Miller Calls on Committee to Focus on Competitiveness and Innovation

WASHINGTON, D.C. – At a hearing on the state of the American workforce, U.S. Rep. George Miller (D-Calif.), the senior Democrat on the House Committee on Education and the Workforce, called on the committee to work on solutions to help to grow and strengthen America’s middle class. 

 

“We have the hardest working people in the world and I hope we can look forward to solutions to help grow and strengthen America’s middle class,” said Miller. “All across the nation, communities are confronting a lack of highly skilled workers, even as unemployment is high. We must support these local efforts to create jobs, stay competitive, and act decisively nationally to build and maintain a highly skilled workforce.”

During last night’s State of the Union address, President Obama called for additional measures to increase our nation’s competitiveness and innovation, including improving education and providing additional investments for infrastructure projects.  Witnesses appearing before the committee, regardless of political ideology, expressed general support for the economic benefits of federal funding for infrastructure projects and education reform. 

 

“Every initiative that goes through this committee must be judged on whether it will help to grow and strengthen the middle class. We cannot double-down on go-go bubble economics and trickle down tax policy of the past,” said Miller. “There is more to be done to heal our economy. As President Obama stated last night, we need to move forward on key investments to help unleash our nation’s competitiveness and innovation.”

 

Heather Boushey, a senior economist from the Center for American Progress Action Fund, testified that American workers have been battered by decades of stagnant wages and that Congress should continue forward on significant investments in order to put the middle class back on solid footing.

 

“The challenges workers are as great as they’ve been in generations. The Great Recession has wrought havoc in the lives of millions of families,” Boushey said. “Jobs will not, however, be created by limiting regulation or repealing the Affordable Care Act, nor by creating by cutting spending or focusing on the short-term deficit.”

 

Boushey also pointed out that America’s working families were already facing significant odds in attaining and staying in the middle class resulting from the mismanaged economic policies of the 2000’s that also contributed to the Great Recession. Despite the economy growing over that period, she said, the typical family saw their household income remain the same.