to ship jobs overseas.
(Applause.) And by broadening the base, we can actually lower rates to
encourage more companies to hire here and use some of the money we save to
create good jobs rebuilding our roads and our bridges and our airports, and all
the infrastructure our businesses need.
It means a trade agenda that grows exports and works for the
middle class. It means streamlining regulations that are outdated or
unnecessary or too costly. And it means coming together around a responsible
budget -- one that grows our economy faster right now and shrinks our long-term
deficits, one that unwinds the harmful sequester cuts that haven't made a lot
of sense -- (applause) -- and then frees up resources to invest in things like
the scientific research that's always unleashed new innovation and new
industries.
When it comes to our budget, we should not be stuck in a
stale debate from two years ago or three years ago. A relentlessly growing
deficit of opportunity is a bigger threat to our future than our rapidly
shrinking fiscal deficit. (Applause.)
So that’s step one towards restoring mobility: making sure
our economy is growing faster. Step two is making sure we empower more
Americans with the skills and education they need to compete in a highly
competitive global economy.
We know that education is the most important predictor of
income today, so we launched a Race to the Top in our schools. We’re supporting
states that have raised standards for teaching and learning. We’re pushing for
redesigned high schools that graduate more kids with the technical training and
apprenticeships, and in-demand, high-tech skills that can lead directly to a
good job and a middle-class life.
We know it’s harder to find a job today without some higher
education, so we’ve helped more students go to college with grants and loans
that go farther than before. We’ve made it more practical to repay those loans.
And today, more students are graduating from college than ever before. We’re
also pursuing an aggressive strategy to promote innovation that reins in
tuition costs. We’ve got lower costs so that young people are not burdened by
enormous debt when they make the right decision to get higher education. And
next week, Michelle and I will bring together college presidents and
non-profits to lead a campaign to help more low-income students attend and
succeed in college. (Applause.)
But while higher education may be the surest path to the
middle class, it’s not the only one. So we should offer our people the best
technical education in the world. That’s why we’ve worked to connect local
businesses with community colleges, so that workers young and old can earn the
new skills that earn them more money.
And I’ve also embraced an idea that I know all of you at the
Center for American Progress have championed -- and, by the way, Republican governors
in a couple of states have championed -- and that’s making high-quality
preschool available to every child in America. (Applause.) We know that
kids in these programs grow up likelier to get more education, earn higher
wages, form more stable families of their own. It starts a virtuous cycle, not
a vicious one. And we should invest in that. We should give all of our children
that chance.
And as we empower our young people for future success, the
third part of this middle-class economics is empowering our workers. It’s time
to ensure our collective bargaining laws function as they’re supposed to --
(applause) -- so unions have a level playing field to organize for a better
deal for workers and better wages for the middle class. It’s time to pass the
Paycheck Fairness Act so that women will have more tools to fight pay
discrimination. (Applause.) It’s time to pass the Employment Non-Discrimination
Act so workers can’t be fired for who they are or who they love. (Applause.)
And even though we’re bringing manufacturing jobs back to America, we’re
creating more good-paying jobs in education and health care and business
services; we know that we’re going to have a greater and greater portion of our
people in the service sector. And we know that there are airport workers, and
fast-food workers, and nurse assistants, and retail salespeople who work their
tails off and are still living at or barely above poverty. (Applause.) And
that’s why it’s well past the time to raise a minimum wage that in real terms
right now is below where it was when Harry Truman was in office. (Applause.)
This shouldn’t be an ideological question. It was Adam
Smith, the father of free-market economics, who once said, “They who feed,
clothe, and lodge the whole body of the people should have such a share of the
produce of their own labor as to be themselves tolerably well fed, clothed, and
lodged.” And for those of you who don’t speak old-English -- (laughter) -- let
me translate. It means if you work hard, you should make a decent living.
(Applause.) If you work hard, you should be able to support a family.
Now, we all know the arguments that have been used against a
higher minimum wage. Some say it actually hurts low-wage workers -- businesses
will be less likely to hire them. But there’s no solid evidence that a higher
minimum wage costs jobs, and research shows it raises incomes for low-wage
workers and boosts short-term economic growth. (Applause.)
Others argue that if we raise the minimum wage, companies
will just pass those costs on to consumers. But a growing chorus of businesses,
small and large, argue differently. And already, there are extraordinary
companies in America
that provide decent wages, salaries, and benefits, and training for their
workers, and deliver a great product to consumers.
SAS in North
Carolina offers childcare and sick leave. REI, a
company my Secretary of the Interior used to run, offers retirement plans and
strives to cultivate a good work balance. There are companies out there that do
right by their workers. They recognize that paying a decent wage actually helps
their bottom line, reduces turnover. It means workers have more money to spend,
to save, maybe eventually start a business of their own.
