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[Page S2752]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]
ECONOMIC GROWTH
Mr. McCONNELL. Mr. President, on another matter, as I mentioned, we
are in the middle of a historic economic moment for the American
people.
Last week, the nationwide unemployment rate fell to its lowest level
since December of 1969. In just the year and a half since the
Republicans passed comprehensive tax reform, 19 States have set new
alltime lows in their unemployment rates, including in the Commonwealth
of Kentucky.
If you compare today to November 2016, there are now nearly 70
percent more job openings in durable goods manufacturing and more than
twice as many job openings in construction. We are talking about
hundreds of thousands of new job openings in these sectors alone.
Overall, under the Republicans' policies of the last 2 years, for the
first time in recorded history, the number of job openings across the
country has surpassed the number of Americans who are looking for work.
Think about that. There is more than one job opening for every American
who wants a job.
So this economic moment, helped along by Republican policies, has
placed American workers in much higher demand, and we know what happens
when American workers are in high demand--they get paid more. Sure
enough, from late 2017 to late 2018, wage growth for U.S. workers
logged its fastest full-year growth rate in a decade.
What is more, the New York Times reported:
The recent gains are going to those who need it most. Over
the past year, low-wage workers have experienced the fastest
pay increases, a shift from earlier in the recovery, when
wage growth was concentrated at the top.
Of course, that phrase ``earlier in the recovery'' is code for during
the Obama administration.
How often do we hear the left invoke the stale talking point that
pro-growth policies only help wealthy people? Anyone who has cracked
open a history book knows it is absurd to say that American free
enterprise only helps wealthy people and that State-controlled
socialism helps everyone else. Anyone who has picked up a newspaper in
the last year and a half knows it as well.
Capitalism and free enterprise are the best tools humanity has ever
discovered for lifting up the vulnerable and for empowering people. It
was true in the 19th century; it was true in the 20th century; and it
is still proving to be true in 2019.
It has been on the Republicans' watch that we have actually seen low-
wage workers and nonmanagement workers receive the fastest wage growth.
It has been on the Republicans' watch that the unemployment rate
specifically for Americans without high school diplomas has fallen to
its lowest rate since 1992. It has been on the Republicans' watch that
newspapers have described ``a wave of disabled Americans'' who have
been able to join or return to the workforce.
My Republican colleagues and I could not be more proud of the
conditions our policies have helped to create for all kinds of American
workers and their families, and we will continue to defend these gains,
to put pro-growth, pro-opportunity reforms in place, and to stand up
against the far-left grab bag of socialist ideas that would threaten
America's progress.
I suggest the absence of a quorum.
The ACTING PRESIDENT pro tempore. The clerk will call the roll.
The legislative clerk proceeded to call the roll.
The PRESIDING OFFICER (Mrs. Hyde-Smith). The Senator from Montana.
Mr. DAINES. Madam President, I ask unanimous consent that the order
for the quorum call be rescinded.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. Without objection, it is so ordered.
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