Increase minimum wage; allow more family leave

Strengthening America’s Working Families:
• The Family and Medical Leave Act allows workers to take up to 12 weeks of unpaid leave to care for seriously ill family members, new born or adoptive children, or their own serious health problems without fear of losing their jobs.
• The minimum wage has risen from $4.25 to $5.15 per hour, increasing wages for 10 million workers. The President and Vice President have called for an additional increase to $6.15.
• The Workforce Investment Act empowered individuals by giving adults more control and choice over their training or retraining and providing universal access to core labor market services; streamlined job training services by consolidating a tangle of individual programs into a simple system and creating a nationwide network of One-Stop Career Centers; enhanced accountability through tough performance standards for states, localities, and training providers. Source: WhiteHouse.gov web site Dec 1, 2000

  22M new jobs; lowest unemployment since 1960s

  22.1 million new jobs have been created since 1993, the most jobs ever created under a single Administration. The economy has added an average of 248,000 jobs per month, the highest under any President.

  The private sector of the economy has grown 4.5 percent annually since 1993. Since 1993, 20 million new jobs have been created in the private sector.

• Unemployment is down from 7.5% in 1992 to 4.0% in June 2000, and in April 2000 the unemployment rate was the lowest in thirty years. The unemployment rate has fallen for seven years in a row, and has remained below 5% for 34 months in a row. African-American unemployment has fallen from 14.2% in 1992 to an average of 7.7% in the first half of 2000 -- the lowest rate on record. The unemployment rate for Hispanics has fallen from 11.6% in 1992 to an average of 5.7% in the first half of 2000 -- the lowest rate on record. For women the unemployment rate was 4.1% in June -- nearly the lowest since 1953. Source: WhiteHouse.gov web site Jul 7, 2000

  $3.2B for farm conservation programs

  [The Clinton-Gore Administration] provided farmers with new conservation tools by proposing and signing a Farm Bill that authorized $2.2 billion in additional funding for conservation programs such as the Conservation Reserve and Wetlands Reserve. They created new federal-state partnerships that targeted over $1 billion - in IL, MD, MN, NY, OR, and WA - for farmers and ranchers to voluntarily remove lands from production to improve water quality and wildlife habitat. Source: WhiteHouse.gov web site Apr 1, 2000

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