The American Jobs Plan, proposed by the Biden Administration on March 31 of 2021, plans for action on several fronts. At the expense of nearly 2.3 trillion dollars, the American Jobs Plan will act as an investment into new and more jobs along with infrastructure propositions. According to Data for Progress, the American Jobs Plan is, “backed by a 52-percentage-point margin.” This, in turn, would boost our economy, which is especially important as the COVID-19 vaccine is now being distributed at what we can hope is the tail-end of the pandemic. Some specific examples of the objectives highlighted in the American Jobs Plan include the following:
- Fix highways, rebuild bridges, upgrade ports, airports and transit systems.
- Solidify the infrastructure of our care economy by creating jobs and raising wages and benefits for essential home care workers.
- Create good-quality jobs that pay prevailing wages in safe and healthy workplaces while ensuring workers have a free and fair choice to organize, join a union, and bargain collectively with their employers.
These are only a few of the key selling points from the plan from the White House Website FACT SHEET (https://www.whitehouse.gov/briefing-room/statements-releases/2021/03/31/fact-sheet-the-american-jobs-plan/).
As the American Jobs Plan is still a fairly new concept, the plan for the spending of 2.3 trillion dollars was proposed in pieces. In terms of the general cost, according to the Committee for a Responsible Federal Budget, “Over the traditional 10-year budget window, we estimate the net increase in the deficit would be approximately $900 billion. The plan appears deficit-neutral over 15 years and it would reduce deficits over the long-term.” Investopedia provides this table showing the particular beneficiaries of the near 2.3 trillion dollars.
I think the American Jobs Plan can be incredibly useful. This is especially true because it calls out the racial injustices that come along with climate injustice. The plan also mentions the specific statistic, “Public domestic investment as a share of the economy has fallen by more than 40 percent since the 1960s.” (The White House) This statistic is important when acknowledging the domestic activism that needs to be done. The similarities between President Biden’s American Job Plan and the Green New Deal, as discussed in class, will hopefully prove useful for bettering our infrastructure and economy. A major limitation, however, is the amount of money spent. Realistically, 2.3 trillion dollars is a lot of money. One could pay off around 9333 celebrity divorce settlements with the 2.3 trillion dollars (Kiplinger). I just hope that the money can be spent with intention rather than letting it go to waste with “empty words” as it was put by activist Greta Thunberg. Oftentimes, a lot of money is thrown towards a project in its proposal phase that is never used as intended, rather than starting a project off with a budget and using money as it is needed. Hopefully, the American Job Plan lives up to its promising proposal.
Sources:
- https://www.whitehouse.gov/briefing-room/statements-releases/2021/03/31/fact-sheet-the-american-jobs-plan/
- https://www.dataforprogress.org/blog/2021/4/6/voters-support-the-american-jobs-plan
- https://www.investopedia.com/what-s-in-joe-biden-s-usd2-trillion-american-jobs-plan-5120273
- https://www.crfb.org/blogs/whats-president-bidens-american-jobs-plan
- https://www.kiplinger.com/article/business/t043-c000-s001-14-ways-to-spend-1-trillion.html
- Fix highways, rebuild bridges, upgrade ports, airports and transit systems.
- Solidify the infrastructure of our care economy by creating jobs and raising wages and benefits for essential home care workers.
- Create good-quality jobs that pay prevailing wages in safe and healthy workplaces while ensuring workers have a free and fair choice to organize, join a union, and bargain collectively with their employers.
These are only a few of the key selling points from the plan from the White House Website FACT SHEET (https://www.whitehouse.gov/briefing-room/statements-releases/2021/03/31/fact-sheet-the-american-jobs-plan/).
As the American Jobs Plan is still a fairly new concept, the plan for the spending of 2.3 trillion dollars was proposed in pieces. In terms of the general cost, according to the Committee for a Responsible Federal Budget, “Over the traditional 10-year budget window, we estimate the net increase in the deficit would be approximately $900 billion. The plan appears deficit-neutral over 15 years and it would reduce deficits over the long-term.” Investopedia provides this table showing the particular beneficiaries of the near 2.3 trillion dollars.
I think the American Jobs Plan can be incredibly useful. This is especially true because it calls out the racial injustices that come along with climate injustice. The plan also mentions the specific statistic, “Public domestic investment as a share of the economy has fallen by more than 40 percent since the 1960s.” (The White House) This statistic is important when acknowledging the domestic activism that needs to be done. The similarities between President Biden’s American Job Plan and the Green New Deal, as discussed in class, will hopefully prove useful for bettering our infrastructure and economy. A major limitation, however, is the amount of money spent. Realistically, 2.3 trillion dollars is a lot of money. One could pay off around 9333 celebrity divorce settlements with the 2.3 trillion dollars (Kiplinger). I just hope that the money can be spent with intention rather than letting it go to waste with “empty words” as it was put by activist Greta Thunberg. Oftentimes, a lot of money is thrown towards a project in its proposal phase that is never used as intended, rather than starting a project off with a budget and using money as it is needed. Hopefully, the American Job Plan lives up to its promising proposal.
Sources:
- https://www.whitehouse.gov/briefing-room/statements-releases/2021/03/31/fact-sheet-the-american-jobs-plan/
- https://www.dataforprogress.org/blog/2021/4/6/voters-support-the-american-jobs-plan
- https://www.investopedia.com/what-s-in-joe-biden-s-usd2-trillion-american-jobs-plan-5120273
- https://www.crfb.org/blogs/whats-president-bidens-american-jobs-plan
- https://www.kiplinger.com/article/business/t043-c000-s001-14-ways-to-spend-1-trillion.html
I think this is an incredibly important topic and I think you did a good job highlighting some of the most important parts of a very long and confusing plan. I also hope that the money put towards this proposal is actually utilized to make things better. I think the fact about $2.3 trillion paying off 9333 celebrity divorces was very funny and does help to contextualize just how much money $2.3 trillion is. It's almost impossible to understand just how much money that is without some sort of comparison.
ReplyDeleteYou summarized the American Jobs Plan in a very concise fashion! Understanding this new plan and how it would affect our country is very important, but due to its length and complicated wording, I feel like its a lot less accessible to the general public. Your blog post helped me comprehend the main points of the Jobs Plan a lot better. It's also interesting to see how this plan has gone into effect now that we've reached the end of May, since the April job report created way fewer jobs than anticipated. I'm curious as to why that happened, and if it had anything to do with an unforeseen flaw in the American Jobs Plan.
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