Invest in Our Future

Build on Our Strengths

Play to Win

PRESIDENT’S COUNCIL

ON JOBS AND COMPETITIVENESS

Road Map to Renewal

2011 Year-End Report
2 2011 YEAR-END REPORT THE JOBS COUNCIL
Chairman’s Letter 4

Introduction 6

Invest in our Future

Education 11

Innovation 21

Build on our strengths

Energy 28

Manufacturing 32

PLAY TO WIN

Regulatory Reform 41

Tax Reform 46

A Final Word 50

Summary & Status of Recommendations

Implementation Update 53

June Recommendations 57

October Recommendations 58

January Recommendations 59

LISTENING & ACTION SESSIONS 60

Council Members 64

Sources 66

PRESIDENT’S COUNCIL

ON JOBS AND COMPETITIVENESS

2011 Year-End Report
4 2011 YEAR-END REPORT THE JOBS COUNCIL

CHAIRMAN’S Letter

Road Map to Renewal

At the outset, let me say that America can continue to 

compete and win in the global economy. The Council on 

Jobs and Competitiveness is confident of that. But we can’t, 

as a nation, afford to be complacent. Our ability to pioneer 

industries, create good jobs and ensure that America’s best 

days remain ahead of us will be determined by whether 

we forge consensus around smart policy changes in 

Washington, D.C., and galvanize the private sector to help 

us write the next great chapter in the American story. 

A year ago, President Obama created the Jobs Council 

and tasked us to develop a set of recommendations to 

create jobs in the short term and improve our nation’s 

competitiveness over the long term. We brought to the table 

a broad array of perspectives and spent considerable time 

traveling our country to listen and learn. 

Let me set the stage. Our competitiveness has eroded over 

the past decades. We have lost ground in metrics ranging 

from education to infrastructure to exports. We’re living in 

a different world than we lived in 30 or 20 or even 10 years 

ago. Other countries are getting better. Our regulations are 

more complex. Investment has been slow to return since the 

financial crisis. Further, we must reduce our budget deficit 

so that we can compete in the future, and we have fewer 

levers today than in the past. 

At the same time, America remains an optimistic and entrepreneurial country. Our people and companies are strong. 

When we compete from our strengths, we can and do win. 

I’m proud to say the Council has made considerable progress. 

We have put forth recommendations that we are confident 

will enable us to accelerate job creation and ensure our longterm competitiveness. We have worked hard to ensure that 

every voice on the Council is heard, from small business, 

from labor, from every corner of the economy. And while not 

every member of the Council agrees on every aspect of every 

recommendation, there is a strong consensus that the time 

to act is now and that our recommendations will move the 

needle in a very positive manner.

So, let me outline our work. You can find the details in this 

report at www.jobs-council.com.

Focus on Job Supply and Demand 

(June Report Out)

1. Put in place training, awareness and simplification 

programs designed to fill the open jobs today and proposed steps to unlock jobs demand. We recommended 

initiatives for immediate action.

Accelerate Job Creation (October Report Out)

2. Accelerate infrastructure investment to create jobs 

and improve competitiveness. We recommended 

initiatives for the public and private sector that could 

create millions of jobs. 

3. Create and nurture high-growth enterprises. We 

recommended ways to facilitate new business creation 

so that small and high-growth companies can continue 

to be the engines of job growth.

4. Boost exports and promote foreign direct investment. 

We recommended ways to gain share of the global 

economy and, at the same time, make it more attractive 

for American companies to invest at home.

5. Streamline regulatory burdens and improve 

permitting cycle time, focusing in those areas that 

could create the most jobs. We recommended multiple 

initiatives to improve speed and effectiveness.

6. Increase the talent pool of engineers and advanced 

manufacturing talent. We recommended initiatives for 

high-skill education and training, focusing on increasing 

the supply of advanced manufacturing talent and 

graduating more engineers.
2011 YEAR-END REPORT THE JOBS COUNCIL 5

Improve Systems of Competitiveness (Today)

7. Invest in education and R&D to ensure we capture the future. Both are foundations for America’s 

competitiveness.

8. Rejuvenate classic strengths in manufacturing and 

energy so that we can be the best in the world. We must 

rebuild the industries that made this country great.

9. Reform our systems of regulation and taxation so that 

we can play to win in the 21st century. Our systems are 

old and complicated; we must rejuvenate them now.

Our recommendations are specific and practical and 

provide a clear road map for action. We have a team 

working on implementation in the executive branch at the 

Office of Management and Budget. We have reached out 

to the private sector through the National Association of 

Manufacturers, Business Roundtable and others. Some of 

our ideas could be aided by bipartisan legislation.

In the end, government-led initiatives will not create the 

jobs we need to reduce unemployment in a sustainable way. 

The private sector must lead. But the government can—

and must—create the environment needed for 

entrepreneurs to start businesses and for executives to 

expand existing companies. 

Creating jobs and competitiveness will improve the national 

outlook for the future. People want to work, and paychecks 

create confidence. To get there, we need a different sense of 

priorities. It is hard to say that jobs and competitiveness are 

supported by a national sense of urgency. If they were, we 

would be further along on infrastructure, our regulations 

would have better context for competitiveness, and we 

could have a meaningful discussion about building our 

human resources by improving education and high-skilled 

immigration. We need to work better together.

Working together requires an improved tone. I now have 

a better appreciation of the pressures and crosscurrents 

facing elected officials. There’s too much blame and too 

little empathy. No wonder the public tunes out. All of us—

especially leaders in business and civil society—have a duty 

to help make the entire debate more constructive.

I am a member of the business community and proud 

of it. American business is so diverse that it is difficult for 

us to speak with one voice. I know, however, that all 

of my colleagues are eager to help build a more 

competitive America. 

It has been an honor to serve our President and our country 

on this Council. I have immense respect for our Council 

members. We will work hard to see our ideas implemented. 

We remain optimistic about the future of our country.

Jeffrey R. Immelt

Chairman, President’s Council on

Jobs and Competitiveness 

CHAIRMAN’S Letter
6 2011 YEAR-END REPORT THE JOBS COUNCIL

INTRODUCTION

The Council’s Mission: 

Jobs and Competitiveness

When President Obama convened this Council in 

February 2011 with a broad mandate to boost 

jobs and competitiveness, we quickly agreed to 

come up with actionable recommendations and organized 

our efforts into three streams of work. 

Initial June recommendations

The urgency of the jobs crisis meant we needed to offer 

tangible ideas fast that could help catalyze job growth. In 

our initial June recommendations, the Council did just that. 

The ideas included speeding visa cycles to boost U.S. market 

share in tourism, commercial building energy retrofits and 

filling job openings in health care and advanced manufacturing via crash training programs. At the same time, the 

Council pushed initiatives to help some of our hardest-hit 

sectors, such as construction and manufacturing, where 

many workers saw their jobs disappear during the recession. 

Interim Report: “Taking Action, 

Building Confidence”

With the administration already working to implement our 

June recommendations, the Council turned next to ways 

to accelerate job creation over the next two to five years. 

Our interim report in October, “Taking Action, Building 

Confidence,” focused on five major initiatives that involve 

more moving parts and thus take more time to get right: 

accelerating investment in infrastructure and energy; igniting entrepreneurship and increasing the number and scale 

of small businesses and high-growth firms; boosting jobcreating inward investment into the United States through 

a National Investment Initiative; simplifying regulatory 

review and streamlining project approvals; and ensuring 

that America has the talent to fill existing job openings and 

boost future job creation. 

