Never far from my thoughts are memories of being a little girl in Queens, N.Y., our family of five crowded in a small one-bedroom apartment, struggling to learn English and survive a new life in a new country, America. We humbly and gratefully still recall the kindnesses shown by strangers and neighbors who became new friends.
Elaine Chao
Smoot and Hawley ginned up The Tariff Act of 1930 to get America back to work after the Stock Market Crash of '29. Instead, it destroyed trade so effectively that by 1932, American exports to Europe were just a third of what they had been in 1929. World trade fell two-thirds as other nations retaliated. Jobs evaporated.
We're a robust democracy here. That's the wonderful thing about this country.
The ingenuity and creativity of the private sector is essential to meeting American's needs for a skilled work force.
America's competitive advantage lies in its human talent. All of us should be doing everything we can to cultivate and develop our work force.
Outside of Washington, D.C., most Americans aren't concerned with doing things 'big.' They're looking for less government spending, lower taxes, and good jobs.
We need long-term tax reform that promotes private sector job creation. And legislated mandates that kill jobs by raising the cost of payrolls need to be eliminated.
We need fair and free trade.
As I looked up at the Statue of Liberty, I thought at that time, 'What a wonderful country.'
People can voice their different points of view. We are also a country where there will be criticism.
Rising energy costs kill jobs and hit America's poorest the hardest.
Our private-sector work force is the most industrious, innovative, productive, and ambitious in the world.
When the Smoot-Hawley bill landed on President Herbert Hoover's desk, more than 1,000 economists urged him to veto it. Tragically, the president ignored their pleas.
Activist shareholder resolutions do not have to pass to succeed. The process itself can be so injurious to a company that management will cave to demands.
I know that some people, when they are growing up and they - as a person of color in a majority community - that they may feel as if they are left out, or they feel a bit strange.
I love working in the garden.
Even if it's a national issue, the federal government cannot provide all the answers.
It has long been said the only things in life that are certain are death and taxes. Automatic enrollment for insurance of 401k loans would add an additional certainty. Fewer Americans would suffer the unnecessary loss of retirement savings due to unanticipated and untimely misfortune in an already stressful time of need.
Even when America's economy has been by all measures healthy and the unemployment rate low, some businesses suffer or fail and lay off workers. But nearly always, a simultaneous and even greater burst of new jobs has been created to offset the jobs lost - millions of new jobs every year.
For any trade deal to move forward, there has to be agreement.
Activists have every right to espouse their views of utopia.
I know what it is like to feel vulnerable and fearful during a difficult time.
Every person - we want to make sure that every person who wants a job will indeed get one.
While conventional wisdom has traditionally sided against borrowing from retirement savings, sentiment has shifted toward borrowing from one's own assets with the realization that other forms of credit come at a much higher cost and often are not even available to borrowers with limited means and urgent needs.
We have many rules and regulations that can be sometimes confusing and complicated. By reaching out to the employer community and educating them on what their responsibilities and obligations are to their work force, that, along, with strong enforcement, is the best way to protect workers.
Washington policymakers have to understand the adverse implications of their actions on job creation, and they must reorder some of their priorities.
European-style interventions to which the Obama administration is inclined will not make America more competitive in the world-wide economy. Such policies will not increase growth, will not decrease unemployment, and will not increase wages for workers.
Where public pensions are concerned, many jurisdictions are running out of road.
Those memories of living in a developing nation are part of who I am today and give me a profound understanding of the challenges of economic development - an understanding which will make my tenure as Peace Corps director, I hope, a very special one.
When Peace Corps was first proposed, some in Congress assumed that only men would be volunteers.
The majority of the new jobs being created require higher skills, more education.
There are many reasons to worry; the evening news is full of them.
We have a lot of employers who are looking for skilled workers and not being able to find them. And we have workers who lack the requisite skills to access these good-paying jobs in high growth industries.
In campaigns, lots of things will be said, and what they have said about my husband is just simply not true.
Taxpayers should demand that their states honestly assess public pension plans, accurately measure the assets and liabilities, and take steps to provide fair benefits to public employees that limit taxpayers' liability.
Around the time President Lyndon B. Johnson was declaring a War on Poverty in the 1960s, federal, state and local governments began accelerating a veritable War on the Private Sector.
We are a Republic with different branches of government, and so the Senate and the House are going to be full partners in working with the White House.
When my mother, sisters and I arrived on the shores of America when I was 8 years old, the boat on which we came, a freighter, passed the Statue of Liberty.
Employers should overcome a myopic quarterly earnings posture and focus on long-term strategies for growth that include investing in their own skills-training efforts to enable a broader pool of applicants.
401k savings accounts have become so important in the landscape of retirement planning that their security and expansion became a top priority in formulating and implementing the Pension Protection Act of 2006 that was enacted during my tenure as the U.S. Secretary of Labor.
Three years after the four deepest previous recessions began - in 1953, 1957, 1973 and 1981 - employment was on average 4.7% higher than the pre-recession peak.
It's not coincidental that America's vigorous recovery in the early 1980s was led by a president who worked hard to unshackle growth in the private sector.
I am not seeking any position in a Dole Administration.
Though the National Bureau of Economic Research deemed the recession to have ended in June 2009, to most Americans, that conclusion seems not to square with reality.
The expenses of complying with Washington's torrent of mandates and regulatory overreach are costing American workers jobs and income growth.
I'm the first secretary of labor in the 21st century, and the competitiveness of the American work force and the modernization of decades-old regulations have been among our top priorities.
If we did not have Obamacare, we could've addressed the healthcare crisis in a comprehensive but segmented fashion - meaning that we could have promoted a health savings plan. We could've pushed for tort reform, which added so much more cost to healthcare.
Progress is being made, but a lot of women are realizing it is not what they envisioned.
As we celebrate Women's History Month this March, it's important to remember the key role women have played in promoting a better understanding and relationships between our country and the rest of the world.
What out country is facing right now is a skills gap.
