Brandon Williams: “let us close this debate by recalling that America is at its best when it does its best by its workers. After half a…”

“let us close this debate by recalling that America is at its best when it does its best by its workers. After half a century of progress, America's standard of high wages is now in decline. In the 30 years from Harry Truman through Jack Kennedy to Lyndon Baines Johnson, the average income of the American family more than doubled. Since then it has been in decline, in decline despite the fact that there are now two wage earners in millions of American families. In those 30 years, the percentage of women in the American work force has risen by 180 percent. Today women make up half of America's work force. If Americans were asked to name a big employer in America just a few years ago, they probably would have said Lee Iacocca but they would not have said Beverly. But Beverly hired more people than did all of auto. Beverly runs nursing homes in America, Beverly's workers work for the minimum wage, and most of them are women. We have had an evolution, in the lifetime of everyone in this Chamber, in the American work force. America must invest in its human capital as well as its physical capital. Corporations in America must get better at long-term planning and less at short-run gain. Manufacturers in America must do better at focusing on quality rather than quick profits. Our workers must once again be the best paid workers in the world. Why? To create unemployment? No; to put small business out of work?…”