Year-End Report: “Road Map to Renewal”

While the jobs crisis plainly calls for a sense of urgency, 

the President was clear that he also wanted us to look 

over the horizon and offer ideas on renewing American 

competitiveness once our near-term challenges are behind 

us. Our year-end thus addresses the fundamental underpinnings of American prosperity in a global age. It lays 

out an agenda to invest in our future (via education and 

innovation), build on our strengths (in manufacturing and 

energy) and play to win (by making overdue tax and regulatory reforms to meet the competitive challenge). 

We hope this year-end will contribute to the national 

debate about how to renew our economic promise. 

We begin, as any such assessment must, by defining 

the challenge. 

America’s Challenge: Lifting Our

Aspirations in a Global Age

If you want to shape where you’re going, start by being clear 

on where you are. The U.S. economy is in the midst of a 

decades-long transition from an era in which we faced little 

global competition to one in which globalization and rapid 

technological change will compel us to rethink our formula 

for success. What’s more, the pace of change is accelerating, 

with some experts predicting that we’ll see more change in 

the next 30 years than in the previous 300. The question is 

how to renew the sources of American competitiveness so 

that we can thrive in this emerging world. The answer has to 

begin with an honest reckoning of our situation. 

Our workforce continues to lead the world in productivity, contributing more than $59 per hour in output on 

average compared to $54 per hour for the average German 

worker and $26 for the average South Korean.1

 Impressively, 

we still have more than a quarter of the world’s workingage adults with some level of higher education.2

 However, 

skills gaps are emerging that hurt the resilience of our 

workforce as well as the ability of businesses to find the talent they need. These gaps start in primary and secondary 

school, where the United States trails its peers in academic 

achievement, scoring lower in math than 30 of the other 65 

countries and lower in science than 22 of the countries that 
2011 YEAR-END REPORT THE JOBS COUNCIL 7

participated in the Program for International Assessment 

(PISA) achievement tests for 15-year-olds.3

 In postsecondary attainment, while we have the third highest percentage 

of 55- to 64-year-olds with college degrees, when it comes 

to 25- to 34-year-olds, we’ve fallen to 16th internationally.4

Even as more and more jobs require technical skills, only 

15% of U.S. college graduates go into scientific and technical disciplines, compared to 23% for the G-7 and 39% for 

China.5

 Roughly half of U.S. employers say they’re having 

a hard time filling open positions with qualified workers, 

especially in technical fields; globally, employers find this to 

be true only about a third of the time.6

On measures of business environment we also have 

cause for concern. At 39.2%, America’s statutory corporate 

tax rate—including taxes at the federal and state and local 

levels—is substantially higher than the average for other 

advanced nations. And while it is true that many corporations pay a lower effective rate thanks to various deductions 

and exemptions, this added tax code complexity has a cost. 

The time and expense of preparing tax forms are estimated 

to cost the United States a staggering 1% of gross domestic 

product (GDP) annually.7

 In addition, while the United 

States has long been a model for other nations when it 

comes to the sophistication of our regulatory processes, in 

recent years we’ve slipped on some global rankings of business-friendliness, and such nations as Australia have outpaced us with impressive regulatory streamlinings credited 

with boosting economic growth. Early efforts at streamlining and simplifying U.S. regulations suggest great value is at 

stake—with more than $4 billion of savings identified and 

more than 55 million man-hours of paper work eliminated 

in recent federal regulatory improvement efforts.8

Introduction

Fill Open Jobs Infrastructure

Catalyze Jobs Growth

Address Hardest Hit Sectors

High-Growth Companies

Exports + FDI

Regulatory Simplification

High-Skill Training

Education

Innovation and R&D

Energy

Manufacturing

Regulatory Reform

Tax Reform

Invest in Our

Future

Build on Our

Strengths

Play to Win

Phase I: “Urgency”

(June)

Phase II: “Job Creation”

(October)

Phase III: “Competitiveness”

(January)

Jobs Council Overview and Plan

The U.S. economy is in the midst 

of a decades-long transition 

from an era in which we faced 

little global competition to 

one in which globalization and 

rapid technological change 

will compel us to rethink 

our formula for success. 
8 2011 YEAR-END REPORT THE JOBS COUNCIL

The United States has a low-cost electricity advantage 

over many of its competitors due to our nation’s diverse 

sources of energy, including recent breakthroughs in shale 

gas. The average industrial electricity price in the United 

States is 43% lower than its equivalent in China.9

 However, 

only 17% of the United States’ total energy consumption 

comes from low-carbon sources10 even though we currently 

lead the world in total renewable energy installed capacity 

at 53.4 gigawatts.11*

 But China is closing in with 52.5 gigawatts of installed capacity, and it invested nearly twice what 

America did in renewable energy in 2009.12

Energy is not the only place where U.S. leadership in 

innovation is being challenged. To be sure, the nation that 

gave the world airplanes, telephones, the integrated circuit, 

the Internet, the biotechnology industry and much more 

has a predictably strong track record on invention. We 

continue to have the world’s most productive research and 

innovation clusters, with Silicon Valley and the Research 

Triangle in North Carolina serving as models that other 

nations seek to emulate. And for the past decade the United 

States has produced almost as many internationally recognized patents as the rest of the world combined.13

Nevertheless, other nations are mounting historic drives 

to catch up. U.S. federal government research and development (R&D) spending, which is a major source of support 

for basic R&D, has fallen over the years as a share of GDP to 

under 0.8%; however, total R&D spent as a fraction of GDP 

(across public and private sources) has remained roughly 

consistent, hovering at approximately 2.6% of GDP for most 

of the past decade until recently.14 And while recent investments have bumped federal support for R&D in the past few 

years, many of these investments may face trouble because 

of pressing fiscal constraints. China, conversely, has more 

than doubled its R&D spending as a percentage of GDP 

from 1999 to 2009,15 increasing from 0.8% of GDP to 1.7%, 

with the declared goal of moving from “made in China” to 

“created in China.”16 Today, Japan and South Korea annually 

spend almost a percentage point more of GDP on R&D than 

does the United States.17 In addition, the decline in public 

support for R&D threatens the lion’s share of funding for 

basic research, which has historically catalyzed major breakthroughs and the creation of whole industries.

The threat to American leadership in innovation 

extends beyond lagging R&D investment. Private-sector 

innovation is threatened when critical manufacturing 

* Note: Low carbon includes wind, solar/PV, biofuels, wood, geothermal, and 

hydropower and nuclear power. 

activities move offshore (this trend is discussed further in 

this report’s manufacturing section). In the tradable sectors, in which businesses can locate employment anywhere, 

U.S. performance has lagged. If the United States is to retain 

its innovative edge, we must attract manufacturing investment, which helps fuel the next generation of ideas.

Taken together, these trends present a challenging picture. Global competition is growing more fierce every year. 

As economic activity has become more dispersed around 

the world, other nations have begun setting the pace on 

important dimensions that contribute to competitiveness. 

As part of a smart strategy, the United States can learn from 

these examples, just as other nations have long emulated 

America’s best ideas. Top global businesses continually 

benchmark their operations against the best in the world 

in order to improve. On competitiveness, the United States 

should benchmark its performance as well.

Introduction

Transportation

Telecommunications

Population and demographic profile

Availability of high-quality labor

Retention of foreign-born talent

Cost-adjusted labor productivity

Public expenditure on education

Number of patent applications

Economic

Fundamentals

Business

Climate

Infrastructure

Human

Capital

Key Metrics 10 Years Ago

US Relative Position

Today

Statutory corporate tax rate

Business environment

FDI as % of GDP

Growth of local innovation clusters

Tax incentives for R&D

Household consumption

Household consumption growth

GDP

Stock market capitalization

Industrial production

Trade as % of GDP

National spending on R&D

Leader

Top 

quartile

Average

Bottom 

quartile

U.S. 10-Year Performance Trend

U.S. relative position

U.S. performance on a sample of country attractiveness indicators 

is declining relative to other countries.

