[Congressional Record Volume 164, Number 75 (Wednesday, May 9, 2018)]
[House]
[Pages H3841-H3842]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




                      NATIONAL SMALL BUSINESS WEEK

  The SPEAKER pro tempore. The Chair recognizes the gentleman from 
Pennsylvania (Mr. Kelly) for 5 minutes.
  Mr. KELLY of Pennsylvania. Mr. Speaker, last week was National Small 
Business Week. The end of the week brought, appropriately, not just 
good news, but great news:
  Unemployment is now below 4 percent for the first time in nearly 20 
years.
  164,000 new jobs were created last month--24,000 new jobs in 
manufacturing and 17,000 new jobs in construction.
  Nearly 3.2 million new jobs have been created since the election of 
November 2016;
  We currently have 6.6 million job openings in the United States. This 
is an all-time high.
  Wages for small business workers increased last month by 3\1/4\ 
percent. That is the strongest rate of increase in over 2 years.
  All this, plus:
  Female unemployment is at its lowest level since 2000;
  Black unemployment is at its lowest level ever;
  Hispanic unemployment is at its lowest level ever;
  Consumer confidence is at its highest level since 2004;
  Job market confidence is at its highest level ever; and
  Small business confidence is at its highest level ever.
  Because of the Tax Cuts and Jobs Act, since February, 90 percent of 
American workers--that is nine out of 10 American workers--have been 
opening bigger, less-taxed paychecks. They have more take-home pay, 
which means that they get to keep more of their hard-earned money to 
spend the way they want to spend it, not the way Washington wants to 
spend it.
  More than 530 companies, and counting, have reinvested billions and 
billions of dollars into their businesses and our Nation's economy. As 
a result, more than 4 million American workers, and counting, have 
received major bonuses and/or pay raises and/or benefit increases.
  This includes employees at local companies in western Pennsylvania 
like Erie Insurance, who gave their workers a $1,000 bonus, and then 
another $1,000 to their retirement plan. NextTier Bank did the same 
thing, $1,000 to their workers. And PNC Bank, as well. There are a lot 
of good people who work for national companies, like Home Depot and 
Walmart. Walmart alone employs 4,000 people in western Pennsylvania.
  Energy bills have gone down for more than 87 million of our fellow 
citizens in 48 States. That is an incredible lowering of their cost of 
living.
  According to the International Energy Agency, the United States is on 
track to be the world's largest oil producer by 2023. The significance 
of this is that we no longer have to be held hostage by bad actors 
around the world when it comes to energy. We will be the biggest 
exporters of energy in the world. And when we ask other people not to 
buy from these folks because of their intentions of how to use that 
money, we can replace what they are not able to buy there with our own 
homegrown energy. That is an incredible advantage.
  Thanks to the most recent National Defense Authorization Act--now, 
think about this--our sons and daughters who serve in uniform are going 
to be enjoying their largest pay increase in 8 years.
  The facts are clear: America is winning again.
  Speaker Ryan was addressing a group the other day, and I want to 
quote him, because I think this is so appropriate for where we are 
today: ``We are working on reforms to get more people out of poverty 
and into the workforce. We

[[Page H3842]]

need to make sure that workers have the right skills they need to get a 
job and a good career.''
  I am talking about a family-sustaining career, a community-building 
career, a career that actually allows us to dream.
  Right now, our economy is thriving. Americans are right to feel good 
about how things are going. We have not seen those kinds of optimistic 
statistics in such a long, long time.

                              {time}  1045

  So we are going to keep pushing. We are going to keep pushing to 
close the skills gap. We are going to close the opportunity gap. We are 
going to make sure that all these jobs that are being made available 
are being filled with workers who are getting great careers and good 
lives and going from poverty and welfare to work.
  The dignity of being able to get up in the morning and go to work, to 
take care of your families, to take care of your community, to take 
care of your churches and schools, what an incredible lift that is for 
the American people.
  Listen, our Better Way agenda is about one thing and one thing only: 
it is about building stronger families, about building stronger 
communities, about building a stronger America. It is what we are in 
the middle of executing and implementing right now. We are really 
excited to see the great economic news that comes as a result of all 
these things that we have been working on.
  I want you to think about something, Mr. Speaker. Never, never in at 
least a decade has America been winning the way we are winning today in 
every way and every day. America is truly winning again, and we are 
making America great again.

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