As we fight the virus, don’t forget about jobs
This Labor Day, we reflect on a year the American worker will long remember. We also honor achievements by America’s workers that the nation will honor forever.
The year began with the best job market in generations. Unemployment tied a 50-year low, with nearly seven million jobs added to the economy in just three years. Wages were rising, and rising faster for lower-paid workers, who saw a 15 percent increase in wages from January 2017 to January 2020.
It was an inclusive economy, with the unemployment rate at the lowest level recorded for African Americans, Hispanic Americans and Asian Americans. Unemployment for adult women hit a nearly 70-year low. With a million more job openings than Americans looking for work, employers made extra efforts to accommodate workers with disabilities and to offer second-chances to workers recovering from opioid use or exiting the criminal justice system.
The coronavirus sideswiped this economy, putting millions of Americans out of work and triggering a period of hardship for American workers — and a time of great courage and achievement.
In the war against the virus, the home front became the front line. American workers saved lives. And some gave their lives doing so. They pulled double shifts in hospitals, sustained the nation’s food supply and kept essential goods trucking across the country. Millions of Americans working from home juggled their job duties with extra family responsibilities. Millions others sacrificed their jobs to “flatten the curve,” as government stay-at-home orders and other restrictions closed restaurants, entertainment venues and other gathering places.
Even as parts of the economy were idled, others swung into action, demonstrating the industrial might and resourcefulness that won two world wars. Factory workers redeployed virtually overnight to produce approximately 400 million N95 respirators, 180 million test kits, and more than 110,000 ventilators.
By early May, our economy was recovering, gaining back 2.7 million jobs that month and a total of 10.6 million through August. Friday, we learned that unemployment fell to 8.4 percent in August, a figure most experts did not expect to see before 2021.
The recovery was supported by swift bipartisan action in Washington. In March, President Donald Trump signed relief bills that provided paid sick leave, millions of forgivable loans for small businesses to keep employees on payroll, $1,200 direct cash payments to working families, and a temporary federal unemployment benefit of $600 a week. When the unemployment benefit expired in July and Congress failed to reach agreement on a replacement plan, the president established a new lost wages assistance program using FEMA funds.
A potentially even more important bipartisan achievement was the entry-into-force in July of the United States-Mexico-Canada Agreement, the monumental trade deal the president negotiated to replace NAFTA with widespread support from Republicans and Democrats, labor unions and business leaders. The agreement creates a more level playing field for American workers by requiring our trading partners to respect the labor rights that we regard as fundamental. USMCA promises to be a key part of our economic recovery, with the potential to create hundreds of thousands of jobs in manufacturing, agriculture, and other sectors.
As we look to the remaining months of 2020, two projects will be especially important to America’s workers.
One is the inspiring headway our scientists and doctors are making against the virus. At work in labs and hospitals, they are developing better treatments and a better understanding of the virus’s transmission and measures to contain it. Most promising of all is Operation Warp Speed, which is on track to deliver a vaccine within months. Three vaccine candidates are in the final stage of testing; the government already has invested billions to produce and deliver the successful product.
The second task is restoring the robust, inclusive economy that 2020 began with. In the summer of 2016, the Congressional Budget Office projected the nation would add 1.9 million jobs between January 2017 and early this year. Through tax cuts and reducing unnecessary regulatory burdens, we created more than three times that amount, and dropped unemployment a point-and-a-half lower than predicted. As we continue to fight the virus and support the workers it has affected, we will drive toward fully restoring the economic vitality that produced so much opportunity for working Americans.
Together we are overcoming the virus, and American workers will forever remember the part they played in the victory.