Source: Exhibit 31, Growth and Competitiveness in the United States: the role of its multinational companies,

McKinsey Global Institute, June 2010. 
2011 YEAR-END REPORT THE JOBS COUNCIL 9

a Strategy to compete

Some look at indices of America’s recent performance 

and worry that our moment has waned, but the Council 

believes these trend lines can be reversed. In a new century, 

this requires all of us to think and act differently. We’re 

building on enormous strengths built over generations, 

including a skilled workforce, the world’s top research universities, a nimble system of venture capital finance and 

a culture of creativity and entrepreneurship. With other 

nations raising their game, however, an agenda for American renewal won’t happen by accident. We need a strategy. 

We need to reach a new, pragmatic consensus on the role of 

the public and private sectors in fueling the next generation 

of growth. And we need a sense of urgency; in this global 

era, if you’re standing still, you’re falling behind.

The Council proposes three broad mantras or watchwords that the United States must now live by to compete in 

a global age. In addition, we offer specific recommendations 

to make each thematic initiative actionable and concrete. 

Invest in our future

First, we must invest in our future by ensuring that our 

people have the right education and skills to be the world’s 

most competitive workforce, and by cultivating a vibrant 

innovation ecosystem that supports ideas from lab to scaleup. In education, we need to fundamentally realign workforce training around the skills employers actually demand; 

emphasize high-quality preschool education; bolster the 

teaching profession; and speed the rollout of high, common 

and internationally benchmarked standards for what children should learn. On innovation, we need to regain our 

edge by, among other things, raising our national investment in R&D to at least 3.0% of GDP and ideally more. 

Build on our strengths 

Second, we must build on our strengthsin the critical sectors 

of energy and manufacturing. In energy, we need an “all-in” 

strategy that harnesses our natural resource advantage and 

our gift for innovation, both by scaling up and supporting 

renewables while responsibly developing newly accessible 

unconventional supplies. At the same time, we need to stretch 

our resources by slashing today’s crippling energy waste, 

from our buildings to our national fleets and beyond. In the 

manufacturing sector, we need to double down to support a 

resurgence that’s not only vital for jobs but also inextricably 

linked to the future of innovation itself. 

Play to win

Finally, we must play to win, our shorthand for finally getting toughminded about the barriers to competitiveness 

posed by our regulatory and tax regimes. Old ways of thinking just won’t cut it in a world where other nations have 

gained an edge through a generation of smart reforms. To 

start, we need to cut corporate tax rates, eliminate loopholes, broaden the base and improve the competitiveness 

of our tax code. When it comes to regulatory processes 

and approvals, we need to emphasize smart and efficient 

regulation that protects people and the environment while 

unleashing economic growth. 

Invest in our future, build on our strengths and play to 

win—if we are to renew our competitiveness for the century ahead, these are the mantras we must not only articulate but act upon with specific policies and initiatives. This 

report urges the nation to execute the ideas in each of these 

three areas that the Council believes can help spell the difference between American renewal and American decline. 

The Council believes that Americans are ready to answer 

a call to renewal. We hope all Americans will consider these 

ideas and work together to rejuvenate our economy. 

Introduction

We’re building on enormous 

strengths built over generations, 

including a skilled workforce, the 

world’s top research universities, 

a nimble system of venture capital 

finance and a culture of creativity 

and entrepreneurship.
Invest In 

Our Future
2011 YEAR-END REPORT THE JOBS COUNCIL 11

As business and labor leaders, we know that strong education and professional training is critical to producing the 

skilled workers who drive our nation’s economic success. 

And the CEOs on the Council agree that business leaders 

have a pivotal role to play in making sure that our nation 

understands how critical it is that our workers be educated 

and trained for maximum success. We must bolster current 

and future workforce skills to ensure the competitiveness of 

the American economy. 

We call broadly on the business community to engage 

and to work with local schools and governments, as well 

as the administration and Congress to address this urgent 

need. It will take both systematic work on policy and 

resource allocation, and hands-on commitment with 

schools, universities and community colleges in our communities. There are many effective efforts already underway 

across the country where business can lead and help ensure 

greater scale and effectiveness.

Education is something we simply have to get right; it 

is essential to every other strategy we recommend in this 

report. There are two broad outcomes we need to achieve. 

We need to identify the skills employers need and ensure 

that educational programs and worker training programs 

help students and workers acquire those skills. And we need 

to broadly improve educational outcomes across America, 

which requires, among other things, an overarching commitment to effective teaching. As business leaders we believe 

a focus on data, STEM (science, technology, engineering 

and math) education, and standards are critical to accomplishing these goals. More specifically:

•	 Providing clear performance data for the full spectrum 

of educational institutions (including pre-K–12 and 

higher education) can empower parents, students, education providers, government and employers to drive 

systemic improvements in education and better match 

labor skills supply with employer demand. 

•	Improving STEM education throughout our 

educational system is critical in an increasingly 

technical world. 

•	Raising standards across the educational system is a fundamental tool for improvement, including speeding the 

implementation of the Common Core State Standards 

and expanding them to science in collaboration with the 

nation’s governors. 

The Case for Competitiveness

With other nations raising their game, America’s position 

as a global leader in education is at risk. Projections indicate 

that by 2020 we will have 1.5 million too few college graduates as compared with employer demand.18 When asked 

about skilled production jobs, 74% of businesses said that 

workforce shortages or skills deficiencies were having a 

significant negative impact on their ability to expand operations or improve productivity.19 In the U.S. manufacturing 

sector, a survey of 94 CEOs estimated the total impact of 

the skilled labor shortage at $4.7 billion, an average loss of 

$50 million per manufacturing firm.20 Fitch Ratings, in a 

report issued in July 2011, noted that skilled labor shortages 

in mining and software industries would lead to decreased 

profitability for firms in those sectors.21

These findings reflect several factors. After high school, 

American workers confront a postsecondary system that is 

frequently decoupled from employer needs. Those seeking 

postsecondary education or training typically lack data to 

help them pick a path with good job prospects that links 

the skills they might learn to the jobs they might get. Furthermore, worker training is not tied closely to employer 

needs. These factors help explain why businesses can’t find 

employees they need; and why many would-be employees 

find themselves ineligible for good jobs because they lack 

the required skills. 

As technical skills become increasingly important, the 

gap between employer needs and workforce skills is starkest 

in the critical areas of STEM education. Yet while demand 

is growing rapidly, the United States is on track to respond 

with only modest increases in the number of graduates in 

Invest In Our Future

Education
12 2011 YEAR-END REPORT THE JOBS COUNCIL

STEM-related fields.22 In fact, only 1.5% of 25- to 34-yearolds in the workplace gained a higher education degree in 

a science-related field, putting America in the bottom third 

of all OECD countries.23 In addition, employers want workforce training to focus on nontechnical skills that cut across 

industries, such as the ability to operate in different cultural 

settings, communicate effectively and think creatively.24

Unfortunately, these skills gaps in our workforce are poised 

to widen due to the growing complexity of the work, the 

rise of skill-intensive sectors and the retirement of the baby 

boom generation. 

These issues extend back through the K–12 pipeline 

and are the result of long-term trends. In 1983, “A Nation at 

Risk” spoke famously of the “rising tide of mediocrity” that 

threatened our schools. Nearly 30 years later, the tide has 

come in. Since that landmark report, our challenges have 

been compounded by an increasingly competitive global 

economy in which U.S. efforts haven’t kept pace with the 

dramatic improvement other nations have made in their 

education and professional training systems. Today, only 

one-quarter of America’s 52 million K–12 students are performing on par with the average performance of the best 

five school systems in the world—which are now located in 

Singapore, Hong Kong, Finland, Taiwan and South Korea.25

Things look even more challenging in math and science. 

