- Focus
on Economic Mobility « President Obama
Speech on Economic Mobility
President
Barack Obama
Remarks on Economic Mobility
THEARC
Washington, D.C.
December 4, 2013
Remarks on Economic Mobility
THEARC
Washington, D.C.
December 4, 2013
[WHITE HOUSE TRANSCRIPT]
11:31 A.M. EST
THE PRESIDENT: 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.)
END
12:20 P.M. EST
###