US Presidency
2021

This plan, along with the American Families Plan, changes that with better wages, benefits, and opportunities for millions of people who will be able to get to work in an economy that works for them. You know, decades ago, the United States government used to spend 2 percent of its GDP — its gross domestic product — on research and development. Today, we spend less than 1 percent. I think it’s seven-tenths of 1 percent. Here’s why that matters: We’re one of only a few major economies in the world whose public investment in research and development as a share of GDP has declined constantly over the last 25 years. And we’ve fallen back. The rest of the world is closing in and closing in fast. We can’t allow this to continue. The American Jobs Plan is the biggest increase in our federal non-defense research and development spending on record.