The latest research shows that 16 countries produce twice or 

more the percentage of advanced math students than does 

the United States.26

Our failure to fully develop our nation’s human potential imposes great risk on our future living standards and 

business competitiveness. A 2009 study by McKinsey found 

the cost of America’s K–12 achievement gap compared with 

the world’s top-performing countries reached as high as 

$2.3 trillion in 2008 alone.27 Many groups have addressed 

this issue in recent years, and we’ve consulted broadly to 

better understand the challenges and the kinds of effective, 

scalable solutions that can meet them. 

Recommendations

Given the business community’s unique place in the education ecosystem—both as a major “consumer” of the 

education “product” as well as an investor in the education 

system through philanthropic and tax dollars—business 

has an opportunity to be an essential voice in influencing 

the nation’s education policy, practice and innovation. The 

Council is calling for a series of actions that could realign 

our higher education systems and lifelong learning programs to better meet workforce and student needs, even as 

we transform our education system from preschool to high 

school. We call for business and labor leaders, states, the 

federal government and other groups with a stake in these 

issues to coordinate efforts on two fronts: 

Higher-education systems and 

lifelong programs

Align the training needs of workers and skills demanded by 

employers with education and workforce training programs.

Education system from preschool to K–12 

Emphasize high-quality preschool; accelerate the implementation of the Common Core State Standards (and 

expand them to science and ideally preschool standards); 

bolster the teaching profession; and improve the availability 

of performance data to drive systemic improvements.

Invest IN our Future EDUCATION

Asia* China United States

0

5,000

10,000

15,000

20,000

25,000

30,000

35,000

40,000

Number of Degrees Produced

2006

1998

1998

2006

1998

2006

Science and engineering degrees in the U.S. and in Asia 

S&E doctoral degree production

*Asia includes China in its total.

Source: The New Geography of Global Innovation, Sept 2010; OECD, National Ministries of Education

Only one-quarter of America’s 

52 million K–12 students are 

performing on par with the 

average performance of the 

best five school systems in the 

world—which are now located in 

Singapore, Hong Kong, Finland, 

Taiwan and South Korea.
2011 YEAR-END REPORT THE JOBS COUNCIL 13

In the remainder of this chapter we detail specific recommendations to implement these goals.

Postsecondary Education

and Lifelong Learning Priorities: 

Our Recommendations

It’s axiomatic that a high school education alone is no 

longer a path to the middle class, but the numbers behind 

this truism are still startling. In 1970, just one in four 

middle-class workers had (and needed) a postsecondary 

degree; today, nearly two in three do.28 Ninety percent of 

workers with just a high school degree end up in low-wage 

occupations (which typically aren’t growing). According 

to the Hamilton Project, workers with less education 

experience higher job loss during recessions and remain 

unemployed longer.29

Unfortunately, the need for postsecondary attainment 

has become urgent just as America’s leadership in producing 

such credentials has been eclipsed. In the 1990s, the United 

States ranked fifth among OECD nations for postsecondary 

graduation rates, but we’ve since slipped to 16th out of 30 

member nations.30 Only half of all enrolled community college students complete an associate’s degree after five years.31

Once they graduate, because their skills are poorly matched 

to the job market, many are unable to find jobs despite 

having invested significant time and money getting their 

degrees.32 While other OECD nations used the recession to 

improve the quality of their postsecondary education, staterun college systems in the United States have seen significant 

cuts as states struggle to balance budgets.33

The challenge extends to mid-career training as well. 

Many displaced workers can’t find meaningful retraining to put them on a path to promising new employment. 

Workforce training institutions are largely isolated and, 

despite a few inspiring exceptions, have little effective collaboration with businesses and other educators in many 

states.34 Local workforce boards, which dispense Workforce 

Investment Act funds, are not fully integrated with local and 

state economic development efforts. Moreover, the boards 

oftentimes don’t link training to employment in growth 

industries that offer well-paying jobs.35

This lack of alignment between what employers need 

and what skills are taught and delivered is becoming a critical problem for business and the nation. The Council sees 

two fundamental priorities to address this challenge: partnerships between businesses and educational institutions 

that ensure that postsecondary education/training for students and workers meets the demands of the labor market; 

and data transparency mechanisms that can give employers, education providers, workers and students the tools to 

effectively align labor demand with supply. 

1. Develop partnerships between businesses 

and postsecondary educational institutions.

To develop clear pathways in education and training linked 

to workforce needs, employers and educators must collaborate more closely. As an example, Chicago recently 

announced a Colleges to Careers partnership between 

employers and colleges to align labor demand with training.36 The program aims to prepare students to work in 

health care, transportation, distribution and logistics—all 

sectors in which job openings remain unfilled due to a skills 

gap. In some cases, the business community has taken on 

significant leadership in partnerships with educational 

institutions. P-TECH—a partnership of IBM, the New York 

City Department of Education and New York colleges—has 

resulted in a unique K–14 program that prepares students 

for careers in the IT industry. 

Another example of private-sector leadership in establishing such partnerships is Right Skills Now, a Minnesota 

pilot program that is a partnership involving business, the 

Manufacturing Institute, ACT and Minnesota colleges to 

provide candidates with the precision machining manufacturing skills they need through a hands-on and classroombased 16-week training period. 

Skills for America’s Future, a policy program of the 

Aspen Institute, helps align education and training with 

employer needs by creating a national network of partnerships among employers, labor unions and community colleges to support workforce training and to address the skills 

gap in key industry sectors. Many of the country’s leading 

businesses and industry associations are committing to 

Invest IN our Future EDUCATION

The lack of alignment between 

what employers need and 

what skills are taught has 

become a critical problem for 

business and the nation. 
14 2011 YEAR-END REPORT THE JOBS COUNCIL

partnerships through Skills for America’s 

Future, including Gap, IBM, McDonald’s, 

Motorola Solutions, Pacific Gas & Electric, 

Promax BDA, UPS and United Technologies. 

The Council urges community colleges and 

firms to expand and enrich such programs 

through their increased involvement and 

participation.

The Council also calls on state governments to play a greater role in convening 

these partnerships. Several U.S. states have 

established sector partnerships that convene 

employers, training and education providers 

and labor organizations in a particular industry to build workforce pipelines.37 In addition 

to providing seed and implementation grants, 

state governments can support coordination 

of stakeholders and enable employers to shape 

the solutions. Louisiana Economic Development’s Fast Start program is a promising 

example of workforce training coordinated 

around a broader economic development 

strategy. The administration can incentivize 

scaling of these efforts by providing challenge 

grants to consortia of education institutions 

and businesses that meet targets for job creation and placements. 

Beyond the broad need to address the 

skills gap and ensure business competitiveness, the Council believes that a special focus 

on the expansion of lifelong training for 

displaced workers and underserved populations is an important priority. We know that 

workforce training that focuses on a particular industry and that provides longer-term 

training yields better outcomes, especially for 

low-income adults.38 The administration can 

boost these and similar efforts by providing 

tax benefits for companies that provide longterm work-based training and conditional 

employment to displaced workers, expand 

the range of firms that qualify for the Department of Labor’s apprenticeship program, 

and increase the scope of Pell grants to cover 

shorter-term work-based training and nondegree Career and Technical Education certification programs.

1. Work with educational institutions and training 

partners to define foundational skills needed in 

the workforce. 

2. Develop tools to enable data transparency and 

comparability on needs and skills in the labor 

market.

3. Develop skills credentialing and meaningful 

assessments in partnership with postsecondary 

institutions.