A broad majority of Americans agree we should raise the
minimum wage. That’s why, last month, voters in New Jersey decided to become the 20th state
to raise theirs even higher. That’s why, yesterday, the D.C. Council voted to
do it, too. I agree with those voters. (Applause.) I agree with those voters,
and I’m going to keep pushing until we get a higher minimum wage for
hard-working Americans across the entire country. It will be good for our
economy. It will be good for our families. (Applause.)
Number four, as I alluded to earlier, we still need targeted
programs for the communities and workers that have been hit hardest by economic
change and the Great Recession. These communities are no longer limited to the
inner city. They’re found in neighborhoods hammered by the housing crisis, manufacturing
towns hit hard by years of plants packing up, landlocked rural areas where
young folks oftentimes feel like they've got to leave just to find a job. There
are communities that just aren’t generating enough jobs anymore.
So we’ve put forward new plans to help these communities and
their residents, because we’ve watched cities like Pittsburgh
or my hometown of Chicago
revamp themselves. And if we give more cities the tools to do it -- not
handouts, but a hand up -- cities like Detroit
can do it, too. So in a few weeks, we’ll announce the first of these Promise
Zones, urban and rural communities where we’re going to support local efforts
focused on a national goal -- and that is a child’s course in life should not
be determined by the zip code he’s born in, but by the strength of his work
ethic and the scope of his dreams. (Applause.)
And we're also going to have to do more for the long-term
unemployed. For people who have been out of work for more than six months,
often through no fault of their own, life is a catch-22. Companies won’t give
their résumé an honest look because they’ve been laid off so long -- but
they’ve been laid off so long because companies won’t give their résumé an
honest look. (Laughter.) And that’s why earlier this year, I challenged CEOs
from some of America’s
best companies to give these Americans a fair shot. And next month, many of
them will join us at the White House for an announcement about this.
Fifth, we've got to revamp retirement to protect Americans
in their golden years, to make sure another housing collapse doesn’t steal the
savings in their homes. We've also got to strengthen our safety net for a new
age, so it doesn’t just protect people who hit a run of bad luck from falling
into poverty, but also propels them back out of poverty.
Today, nearly half of full-time workers and 80 percent of
part-time workers don’t have a pension or retirement account at their job.
About half of all households don’t have any retirement savings. So we’re going
to have to do more to encourage private savings and shore up the promise of
Social Security for future generations. And remember, these are promises we
make to one another. We don’t do it to replace the free market, but we do it to
reduce risk in our society by giving people the ability to take a chance and
catch them if they fall. One study shows that more than half of Americans will
experience poverty at some point during their adult lives. Think about that.
This is not an isolated situation. More than half of Americans at some point in
their lives will experience poverty.
That’s why we have nutrition assistance or the program known
as SNAP, because it makes a difference for a mother who’s working, but is just
having a hard time putting food on the table for her kids. That’s why we have
unemployment insurance, because it makes a difference for a father who lost his
job and is out there looking for a new one that he can keep a roof over his
kids' heads. By the way, Christmastime is no time for Congress to tell more
than 1 million of these Americans that they have lost their unemployment
insurance, which is what will happen if Congress does not act before they leave
on their holiday vacation. (Applause.)
The point is these programs are not typically hammocks for
people to just lie back and relax. These programs are almost always temporary
means for hardworking people to stay afloat while they try to find a new job or
go into school to retrain themselves for the jobs that are out there, or
sometimes just to cope with a bout of bad luck. Progressives should be open to
reforms that actually strengthen these programs and make them more responsive
to a 21st century economy. For example, we should be willing to look at fresh
ideas to revamp unemployment and disability programs to encourage faster and
higher rates of re-employment without cutting benefits. We shouldn't weaken
fundamental protections built over generations, because given the constant
churn in today’s economy and the disabilities that many of our friends and
neighbors live with, they're needed more than ever. We should strengthen them
and adapt them to new circumstances so they work even better.
But understand that these programs of social insurance
benefit all of us, because we don't know when we might have a run of bad luck.
(Applause.) We don't know when we might lose a job. Of course, for decades,
there was one yawning gap in the safety net that did more than anything else to
expose working families to the insecurities of today’s economy -- namely, our broken
health care system.
That’s why we fought for the Affordable Care Act --
(applause) -- because 14,000 Americans lost their health insurance every single
day, and even more died each year because they didn’t have health insurance at
all. We did it because millions of families who thought they had coverage were
driven into bankruptcy by out-of-pocket costs that they didn't realize would be
there. Tens of millions of our fellow citizens couldn’t get any coverage at
all. And Dr. King once said, "Of all the forms of inequality, injustice in
health care is the most shocking and inhumane.”
