{"id":23604,"date":"2016-09-03T07:51:28","date_gmt":"2016-09-03T14:51:28","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/69.46.6.243\/?p=23604"},"modified":"2016-09-03T07:51:28","modified_gmt":"2016-09-03T14:51:28","slug":"president-obamas-weekly-address-building-upon-the-legacy-of-labor-day","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/new.thepinetree.net\/?p=23604","title":{"rendered":"President Obama&#8217;s Weekly Address: Building Upon the Legacy of Labor Day"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>Washington, DC&#8230;Hi everybody.  Before you fire up the barbecue for the long weekend, I want to talk a little bit about the reason we get to celebrate Labor Day \u2013 and that\u2019s the labor movement that helped build this country and our middle class.  For generations, every time the economy changed, hardworking Americans marched and organized and joined unions to demand not simply a bigger paycheck for themselves, but better conditions and more security for the folks working next to them, too.  Their efforts are why we can enjoy things like the 40-hour workweek, overtime pay, and a minimum wage.  Their efforts are why we can depend on health insurance, Social Security, Medicare, and retirement plans. <\/p>\n<p><iframe loading=\"lazy\" width=\"640\" height=\"360\" src=\"https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/embed\/LJ855PVL6ew\" frameborder=\"0\" allowfullscreen><\/iframe><\/p>\n<p>All of that progress is stamped with the union label.  All of that progress was fueled with a simple belief:  that our economy works better when it works for everybody.<\/p>\n<p>That\u2019s the spirit that\u2019s made the progress of these past seven and a half years possible.  We\u2019ve rescued our economy from another depression, cut our unemployment rate in half, and unleashed the longest string total job growth on record.  And we\u2019ve focused on making sure that the gains of a growing economy don\u2019t just flow to a few at the top, but to everybody. <\/p>\n<p>It\u2019s why we took action to help millions of workers finally collect the overtime pay they\u2019ve earned.  It\u2019s why I issued a call to raise the minimum wage, and when Congress ignored that call, 18 states and the District of Columbia, plus another 51 cities and counties went ahead and gave their workers a raise.  It\u2019s why the very first bill I signed was the Lilly Ledbetter Fair Pay Act; why we gave paid sick days to federal contractors; why we\u2019ve fought for worker safety and the right to organize. <\/p>\n<p>And we\u2019ve made good progress.  For a few years after the recession, the top one percent did capture almost all income gains.  But that share has been cut by almost half.  Last year, income for everybody else grew at the fastest pace since the 1990s.  And another 20 million Americans know the financial security of health insurance.<\/p>\n<p>I\u2019ll be the first to say we\u2019ve got more work to do in the years ahead.  Now, I know we\u2019re in the heat of a more raucous political season than usual.  But we can\u2019t get so distracted by the latest bluster that we lose sight of the policies that will actually help working families get ahead.  Because the truth is, that\u2019s what\u2019s caused some of the frustration that\u2019s roiling our politics right now \u2013 too many working folks still feel left behind by an economy that\u2019s constantly changing. <\/p>\n<p>So as a country, we\u2019ve got some choices to make.  Do we want to be a country where the typical woman working full-time earns 79 cents for every dollar a man makes \u2013 or one where they earn equal pay for equal work?  Do we want a future where inequality rises as union membership keeps falling \u2013 or one where wages are rising for everybody and workers have a say in their prospects?  Are we a people who just talk about family values while remaining the only developed nation that doesn\u2019t offer its workers paid maternity leave \u2013 or are we a people who actually value families, and make paid family leave an economic priority for working parents?<\/p>\n<p>These are the kinds of choices in front of us.  And if we\u2019re going to restore the sense that hard work is rewarded with a fair shot to get ahead, we\u2019re going to have to follow the lead of all those who came before us.  That means standing up not just for ourselves, but for the father clocking into the plant, the sales clerk working long and unpredictable hours, or the mother riding the bus to work across town, even on Labor Day \u2013 folks who work as hard as we do.  And it means exercising our rights to speak up in the workplace, to join a union, and above all, to vote.<\/p>\n<p>That\u2019s the legacy we celebrate on Labor Day.  And I\u2019m confident that that\u2019s the legacy that we\u2019ll build upon in the years ahead.<\/p>\n<p>Thanks everybody.  Happy Labor Day.  Enjoy the long weekend.    <\/p>\n<p>###<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Washington, DC&#8230;Hi everybody. Before you fire up the barbecue for the long weekend, I want to talk a little bit about the reason we get to celebrate Labor Day \u2013 and that\u2019s the labor movement that helped build this country and our middle class. For generations, every time the economy changed, hardworking Americans marched and [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":23605,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_cbd_carousel_blocks":"[]","jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[20,5,1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-23604","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-featured","category-government","category-news","last_archivepost"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/new.thepinetree.net\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016\/09\/Fullscreen-capture-932016-74923-AM.jpg","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack-related-posts":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/new.thepinetree.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/23604","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/new.thepinetree.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/new.thepinetree.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/new.thepinetree.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/new.thepinetree.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=23604"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/new.thepinetree.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/23604\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/new.thepinetree.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/23605"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/new.thepinetree.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=23604"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/new.thepinetree.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=23604"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/new.thepinetree.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=23604"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}