4. Partner with postsecondary institutions in curriculum development that meets workforce needs. 

5. Publish information about skills most needed by 

employers (e.g., Department of Labor’s analysis of 

occupations for skills-based database).

6. Prioritize challenge grants to consortia of businesses and postsecondary institutions that 

meet pre-defined targets of job creation and job 

placement.

7. Provide tax benefits for companies that provide 

long-term work-based training and conditional 

employment to displaced workers.

8. Align existing student funding for postsecondary 

education, including Pell grants, with shorter-term 

work based training and career and non-degree 

technical certification programs.

9. Implement regional databases of skills demand 

and supply through partnerships with business 

technology providers.

10. Realign existing postsecondary funding to meaningful partnership with employers and development of curriculum assessments that meets 

employer needs.

11. Provide students data on post-education outcomes associated with specific majors/programs.

12. Design and implement curricula and assessments 

that meets the needs of regional employers by 

partnering with them. 

Business

The Administration

State Governments

Educational 

Institutions

Invest IN our Future EDUCATION

Postsecondary Education and 

Lifelong Learning Priorities 
2011 YEAR-END REPORT THE JOBS COUNCIL 15

Fortunately, in its efforts to bring lifelong training initiatives to scale, the business community has a number of 

powerful examples from which to learn and build upon. 

One example of a successful program that targets just 

such a population is N Power Technology Service Corps. 

The program provides qualified young adults with a 

22-week technical training course, mentorship by industry 

professionals and professional internship opportunities, all 

leading toward IT credentials in high demand nationwide. 

The program is expanding, and it boasts a greater than 80 

percent graduation rate.39

Delta Fast Start is another promising partnership 

between Delta College and Michigan Works, a publicprivate workforce association. The program partners with 

local solar, chemical and battery manufacturers to retrain 

workers for jobs in these high-demand industries. Job 

placement rates for some programs in the network are as 

high as 89 percent.40

Finally, the Council believes the labor market needs a 

mechanism to develop learning standards based on competencies rather than credit hours. Students should earn 

credentials for what they know, rather than for how long 

it took to learn it. This would shorten the path to career 

readiness while reducing cost to gain on-the-job training. 

Invest IN our Future EDUCATION

Right Skills Now: An Update

Led by Council member Darlene Miller, owner and CEO of 

Permac Industries, the Jobs Council, in partnership with 

the Manufacturing Institute, transformed the National 

Association of Manufacturers-Endorsed Manufacturing 

Skills Certification System into a nationally replicable fasttrack solution to deliver talent to small manufacturers. 

This accelerated program, called Right Skills Now, allows 

individuals to earn college credit and national industry 

certifications in 16 weeks, preparing them for immediate 

employment in high-quality manufacturing jobs and giving 

them a solid foundation to advance in higher education 

and their careers. 

Right Skills Now combines nationally portable, industry-based certifications with for-credit education programs in community colleges. These education pathways 

are directly aligned to career pathways in manufacturing, 

so students progressing through the programs earn college credit toward a degree, a national certification with 

labor market value and the hands-on technical experience to be successful on the job from day one. While the 

initial model focus is on machining skills, for which there 

is immediate demand, the program can accelerate skills 

development in other foundational areas for advanced 

manufacturing, such as production or welding. 

In October 2011, Minnesota launched Right Skills Now 

to support its machining and metal-forming companies, 

which are desperate for skilled talent and employ out-ofwork Minnesotans in good jobs. Darlene Miller is leading a 

group of Minnesota employers that are working with two 

Minnesota colleges, Dunwoody College of Technology 

and South Central College, the Anoka County Workforce 

Center and the Resource Employment Action Center to 

recruit individuals into the Right Skills Now program. The 

Minnesota program officially started training students 

in January 2012. Participating individuals are receiving 

ACT’s National Career Readiness Certificates, proving 

they are ready for work or college, and will obtain several 

National Institute for Metalworking Skills credentials by 

the end of the 16-week program. Employers are making 

arrangements with the colleges to offer full-credit, paid 

internships to individuals completing Right Skills Now, 

positioning these students for gainful employment. 

Replication of Right Skills Now in other states is under 

way. In February 2012, Nevada will deploy Right Skills 

Now with the leadership of Dream It. Do It. Nevada, a 

501(c)(3) organization dedicated to creating a highly 

skilled advanced manufacturing workforce through the 

attainment of academic degrees and nationally portable, 

industry-recognized credentials aligned with the NAMEndorsed Manufacturing Skills Certification System. Right 

Skills Now Nevada will enroll students at Western Nevada 

College and Truckee Meadows Community College and is 

working with more than 20 manufacturers to secure paid 

internships for individuals completing credentials as part 

of the 16-week program. As the program launches, Right 

Skills Now Nevada will focus on recruiting more than 400 

National Guard troops coming home in January 2012. 

Right Skills Now is an example of how a national education and workforce development reform effort can take 

root in real communities, with real results, through meaningful and sustainable business-education partnerships.
16 2011 YEAR-END REPORT THE JOBS COUNCIL

Furthermore, it would enable employers to identify highpotential employees from nontraditional backgrounds. 

Business associations and consortia should develop standards of quality for such credentialing, define credentialing 

requirements and partner with postsecondary institutions. 

The Council also calls on postsecondary institutions to 

build transferability between competency-based credentials 

and college course credits to provide flexible paths for students to combine classroom and previously learned skills 

toward either a degree or certification. State governments 

should partner with the private sector to establish testing/

credentialing centers to provide skills credentials for nontraditional educational skills. One promising example of 

competency-based credentialing is provided by the National 

Association of Manufacturers, which has developed a manufacturing skills certification system that can be integrated into 

high school and career and technical education (CTE) curricula. The certification system was designed by and for manufacturers and ensures that students and workers gain the skills 

required for entry-level positions in manufacturing. 

2. Increase data-driven transparency 

mechanisms to align labor supply with demand.

In order for public-private partnerships to effectively generate employer-driven career pathways, the Council believes 

that data transparency is critical. Given today’s rich world 

of data and innovative technology, there is no reason why 

marketers should have better information about their 

consumers than college administrators do. A recent study 

by Georgetown University’s Center on Education and the 

Workforce found that college graduates with degrees in the 

arts, humanities and architecture experienced significantly 

higher rates of joblessness than those with STEM degrees.41

While liberal arts skills are highly valuable, many of these 

students might have made different choices had they seen 

clear data on the expected demand for degrees upon graduation. Yet such information is rarely made available to students at the time of enrollment.42

The Council urges the business community to take the 

lead on closing this information gap by creating systems to 

make data on workforce skills demand and supply readily 

available. The Department of Labor’s O*NET database is a 

promising step in this direction and defines the skills and 

knowledge that characterize an occupation, day-to-day 

aspects of the job, and interests and qualifications of the 

typical worker. The Council calls on state governments and 

the Department of Labor to collaborate with the private 

sector to extend these databases to the regional level.

This information can support partnerships to 

align curricula with labor demand and increase data 

transparency in the labor market, all of which can help 

better align skills demand and supply to create a more 

purposeful education system. The Council believes that 

efforts by the administration and state governments to 

integrate unemployment insurance and workforce training 

with such efforts will help turn the unemployment system 

into a re-employment system.

Pre-K–12 Education Priorities: 

Our Recommendations

Every school day, about 7,000 students drop out of school—

all of whom are less likely to succeed in the workplace.43

Ensuring more students graduate high school better prepared for either the workforce or postsecondary education 

is critical for economic growth. 