Well, not anymore. (Applause.) Because in the three years
since we passed this law, the share of Americans with insurance is up, the
growth of health care costs are down to their slowest rate in 50 years. More
people have insurance, and more have new benefits and protections -- 100
million Americans who have gained the right for free preventive care like
mammograms and contraception; the more than 7 million Americans who have saved
an average of $1,200 on their prescription medicine; every American who won’t
go broke when they get sick because their insurance can’t limit their care
anymore.
More people without insurance have gained insurance -- more
than 3 million young Americans who have been able to stay on their parents’
plan, the more than half a million Americans and counting who are poised to get
covered starting on January 1st, some for the very first time.
And it is these numbers -- not the ones in any poll -- that
will ultimately determine the fate of this law. (Applause.) It's the measurable
outcomes in reduced bankruptcies and reduced hours that have been lost because
somebody couldn't make it to work, and healthier kids with better performance
in schools, and young entrepreneurs who have the freedom to go out there and
try a new idea -- those are the things that will ultimately reduce a major
source of inequality and help ensure more Americans get the start that they
need to succeed in the future.
I have acknowledged more than once that we didn’t roll out
parts of this law as well as we should have. But the law is already working in
major ways that benefit millions of Americans right now, even as we’ve begun to
slow the rise in health care costs, which is good for family budgets, good for
federal and state budgets, and good for the budgets of businesses small and
large. So this law is going to work. And for the sake of our economic security,
it needs to work. (Applause.)
And as people in states as different as California
and Kentucky
sign up every single day for health insurance, signing up in droves, they’re
proving they want that economic security. If the Senate Republican leader still
thinks he is going to be able to repeal this someday, he might want to check
with the more than 60,000 people in his home state who are already set to
finally have coverage that frees them from the fear of financial ruin, and lets
them afford to take their kids to see a doctor. (Applause.)
So let me end by addressing the elephant in the room here,
which is the seeming inability to get anything done in Washington these days. I realize we are not
going to resolve all of our political debates over the best ways to reduce
inequality and increase upward mobility this year, or next year, or in the next
five years. But it is important that we have a serious debate about these
issues. For the longer that current trends are allowed to continue, the more it
will feed the cynicism and fear that many Americans are feeling right now --
that they’ll never be able to repay the debt they took on to go to college,
they’ll never be able to save enough to retire, they’ll never see their own
children land a good job that supports a family.
And that’s why, even as I will keep on offering my own ideas
for expanding opportunity, I’ll also keep challenging and welcoming those who
oppose my ideas to offer their own. If Republicans have concrete plans that
will actually reduce inequality, build the middle class, provide more ladders
of opportunity to the poor, let’s hear them. I want to know what they are. If
you don’t think we should raise the minimum wage, let’s hear your idea to
increase people’s earnings. If you don’t think every child should have access
to preschool, tell us what you’d do differently to give them a better shot.
If you still don’t like Obamacare -- and I know you don’t --
(laughter) -- even though it’s built on market-based ideas of choice and
competition in the private sector, then you should explain how, exactly, you’d
cut costs, and cover more people, and make insurance more secure. You owe it to
the American people to tell us what you are for, not just what you’re against.
(Applause.) That way we can have a vigorous and meaningful debate. That’s what
the American people deserve. That’s what the times demand. It’s not enough
anymore to just say we should just get our government out of the way and let
the unfettered market take care of it -- for our experience tells us that’s
just not true. (Applause.)
Look, I’ve never believed that government can solve every
problem or should -- and neither do you. We know that ultimately our strength
is grounded in our people -- individuals out there, striving, working, making
things happen. It depends on community, a rich and generous sense of community
-- that’s at the core of what happens at THEARC here every day. You understand
that turning back rising inequality and expanding opportunity requires parents
taking responsibility for their kids, kids taking responsibility to work hard.
It requires religious leaders who mobilize their congregations to rebuild
neighborhoods block by block, requires civic organizations that can help train
the unemployed, link them with businesses for the jobs of the future. It
requires companies and CEOs to set an example by providing decent wages, and
salaries, and benefits for their workers, and a shot for somebody who is down
on his or her luck. We know that’s our strength -- our people, our communities,
our businesses.
But government can’t stand on the sidelines in our efforts.
Because government is us. It can and should reflect our deepest values and
commitments. And if we refocus our energies on building an economy that grows
for everybody, and gives every child in this country a fair chance at success,
then I remain confident that the future still looks brighter than the past, and
that the best days for this country we love are still ahead. (Applause.)
Thank you, everybody. God bless you. God bless America.
(Applause.)
President Barack Obama, setting a theme that he’ll pursue in
the final years of his presidency,……
http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2013-12-04/obama-says-income-disparity-a-defining-challenge-of-era.html
Obama said the gap between rich and poor is an issue across
the globe. He quoted Pope Francis, who in a speech last month warned that
unfettered markets are increasing income disparities and that risks fomenting
social unrest.