Remarks and a question-and-answer session at the Cleveland City Club

Weekly Compilation of Presidential Documents, Oct 31, 1994

Since every American has to face these forces, and every American family does, the job of the Government ought to be to try to empower people to make the most of them.

A family can't treat these problems just like a business can. You know, if a family's under economic stress, you can't divest yourself, although some people with teenagers would like to from time to time. [Laughter] You can't really downsize. You can't restructure. I mean, you're sort of stuck with who shows up at the dinner table at night. [Laughter]

So when the family is under economic stress, what are their options? You either have to learn and to become more productive or get a better job or you face increased competition by hunkering down, working harder for less, and just trying to be as tough as the times are.

Now, that is what has happened to millions and millions of American families for the last 20 years, that latter alternative, working harder for less. The average working family is spending more hours at work today than 25 years ago for about the same hourly wages, adjusted for inflation. When working families are doing everything they can and small business people are and they lose their health insurance or their health insurance deductibles are so high that all they really have is the insurance that if they get sick they won't lose their home, it's tough on them. It's hard to maintain the sense of security and optimism that a country like ours needs to lead the world into the future and to keep our own dreams alive.

So what are we are going to do about that? Well, we need more pro-family policies, like family and medical leave. We need to pass welfare reform that enables people to move from welfare to work, to be successful parents and successful workers. And we can do that. I sent a bill to the Congress last spring. We've given 19 States permission to get out from under all the crazy Federal rules that keep them from moving people into the workplace. And we're going to pass it next year.

We need to set up a national network of these manufacturing extension centers, like the Great Lakes Manufacturing Technology Center here in Cleveland, to help small firms to accommodate new challenges, to compete, and to get new technologies. We need to pass the telecommunications reform bill which died at the end of this Congress, which will help us to get along that information superhighway and provide unbelievable numbers of high-wage jobs for our people.

We need to reform our job training programs, especially our unemployment system, and transform it into a reemployment system. We are still stuck with the same unemployment program we've had for 40 years. It's not fair to working people, but it's not fair to employers either to pay a FUTA tax which you pay to somebody when they're unemployed so that they have enough money to get along on. It's less than they were making at work but more than they'd be making on welfare. The whole assumption is they're going to be called back to work. Eighty percent of the people who lose their jobs today don't get called back to their old jobs. We are stuck with the 1950's system, when we need one for the 21st century that will encourage continuous refraining and placement in the work force. So these are some of the things that we have to do.