One overarching theme should be stressed from the outset: Our students must graduate with a well-rounded set of 

skills, including thorough STEM knowledge and skills such 

as critical thinking and communication. Most jobs require 

basic technical and scientific knowledge, and professional 

jobs almost universally demand it. A number of effective 

public-private efforts to address the U.S. STEM skills gap 

are worth highlighting. The National Math and Science Initiative, for example, is scaling successful STEM programs; 

STEMConnector is building a national network; and the 

National Science Resources Center provides research-based 

guidance for systems on how to improve science instruction. Foundations and business should continue to invest in 

researching what works in improving STEM education and 

supporting organizations with measurable success. 

There are four fundamental priorities in this terrain that 

we believe are critical: Emphasize high-quality preschool; 

accelerate the adoption of common high standards to guide 

school curricula; bolster the teaching profession; and ensure 

that all stakeholders have access to clear information on 

school performance to allow data-driven improvements in 

education. We’ll take these in turn.

1. Emphasize the importance of preschool to 

educational success.

Education and training is a lifelong process, beginning in 

preschool. Unfortunately, math and reading scores for new 

kindergartners from the bottom of the socioeconomic spectrum are roughly 60% lower than those of students at the 

Invest IN our Future EDUCATION
2011 YEAR-END REPORT THE JOBS COUNCIL 17

Invest IN our Future EDUCATION

higher end.44 Students who are still behind by 

third grade are more likely to drop out. This 

gap in kindergarten readiness is in part driven 

by the fact that one-third of U.S. children do 

not attend preschool. Research demonstrates 

that children should be performing at grade 

level by third grade to ensure future educational success; a key element in achieving this 

goal is high-quality preschool programs. 

Researchers have found that the return 

on investment for high-quality preschool 

programs is very high—from $3 to as many 

as $17 returned on every dollar invested.45,46

In addition, high-quality preschool programs 

can achieve impact at scale. The Abbott preschool programs in New Jersey are producing 

significant learning gains for children, gains 

that are being sustained into the elementary 

years. A higher percentage of fourth-graders 

now read at grade level in New Jersey than in 

any other state except for Massachusetts.47

States should focus efforts on high-quality 

preschool access, continue efforts to ensure 

preschool programs are coordinated and 

held to higher quality standards, and work 

to develop common high standards for preschool. With quality preschool, all children 

can enter kindergarten on a path toward a 

productive career.

2. Implement high common 

standards.

Most of our major industrial competitors 

have comprehensive, consistent standards 

in education. Research indicates that such 

standards can account for up to 26% of 

the variance in student achievement across 

countries.48 Standards in the United States, 

by contrast, have historically been developed 

individually by each state, leaving expectations for student learning dependent on 

where children happen to live. The Council believes that while curricula are rightly 

implemented by each state, they should be 

informed by common core standards. 

In recent years, states have charted a path 

toward high common standards, spurred on 

1. Offer expert support to states and districts 

as they improve internal functions and resource 

efficiency in schools. 

2. Help communities prepare for lower scores and 

other implications that can initially come with new 

higher standards.

3. Develop user-friendly formats for sharing 

of school and student performance metrics that 

allow easy comparison.

4. Develop and standardize a process for measuring 

the performance of teacher preparation programs.

5. Emphasize high-quality preschool, while ensuring 

quality control and coordinating efforts to create 

common preschool standards.

6. Accelerate both the implementation of the assessments and instructional materials linked to Common 

Core State Standards (CCSS), and the expansion of 

CCSS into STEM subjects.

7. Form a taskforce led by the National Governors 

Association and composed of state, local and 

national leaders to develop common best practices 

and a Teaching Talent Road Map that defines goals 

and timelines to have states implementing them to 

improve the teaching profession through improved 

professional development, recruiting, preparation, 

retention and reward structures, informed by global 

best practice.

8. Link performance of teacher preparation programs 

to ongoing funding.

9. Rebalance resources to pay effective teachers, particularly in hard-to-staff subjects and schools, competitively with other highly skilled professions.

10. Publish school performance metrics and 

comparisons in a user friendly format to inform 

parents and business.

11. Emphasize high-quality preschool.

12. Reallocate resources to support the work of states 

in implementing assessments and adopting new 

instructional materials tied to CCSS.

13. Align teacher compensation with teacher contribution to student and school performance, as well as 

with the need to attract and retain strong teachers in 

high-need areas such as math and science.

14. Gather data on school and student performance and 

make it available to parents.

Business

The Administration

State Governments

Congress

Educational 

Institutions/ 

School Districts

Pre-K–12 Education Priorities
18 2011 YEAR-END REPORT THE JOBS COUNCIL

by a growing coalition of stakeholders.* The National Governors Association has partnered with other stakeholders to 

develop the Common Core State Standards (CCSS) in English language arts and in mathematics and related assessments; the CCSS have been adopted by 46 states. The CCSS 

represent a big step forward toward internationally benchmarked standards that are focused, rigorous and coherent 

across grades and state lines.

However, assessments aligned to the standards will 

not be fully rolled out until the 2014–15 school year, 

and states will likely require time to incorporate those 

assessments into data systems and instruction. Meanwhile, 

our industrial competitors often have standards that cover 

science, history and foreign languages. So, while the Council 

has nothing but praise and respect for those who’ve moved 

the nation this far on standards, we do not believe we 

should wait until 2020 to have fully implemented standards 

in just two subjects. The Council believes that states should 

accelerate the rollout of the standards that exist and speed 

the development and implementation of standards in 

additional subjects such as science that are essential for 

U.S. competitiveness. 

To pick up the pace, Congress should prioritize resource 

allocations that support states in implementing assessments 

and adopting instructional materials tied to the CCSS. 

States should accelerate implementation, while business 

should help states develop and apply quality frameworks 

to evaluate instructional tools and materials aligned with 

the CCSS. Finally, the Council urges businesses in each state 

to lend their functional expertise to support and accelerate 

the adoption and implementation of the CCSS, as well as 

assessments and instructional materials aligned to them. 

Much like the Tennessee SCORE program, businesses can 

help communities prepare for the lower scores that often 

temporarily result from higher standards. 

3. Bolster the teaching profession.

There is almost universal consensus that effective teaching 

is the biggest in-school lever for improving student performance. A recent study found that replacing a struggling 

teacher with an average one would increase that classroom’s 

lifetime earnings by $266,000. This impact multiplies if those 

students have strong teachers every year.49 Ensuring high 

teacher effectiveness, particularly in STEM subjects, is the 

surest way to produce graduates with the skills to compete. 

* The National Governors Association, Council for Chief State School Officers 

and Council for Great City Schools deserve significant credit here.

Unfortunately, broadly speaking, American education 

doesn’t foster a professional working environment for 

teachers, doesn’t have highly effective teacher preparation, 

offers too little effective professional development and 

doesn’t pay competitively with other professions. In contrast, top-performing countries have highly selective teacher 

preparation programs, work hard to foster a professional 

working environment for teachers and compensate teachers 

competitively with other professions. 

With roughly half of America’s 3.5 million teachers 

eligible to retire in the next decade, we’re on the cusp of a 

unique window of opportunity to transform the profession.50 The Council believes that to seize this moment we 

must focus relentlessly on developing and retaining the 

most talented teachers in the world. 

We believe a coordinated effort to help enhance teaching across America can be a powerful tool to ensure that 

the U.S. continues to have a highly competitive workforce. 

The Council suggests that the National Governors Association, with support from the U.S. Department of Education, 

spearhead a state-local-national task force to develop a road 

map. That road map should describe best practices, metrics 

and timelines for states to use in improving the recruiting, 

preparation, retention, and rewarding of teachers, informed 

by global best practices. 

