Albany, GA
6/18/2024
Good morning, everybody!
I'm going to say something that everybody in this room knows, which is the importance of a good job. And when it comes to investing in rural America, we think about jobs. Not just any job, but a good job—a good job that has the power to change lives.
Good jobs aren't just transformational for the people who do them and for their families, they really uplift whole communities, and they instill hope.
So let me thank Steve Benjamin, the President's Director of Public Engagement and my friend. When you talk about someone who was great and good, I think of you, Steve, so thank you for all you are doing to lift up our message and to make sure that we are listening and engaging with communities all across the country.
And I want to thank Congressman Bishop as well for having me in your district, for hosting this whole event, and to the many other local officials right here, who we are going to hear from. And I want to say to Yvonne Brooks, the Georgia AFL-CIO President, she is the first woman and the first Black president to serve in that role.
And so we try to get together every time I am here in this state and what you're doing is what you're helping to breathe life into President Biden's vision that we cannot have a strong economy or a strong nation without strong workers.
And it is so beautiful to be here at Albany State University! At the moment I walked in, there was such a tremendous amount of energy. And, you know, being at HBCUs fills me with that sense of hope too. That's why I have traveled to HBCUs in Mississippi, in Tennessee, in South Carolina, and here, at the largest one in the state of Georgia! We know that HBCUs are centers of excellence.
And thank you to the entire ASU team for hosting us here and especially to the president, the unsinkable and indestructible, President Marion Ross Fredrick. Thank you for your leadership and for all you are doing here also to strengthen rural communities.
And let me also thank Doctor Wendy Wilson, who worked so closely with my team to make today's event possible.
So let me take us back for a moment to where we were just three years ago before President Biden came into office. If you all recall, COVID was out of control and there was no national strategy to get it under control. Unemployment was very high, and when people went to the store, we didn't know if we were going to find toilet paper if we needed it.
So compare that to where we are today. Since President Biden came into office, 15.6 million jobs have been created in this country. That is a number that most people actually said was going to be impossible, it wouldn't happen that quickly, and it wouldn't be quite that many.
In fact, more jobs have been created since President Biden came into office than under any other president in that same time period.
The unemployment rate remains low. It has been the lowest for the longest stretch since the 1960s. In fact, right here in Albany, Georgia, the unemployment rate just in the last three years has been cut in half. And, it's just 3.4 percent today, which means, that more working people have the dignity of a job, and they have something the President talks about, which is some breathing room.
Now, President Biden is also fighting to decrease costs for families in your community. Like prescription drug prices, like capping the cost of insulin at $35 a month, like calling on corporations to stop price gouging. And companies like Walmart and Target have recently announced they're lowering their prices.
Now, at the Department of Labor, we're also proud to do our part by enforcing the law so that every worker gets a just day's pay. We're putting wages back into workers' pockets. We're restoring the promise of a 40-hour work week by expanding overtime protections to millions of Americans. And, we're protecting people's hard-earned retirement savings.
So none of those things happened by accident. They happened because leadership matters.
Remember something else from the past. We were promised an infrastructure week that never materialized in this country, but we've also turned that around. So as you heard from the Congressman, and you heard from Steve, under President Biden's agenda we are investing in America again. And instead of an infrastructure week, we are looking at an infrastructure decade. You heard about the airports.
The President's Investing in Rural America agenda is directing $772.5 million into communities just like this one. Because rural communities also deserve safe roads and bridges. Rural communities should also be able to turn on the faucet at home and know they're getting clean drinking water, and rural communities should also have access to high-speed reliable internet.
These should not be luxuries. They should be basics. And this isn't just a moment to build our physical infrastructure. It's an opportunity to create good jobs in every single community.
So good jobs, what does that mean? It means having a decent income that you can live on, so you don't just get by, but you can actually get ahead. It means being treated with dignity and respect. It means knowing when you go to work at the beginning of the day, that you're going to come home healthy and safe at the end of it. And it means that workers can exercise their rights and their power.
So these are the kinds of jobs that we are bringing to rural communities. The Congressman mentioned Blue Bird. Blue Bird is making those electric school buses that are now going to be used to make sure that kids ride to and from school in buses that they're not going to also then have to breathe in air that they can't live in.
And those workers are now union workers because they chose to organize.
So we can do all these things. We can invest in rural America. We can build a clean climate and we can make sure that workers have good jobs.
At the Department of Labor, we've really been focused on growing these good jobs in rural America. So as, Steve mentioned, people don't have to leave communities they love in order to find a good job.
And as one example of the many investments that we are making as an administration, we have something called Workforce Opportunity for Rural Communities, or WORC, that has about $50 million in funding that's going out to rural communities to connect rural workers to good jobs in their communities that start at $15 an hour and keep going up.
And these grants also help reduce barriers for people to getting good jobs because we know that community—people want to work—this idea that people sit outside because they don't want to work, that's ridiculous.
People want to work, but we have to make sure that the jobs are good and that people can get to and from their jobs. So we have to invest in transportation. We have to make sure that people can get child care, so they can also get to and from their jobs and know that their children are able to be cared for.
And we are partnering with campuses like ASU to make sure their educational programs are matched to the good jobs that are coming in every single community.
So we have to make sure that we're preparing people not for skills that they might need for jobs that might materialize. We have to make sure that we are building that connectivity so that when somebody sees a job they didn't know existed, they can also see a path to get to that job.
So now, here in Georgia, a worker can apply for a Registered Apprenticeship program in Macon, in Cedartown, or in Alma to earn a paycheck while they learn new skills. And I see Yvonne clapping because of those Registered Apprenticeships are tied to good union jobs.
Workers can also train for jobs in industrial machines in Winder, carpentry in Martinez, or pipefitting in Brunswick. We're also reimagining our Job Corps centers where young people who have been disconnected to school or work get another chance. We've called them now infrastructure academies, so that those young people are training and learning about a job in their community as well.
So right here in Albany, at the Turner Job Corp Center, workers are assembling aircraft, agricultural equipment, biotech, and so much more.
So in the Biden-Harris Administration, we are putting our hearts, our money, our people, our talents, and our vision in creating real opportunity, and we are all in. We are not done yet, in fact, we're just getting started.
So let's work together to create even more good jobs with the power to change lives. Let's pave even more pathways so more people can see themselves in the bright future we're creating. Let's do this together. We can only succeed if we're all in partnership.