Biden’s Semiconductor Plans Represent a New Vision for Our Economy
This week, the Department of Commerce announced new requirements for companies applying for funding under the bipartisan CHIPS and Science Act—aimed at boosting US semiconductor research and manufacturing—including not using funding for stock buybacks, complying with environmental permitting, and submitting plans to provide childcare for their workers.
These conditions signify an important shift toward federal policy that centers workers, families, and communities, Roosevelt president and CEO Felicia Wong explained this morning on Marketplace: “It represents government spending real money to crowd in private investment in sectors that they actually want to see grow.”
And as Roosevelt’s Todd N. Tucker and Lenore Palladino write in The Nation, the plan demonstrates the “critical realization that manufacturing doesn’t exist in a bubble; in order to be competitive, it must rely on fundamental worker protections such as collective bargaining and service-sector xxxxxxs such as subsidized child care and family leave.”
In particular, the first-of-its-kind childcare requirement will make it easier for women and parents to join the workforce, boosting labor force participation—which, as Roosevelt’s Mike Konczal explains, our economy needs to continue to grow.
“Just as we need physical infrastructure like roads to get workers to factories, we need social infrastructure—like childcare—that supports workers, too.” Konczal writes. “Solving these kinds of investment and coordination problems is where the government plays an important role.”
Read more in "To Increase the Supply of Workers, Our Economy Needs Childcare."
|