As part of this work, systems are needed to evaluate 

teacher preparation programs at the postsecondary level 

and link these evaluations to accountability systems. The 

Department of Education, the National Council on Teacher 

Quality and states like Louisiana and Tennessee are starting 

to make significant strides on outcome-based accountability. These efforts should be supported and the results made 

transparent to enable continuous improvement. Additionally, business should support innovative teacher preparation 

programs such as the Relay Graduate School of Education 

in order to encourage experimentation. Finally, it is time to 

compensate teachers at a level and in a way that makes the 

teaching career competitive with other professions.

4. Achieve data-driven improvements 

in education.

One of the barriers to improvement for American education has been the lack of clear, broadly available data on just 

how our schools are doing—the kind of data that would 

help all stakeholders in the education ecosystem track and 

manage performance.51

As business leaders, members of the Council believe it 

is difficult to manage what isn’t measured. If stakeholders 

Invest IN our Future EDUCATION
2011 YEAR-END REPORT THE JOBS COUNCIL 19

Invest IN our Future EDUCATION

across education have access to clear and comparable performance data, that can help drive systemic improvements. 

It is critical to develop ways to measure school performance 

objectively and to compare schools within and across systems. To this end, the Council calls on the business community and state governments to make speedy adoption 

of both statewide and interstate data linked to the CCSS 

and assessments a priority. Business can help develop relevant user-friendly metrics and efficient data systems in 

education just as it has done in the finance and commercial 

world. We need these data to guide and measure our overall 

system improvements. 

State governments should use this data to publish 

school performance metrics. Transparent data on school 

performance can empower parents to drive change if they 

see their children aren’t being prepared for the 21st-century 

job market, but too many don’t understand that this is the 

reality today. The publication of these metrics should be 

accompanied by guidance to parents on specific actions 

they can take to improve their own child’s performance, as 

well as ways to join with other parents to improve school 

systems overall. Business, the nonprofit community, 

government and the media can create awareness campaigns 

to measurably improve Americans’ understanding of the 

facts about their children’s schools and school systems, 

while hammering home the connection between STEM 

education and well-paying jobs. 

The Council believes that a widening skills gap is a 

significant risk to future competitiveness and employment 

in the United States—but believes that closing that gap and 

strengthening our future workforce and competitiveness 

is well within our grasp. It will take broad engagement 

by students, teachers, school administrators, the business 

community and government at every level.

As this discussion suggests, there’s no one silver bullet 

that can advance the education and skills agenda that’s 

essential to renewing U.S. competitiveness. But the Council 

believes that aggressive long-term efforts to move the 

needle on these big challenges in preschool, K–12 and posthigh school learning can build on work already underway 

to make sure Americans have the skills to flourish in a 

global age. 
20 2011 YEAR-END REPORT THE JOBS COUNCIL

Invest IN our Future EDUCATION

10,000 Engineers: An UPDATE

In August 2011, participants at a Jobs and Competitiveness 

Listening Session at Portland State University discussed 

the attraction and retention challenge for engineering students in the United States. Only 14% of undergraduates in 

U.S. postsecondary institutions are studying science, technology, engineering and mathematics. Moreover, after the 

first year, 40% of those enrolled in these disciplines switch 

majors. As a result, while overall college-graduation levels 

have grown by nearly 50% over the past two decades, the 

annual number of engineering graduates has virtually stagnated at around 120,000.i

To address this skills challenge, the Council is focused 

on driving programs that will yield 10,000 more engineering graduates each year. This goal requires a commitment from all U.S. firms that employ engineers. Although 

systemic education reform is absolutely necessary to 

long-term competitiveness and sustainability, increasing 

the retention and graduation rates of students currently 

enrolled in engineering disciplines can move a long way 

toward solving the shortage. 

A key contributing factor for 

freshmen who drop engineering 

as a major is a reduction in motivation stemming from lack of 

opportunity to apply their classroom learning to “real” engineering opportunities. Consequently, 

in 2012, the Council will launch a 

national Stay With It campaign 

in partnership with academia, 

the private sector and the entertainment industry. It will 

focus on accelerating engineering experiences, providing 

encouragement, increasing the prestige of engineering 

and helping students graduate with engineering degrees. 

The Stay With It campaign will include a national pep rally 

this spring to inspire students’ enthusiasm for engineering. 

This unique campus event, broadcast via social and mass 

media, will celebrate students who have chosen the field of 

engineering and recognize them as crucial to the future of 

our nation. 

The Council believes that a critical factor to retaining 

engineering students is providing them with opportunities that connect their classroom learning with real-world 

opportunities while providing much-needed financial support. More than 65 companies have already committed to 

doubling their 2012 summer engineering internships—with 

Intel, GE and DuPont alone making an overall $70 million 

investment in providing students with invaluable hands-on 

experience. Additionally, engineering deans from some of 

the nation’s top universities—including Georgia Tech, the 

University of California at Berkeley and the University of 

Michigan—have developed gold seal standards of excellence for colleges of engineering focused on improved 

retention and graduation rates. By providing both direct 

student engagement and support as well as securing 

institutional leadership and commitment, the Council will 

not only focus attention on the importance of engineering 

student retention and increased graduation rates but also 

strengthen the nation.

As we move through the new year, the Council welcomes company participation to expand the Day of 

Engineering to additional campuses; provide support for 

increased internships; secure funding to support bridge 

programs and mentoring efforts, both of which are proven 

and effective methods to improve student retention; and 

support the national Stay With It campaign by offering to 

host campus events, support public-service announcements and provide mentors to engineering students.

Council member Paul S. Otellini at the Engineering and 

Innovation Listening & Action Session in Portland, OR.
2011 YEAR-END REPORT THE JOBS COUNCIL 21

The Council believes that innovation is fundamental 

to America’s future and that the concept of innovation has 

to be applied broadly to all of our challenges. As a nation 

we should be pushing at the frontiers of progress with 

continuous public- and private-sector breakthroughs in 

products, services, business models and ways to develop our 

people. In concrete terms, to renew America’s leadership 

in innovation by 2020, the Council calls on the country 

to boost national investment in R&D to 3.0% of GDP 

and ideally more; double down on our commitment to 

developing the most highly innovative workforce in the 

world and lift the level of new startup business activity well 

beyond its peak in the early 21st century. 

The Case for Competitiveness

America is famously a nation of visionaries and builders. It’s part of our national character, a trait that has long 

benefited and captured the imagination of the world. From 

Thomas Edison (with 1,093 patents to his name) to Edwin 

Land (553 patents) to the “Google gang” (534 patents to the 

top 10 patenting employees) and Steve Jobs (who had his 

name on 313 of Apple’s patents), our pantheon of heroes 

has always included the inventors and entrepreneurs whose 

mix of curiosity, persistence, drive and know-how has 

changed the way people live.52

America’s track record of innovation includes light 

bulbs, telephones and integrated circuits, space flight and 

artificial intelligence, and the latest advances in robotics, 

nanotechnology, biotechnology, and self-driving vehicles. 

But it’s not just products from the lab. America’s creative 

gene has as often spurred landmark process innovations, 

from Henry Ford’s assembly lines to 21st-century social networking to the everyday improvements front-line workers 

champion on the factory floor or in the retail store. In all of 

these venues, America’s seemingly endless gift for harnessing ingenuity on behalf of improving our quality of life has 

been a source of worldwide wonder and national pride. 

American innovation has also been key to our competitive advantage. That’s because innovation is central to productivity growth and also central to the new technologies 

and industries that create jobs. Both parts of this observation are critical. Thanks to innovation, the American economy is never static. The activities and ecosystem captured 

by the word “innovation” continually spawn firms and 

entire industries. This pattern of innovation has allowed the 

economy to create new jobs and new professions even as 

others fade into history. Even industries that seem old-fashioned or craft-like are being transformed every day—just 

visit an offshore drilling rig, a modern operating room, a 

farm, or a high-tech classroom. Innovation can continue to 

produce the jobs and income gains of the future, so long as 

we foster a climate that lets innovation thrive—and ensure 

that Americans are poised to capture its fruits. 

