Issue Position: Economy

Issue Position

Jobs Keith is dedicated to creating more good jobs in America, expanding opportunity, and reducing income inequality. With millions unemployed and millions more under-employed, we must get America back to work. As Co-Chair of the Progressive Caucus, Keith helped spearhead the Better Off Budget, which turns back the Republican austerity plan and creates 8.8 million jobs by 2017. This can be accomplished by investing in infrastructure, helping states rehire laid off cops, firefighters, and other public employees, and helping the long-term unemployed with job training and employment services.

Keith believes in a higher minimum wage that will put more money in the pockets of hard working families and help the economy by boosting economic demand. Nearly two million federal contract employees earn poverty wages. Keith and the Progressive Caucus took up the fight alongside these workers and asked President Obama to raise their wages. He did, signing an executive order to increase their wages to $10.10, and helping thousands of families buy groceries and pay their bills.

Fair Taxes:
Keith believes we should close loopholes that only benefit the very rich and instead provide targeted tax credits to families struggling to stay afloat. He supports ending corporate giveaways for oil companies making record profits and closing loopholes businesses have used for far too long to game the system, ship American jobs overseas, and avoid paying their fair share.

Women's Economic Fairness:
Women account for nearly two-thirds of minimum wage workers and continue to earn less than men, making only 77 cents for every dollar a man makes. Keith is a proud supporter of legislation that works to close the pay gap between men and women by prohibiting sex-based pay discrimination, such as the Lilly Ledbetter Act and The Paycheck Fairness Act.

Keith also supports legislation to provide high quality childcare for infants and toddlers, and to require paid paternal leave.

Infrastructure:
Our economy depends on our ability to get where we need to, when we need to, quickly and affordably. Creating safe, inexpensive, and reliable transportation options is one of Keith's top priorities in Congress. Keith supports substantially increasing investment in our crumbling transportation and water infrastructure to create good-paying construction jobs and address an urgent national need. He supports the National Infrastructure Development Bank Act which would create and fund a public bank to invest public and private dollars in critical infrastructure projects of national and regional significance. Keith has worked to secure funds for the Fifth District for job training programs and infrastructure projects such as the Central Corridor, Southwest Light Rail, and Bottineau Transitway.

Trade Keith supports fair trade, which he believes can be a force for good not only for economic development but also for cultural and democratic exchange. But trade deals need to be carefully scrutinized to make sure they benefit the American people. Keith opposes the fast-tracking of the Trans-Pacific Partnership, because he believes without adequate Congressional oversight it could be a job-killer for Americans.

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