[Public Papers of the Presidents of the United States: William J. Clinton (1994, Book I)]
[February 5, 1994]
[Pages 184-185]
[From the U.S. Government Publishing Office www.gpo.gov]



The President's Radio Address
February 5, 1994

    Good morning. This morning I want to talk with you about jobs, how 
more Americans can find new jobs and better ones, how we can help 
business to create those jobs, and how we can prepare our people to hold 
them.
    I became President committed to growing the economy, cutting the 
deficit, and creating new jobs. A year later, we've made real progress 
toward all those goals. We brought down next year's projected deficit by 
$126 billion, about 40 percent less than it was predicted to be. And in 
the past 12 months, the economy has created 1.9 million new jobs, 90 
percent of them in private industry. In fact, more private sector jobs 
were created in the past year than in the previous 4 years. So together 
we've accomplished a lot. But we've got a lot more to do to achieve a 
lasting recovery that benefits every region of our country and every 
sector of our society. We must maintain budget discipline, continue our 
comprehensive strategy to create more growth and more opportunity for 
more Americans, and make sure our workers and our young people 
especially have the new skills for the jobs that will be created.
    On Monday, I'll submit the next installment of our plan for deficit 
reduction and economic growth. The budget cuts spending for more than 
300 Government programs, completely eliminates more than 100 programs, 
and reduces the Federal work force by more than 100,000 and gives 7 to 
14 Cabinet Departments less money than last year.
    Meanwhile, we invest more in developing new technologies to create 
new jobs, in educating our children and training our workers for those 
jobs, and fighting crime and protecting the environment, and in giving 
our children a healthy start in life. We have to cut spending on 
yesterday's outmoded programs so we can bring down the deficit and still 
invest more in tomorrow's most urgent priorities.
    This morning, I want to tell you more about one of our most 
important priorities: helping people from unemployment to work, from 
welfare to work, from school to work, and from

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lower paying work to better paying work. For all our success at creating 
new jobs, too many people are still looking for work, too many workers' 
wages are still stagnant and have been for two decades, and too many 
young people are not on track for good paying jobs.
    Because the global economy and new technologies have changed the 
rules of the game, the only ticket to good jobs with growing incomes are 
real skills and the ability to keep learning new ones. That's why I've 
called for a revolution in education and training, from our schools to 
our unemployment offices to our job training programs. Our American 
workers must be the best educated, best trained, and most highly skilled 
in the world.
    With our Goals 2000 program, we'll improve our schools, linking 
world-class standards to grassroots reforms all over America. With our 
school-to-work initiative, we're linking schools with workplaces and 
providing improved training for young people who want to go from high 
school to work. These initiatives have been approved by the House of 
Representatives and will be considered this week by the Senate.
    Just as we need to train our young people, we must retrain millions 
of workers who have been displaced by technological change, by 
international trade, by corporate restructuring, and by reducing defense 
spending. Later this month, we'll introduce the ``Reemployment Act of 
1994'' to consolidate dozens of different job training programs and 
convert the unemployment system into a reemployment system. We have to 
do this because the unemployment system and the patchwork of job 
training programs have been trapped in a time warp, frozen in bygone 
days when most laid-off workers could expect to be called back to their 
old jobs. Now we need one source of job training, counseling, and income 
support that workers can call upon as soon as they know they're losing 
their jobs because most workers won't be called back to their old jobs 
and because most younger workers can look forward to changing work seven 
or eight times in a lifetime.
    The reemployment act will create one-stop job centers where every 
unemployed worker will be able to learn new skills, find out about new 
opportunities, and get help for themselves and their families. The plan 
works hand in hand with our plans for welfare reform and health care 
reform. We need to make every welfare office a work office where people 
will be encouraged to seize opportunities for training and jobs. And 
when we guarantee health security for every American, guaranteed private 
insurance that can never be taken away, then people will no longer be 
afraid that they'll lose their medical coverage when they move from 
welfare to work or from their old jobs to new ones.
    Last week, I met with hundreds of workers, business people, and job 
trainers who told me how their communities have met the challenges of 
offering new skills and new opportunities. I was inspired by the drive 
and dedication of people like Deb Woodbury from Bangor, Maine, who lost 
a factory job and learned new skills as a marketing sales 
representative; Cynthia Scott of San Antonio, who went from welfare to a 
training program in nursing and a job in a hospital; Donald Hutchinson, 
a high school graduate from Detroit, who learned new skills as a 
machinist; and John Hahn of Niagara County, New York, who was laid off 
from a job he had for 28 years and learned new skills for a new career 
as a biomedical technician.
    Our economic plan is based on this simple but powerful truth: When 
you give ordinary people new opportunities, they'll do extraordinary 
things. The only way we can offer those new opportunities for education 
and training for new jobs and better jobs is to do the same things with 
the Federal budget that you do with your family budget, make tough 
choices, provide for the future, and make distinctions between luxuries 
and necessities.
    In the weeks ahead, you'll hear the voices of those with a vested 
interest in the programs and policies of the past. I ask you to join me 
in fighting for the future. Together we've created almost 2 million jobs 
in just 12 months. We can create 2 million more in 1994, and we can 
prepare our working people and our young people for the jobs of the 
future. Together we can finish the job we began just one year ago if we 
keep working at it.
    Thanks for listening.

Note: The President spoke at 10:06 a.m. from the Oval Office at the 
White House. A tape was not available for verification of the content of 
this address.