Your constituents are already working harder and longer just to keep their heads above water. Too many of our urban neighborhoods are plagued by poverty that persists from generation to generation. Communities of color still face barriers of systemic racism. Wages are still too low, and inequality is too great. Jobs in many parts of our country are booming, and in other parts they are still too hard to come by. So these challenges are serious, but you give me hope that together we can overcome them. I believe with all my heart that our nation is at our best when we are rising together, when those who have been left out and left behind get a fair chance to lift themselves up. And that’s when communities, cities, and regions grow stronger, and our entire country is better off.
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Now, investments like these will help your cities unlock more economic potential and compete in the increasingly competitive global marketplace. So our goal should be full employment in a full-potential economy. And that means we have to make sure the good new jobs of the future reach the neighborhoods that need them the most – from urban cities to rural areas.
We’re going to have to target billions of dollars to help young people in underserved communities find a job, maybe a first job, because in the absence of that first job, getting them into the workplace is really difficult. They need the attitudes of what goes with a good work ethic as well as the skills and the preparation, so that they can start to build financial stability, gain those skills, the confidence, and the experience to build and pursue their own career.
We need to direct billions of dollars to support small businesses in hard-hit communities where investment is scarce, so entrepreneurs have a real chance to turn their ideas into growing enterprises that will put people to work. After all, most of the new jobs – two-thirds of them – will come from small businesses. And right now, we are falling backward in the creation of small businesses because we don’t have the credit, the access to credit, that we used to. It hasn’t come back after the Great Recession. And we need to do more to help people start those businesses and succeed.
And we need to focus on second chance reentry programs so that people returning from prison have a fair chance to reestablish their lives and strengthen their communities.
Now, there are some programs that I will shamelessly borrow from. For example, we need to push for initiatives like an expanded New Markets Tax Credit program – something that my husband introduced on a bipartisan basis toward the end of his second term. And everywhere I go across the country, I see projects, I see revitalization because of the New Markets Tax Credits. I want us to explore Jim Clyburn’s, Congressman Jim Clyburn’s 10-20-30 plan to direct more federal investment into underserved areas – those neighborhoods where we have generational poverty that need extra help to be able to get themselves up and going. And I want us to be measured by how much incomes rise for hardworking families, not how much higher CEO bonuses can go. We’ve been on that path, and now we need to move toward really investing in everybody again.
I want to see how many children climb out of poverty, how many urban communities can give their residents a better future. I think that’s what it means to have an economy that works for everyone, not just those at the top.
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