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Howard Dean on Jobs

Former VT Governor; Former Democratic Candidate for President


Raise minimum wage to $7.00

Q: What increases, if any, do you favor in the $5.15 an hour federal minimum wage?

A: I favor increasing the federal minimum wage to $7 during my presidency.

Source: Associated Press policy Q&A, "Minimum Wage" Jan 25, 2004

Support farming via family farms, not corporate farms

Q: America's farmers need open markets for their crops around the world.

DEAN: The way to support American farmers is to change the American farm bill so that big corporations don't get the majority of the money that goes out of the farm bill. We can support small family farms, and we should. But the money ought to go to the farmers, not the big corporations.

Source: Democratic 2004 Presidential Primary Debate in Iowa Jan 4, 2004

Fact Check: Claims Bush cost US 3M jobs - really only 2.7M

FACTCHECK on Jobs: Democrats persist in getting this wrong.

DEAN: "This president has lost 3 million jobs. 3 millions jobs lost is 3 million too many."

LIEBERMAN: "Three and half million people have lost their jobs."

FACTCHECK: In fact, as of November the job loss since President Bush took office in January 2001 stood at 2.26 million, as measured by the Bureau of Labor Statistics. Even at the worst point of the job slump last August the job loss was 2.7 million-not 3 million or 3.5 million. Note: Many Democrats like to cite the loss in PRIVATE SECTOR jobs, not TOTAL employment. Focusing only on private-sector jobs ignores the tens of thousands of new government workers hired-including federal airport security workers-and makes the job slump sound worse than it was. But even the loss of PRIVATE-SECTOR jobs under Bush now stands at 2.7 million according to most recent statistics. It did go to 3.2 million at the worst of the slump, which is when many Dems started using the 3-million figure.

Source: FactCheck.org: 2004 Primary Presidential Debate in Durham NH Dec 9, 2003

Trade helps some but has hammered the Midwest

Q [to Dean]: You have said that Kerry lacks an understanding of the job loss in this country.

DEAN: I think that's true. I want a successful trade policy, but I'm no longer willing to sacrifice the jobs of middle-class Americans in order to pad the bottom lines of multinational corporations. Trade has to be fair to workers, not just multinational corporations. And I think Senator Kerry is insensitive to the plight of American workers who have lost their manufacturing jobs.

KERRY: I'm not insensitive to the jobs. I'm desperately concerned about those jobs. But you don't fix them by pandering to people and telling them you're going to shut the door. You have to grow jobs. We need to increase our commitment to science in America, to venture capital, to the kinds of incentives that draw capital to the creation of jobs. Democrats can't love jobs and hate the people who create them. We need to encourage job creation and trade, but fair trade, and I've shown how that can happen.

Source: Debate at Pace University in Lower Manhattan Sep 25, 2003

Reduce minority unemployment by investing in small business

Q: The national unemployment rate is just over 6% as a whole; 10.9% for African Americans and much, much higher for young African Americans males. What can you do specifically to close these gaps?

DEAN: There are two things you can do. The first is do the things you're going to do for every community, invest in small businesses. Small businesses create more jobs than large businesses do, and they don't move their jobs offshore. That specifically helps in the African American and the Latino community because there's a disproportionate number of people who create small businesses and who work for small businesses in minority communities. Secondly, in my health insurance plan, which covers all Americans for about the same price the president plans to spend in Iraq over the next year, there's $9 billion of subsidy to small businesses to help health insurance.

Source: Congressional Black Caucus Institute debate Sep 9, 2003

We're exporting jobs if we trade with no labor standards

LIEBERMAN: Dean said in an interview that he would not have bilateral trade agreements with any country that did not observe fully American standards. Now that would mean we'd break our trade agreements with Mexico & with most of the rest of the world. That would cost us millions of jobs. If that ever happened, I'd say that the Bush recession would be followed by the Dean depression.

DEAN: Our trade relations should rely on labor standards. It doesn't have to be American labor standards; it could be the International Labor Organization standards. We cannot continue to ship our jobs to countries where they get paid 50 cents an hour with no overtime, no labor protections and no right to organize.

LIEBERMAN: Dean, in The Washington Post, referred to American standards, not international standards.

DEAN: Either is fine with me.

LIEBERMAN: That's a reassuring change of position. I totally support the application of international labor standards to all of our bilateral trade agreements.

Source: Democratic Primary Debate, Albuquerque New Mexico Sep 4, 2003

Invest in small businesses & renewable energy

We need to stop corporate welfare and start doing something for small businesses in this country. Small businesses create more jobs than large businesses do and they don't move their jobs offshore because they're rooted in their community. If you want to invest in America, we ought to invest in America and stay in America with those jobs.

We also ought to invest in renewable energy because we ought to stop sending our foreign oil money to the Middle East where it's used to fund terrorism.

Source: Democratic Primary Debate, Albuquerque New Mexico Sep 4, 2003

Supports living wage via subsidies for kids & housing

In our state, we supported something called living wage. That means not only do we hike the minimum wage above federal level, we subsidized child care up to $39,000 a year. Everybody under $55,000 a year had health care for their kids under 18. We had affordable housing programs. If you want to stop the erosion of the middle class in this country, you are going to have to do something to support the middle class while they are working, because President Bush certainly isn't going to do that.
Source: AFSCME union debate in Iowa May 17, 2003

Trade should strengthen labor unions in foreign nations

Dean says, "I want to include human rights with trade as Jimmy Carter included human rights with foreign policy." He said that by raising wages and labor standards abroad, less developed nations would be strengthened by middle classes, just as the trade union movement helped America develop a middle class.
Source: John Tozzi, The Daily Free Press Mar 27, 2003

Other candidates on Jobs: Howard Dean on other issues:
George W. Bush
Dick Cheney
John Edwards
John Kerry

Third Party Candidates:
Michael Baradnik
Peter Camejo
David Cobb
Ralph Nader
Michael Peroutka

Democratic Primaries:
Carol Moseley Braun
Wesley Clark
Howard Dean
Dick Gephardt
Bob Graham
Dennis Kucinich
Joe Lieberman
Al Sharpton
Abortion
Budget/Economy
Civil Rights
Corporations
Crime
Drugs
Education
Energy/Oil
Environment
Families/Children
Foreign Policy
Free Trade
Govt. Reform
Gun Control
Health Care
Homeland Security
Immigration
Infrastructure/Technology
Jobs
Principles/Values
Social Security
Tax Reform
War/Iraq/Mideast
Welfare/Poverty
Adv: Avi Green for State Rep Middlesex 26, Somerville & Cambridge Massachusetts