But the context for global innovation has changed radically. Innovation, after all, comes from ideas and the volume of ideas in the world depends on the extent to which 

human minds are cultivated and tapped. Today, hundreds 

of millions of minds in emerging nations are for the first 

time acquiring the skills and schooling that enable them to 

contribute to our collective store of knowledge. The Internet permits people and ideas in one corner of the globe 

to collaborate and shape economies anywhere. And geometric advances in computing power—already delivering 

vast worlds into devices that fit in a palm, and soon inside 

a blood cell—have extended the frontiers of invention in 

Invest In Our Future

Innovation

American innovation has also been 

key to our competitive advantage. 

That’s because innovation is central 

to productivity growth and also 

central to the new technologies 

and industries that create jobs.
22 2011 YEAR-END REPORT THE JOBS COUNCIL

ways we’re just beginning to grasp. The upshot: The pace of 

innovation is accelerating even as the process of innovation 

evolves in unpredictable new directions. How could it be 

otherwise when global data flows grew by 50% in 2009, a 

year in which there were 150 million new Internet users in 

China alone?53

When rapidly accelerating technologies replace old 

jobs with new, we have to innovate just to keep up. And 

we must now continuously innovate just to keep our 

hold on traditional strengths like sophisticated advanced 

manufacturing, or to compete in life-enhancing services 

like education and health care.

Unsurprisingly, as the pace of change quickens and 

innovation becomes more important to national prosperity, 

global competition to be the home of the next new thing has 

intensified. The United States still leads the world in absolute 

levels of investment in R&D, with more than $311 billion, 

or 2.8% of GDP, spent in 2008 across the public and private 

sectors.54 And while lower as a share of GDP than it was in its 

heyday, America’s investment in 2008 was still $185 billion 

more than that of China, our closest competitor.55*

That may seem like good news, but such figures 

shouldn’t counsel complacency. Other countries have for 

years been spending more as a percentage of GDP than we 

do. Japan and South Korea, for example, both spend sixtenths to seven-tenths of a percentage point more of GDP 

on R&D yearly.56 And in both cases, the private sector takes 

on a much greater responsibility for R&D, contributing 

more as a share of R&D than the private sector does here. 

In total R&D investment, Israel, Finland and Sweden punch 

above their weight with 3.7 to 4.7% of GDP going to R&D 

in 2008.57 And the trend lines are discouraging. While 

China has doubled its investment in R&D as a percentage of 

GDP since 1999 (to 1.7% in 2009), for example, the United 

States has let such investment stagnate at roughly 2.6% of 

GDP, until only recently.58 What’s more, at roughly 0.8% of 

GDP, federal spending on R&D is far lower than the almost 

2% we routinely invested during the glory days of space 

exploration and the birth of computer science. Constrained 

budget resources in the years ahead could place further 

pressure on federal support for R&D.59 It is critical that 

federal R&D support is strong because it supports the basic 

science that provides the foundation for the commercially 

oriented applications upon which private-sector R&D 

focuses. It’s this basic science that creates the knowledge 

breakthroughs that drive transformational changes—and 

the new technologies, products, industries and jobs that 

over time flow from them. 

Recommendations: 

Supercharging America’s

Innovative Capacity

What fuels the innovation that lifts American competitiveness? 

The blueprint is easy to sketch but devilishly tough for a nation 

to execute well: investment in R&D; access to capital to turn 

fresh ideas into new businesses and industries; and a skilled 

* All R&D investment figures in this section are in 2000 real dollars.

Invest IN our Future innovation

Israel

Finland

Sweden

Japan

Korea

Switzerland

Denmark

United States

4.7

3.7

3.7

3.0

2.9

2.8

% of GDP

3.4

3.4

Most R&D-intensive Countries in the OECD

Gross domestic expenditure on R&D, 2008

Source: OECD, Science and technology: Key tables from OECD - ISSN 2075-843X - © OECD 2011 

0

0.5

1.0

1.5

2.0

2.5

3.0

3.5

4.0

Percent

China

2007

2002

1997

United States

R&D Intensity Growth in the U.S. and China

Gross expenditure on R&D as share of GDP, 1997–2007

Source: The New Geography of Global Innovation, Sept 2010; OECD
2011 YEAR-END REPORT THE JOBS COUNCIL 23

workforce, with incentives that reward innovation on the front 

line. Get these big things right and you’re halfway home. But to 

reach the true heights of our potential we must direct our ingenuity toward the greatest challenges of our time. 

1. Bolster private R&D through a competitive 

R&D tax credit, speedy tech transfer and strong 

IP enforcement. 

Meeting this goal will take fresh public- and private-sector 

commitments. To meet our goal of 3% of GDP invested in 

R&D, we need to encourage more privately funded R&D 

and better leverage and target public funds. With more than 

two-thirds of our R&D spending coming from the private 

sector, improving the attractiveness of the United States 

for such investments is a vital place to start. But two-thirds 

of investment coming from the private sector isn’t enough 

when other countries such as Japan and South Korea substantially invest more than we do as a percentage of GDP 

and, in addition, get a higher share of R&D from the private 

sector—78% and 74%, respectively.60 As the administration has proposed, we need to expand and extend the R&D 

tax credit to catch up with the 16 countries that offer more 

favorable tax treatment for R&D.61 We don’t have to look far 

for good models: Canada, for instance, offers R&D tax benefits twice as generous as ours.62

At the same time, it’s important to remember that bolstering the competitive environment more broadly makes 

the United States more hospitable to private R&D as well. 

As noted elsewhere in the Council’s report, we therefore 

need a competitive tax policy that incentivizes innovative 

companies to locate their R&D, production and employment in the United States; regulatory practices that boost 

rather than impede innovation; and a talented workforce 

capable of applying new technologies. To maintain our 

allure for private-sector innovation, we must also support 

developing strong innovation ecosystems—like those in 

Silicon Valley and in the Raleigh-Durham Research Triangle 

in North Carolina, centered on metropolitan regions, which 

countries like Singapore and China look to emulate when 

designing their innovation strategies. The benefits of these 

ecosystems are tangible for American business and workers. 

As Thomas Friedman wrote recently, “The best of these ecosystems...[involve] cities and towns that combine a university, an educated populace, a dynamic business community 

and the fastest broadband connections on earth. These will 

be the job factories of the future.”63

Many of the underpinnings of this innovation ecosystem were addressed in our Interim Report, such as 

cultivating a supportive environment for entrepreneurs 

and promoting innovation clusters around our world-class 

universities that permit rapid tech transfer from the lab to 

the marketplace. But it’s worth underscoring why these ecosystems matter.

For example, better access to markets for new technologies through more liberal technology transfer policies 

makes a real difference. The Massachusetts Institute of 

Technology’s Technology Licensing Office has a standing 

“1/3, 1/3, 1/3” agreement under which researchers, departments and the school split patent royalties evenly. In combination with the speedy transfer process that can start even 

before basic research is completed, this arrangement helped 

MIT garner 153 patents in 2011 alone.64 Fast technology 

transfer can make it possible to sustain a highly productive 

lab like MIT’s Langer Lab, which has launched more than a 

dozen companies and more than 100 licensing deals.65

Another surefire way to encourage more private innovation and R&D is to guarantee private-sector inventors the 

fruits of their invention. That means strong and coordinated enforcement of intellectual property (IP) protections. 

Commercial firms innovate for competitive advantage. 

Theft of intellectual property erodes that competitive 

advantage and thus erodes the incentive to innovate. It’s 

important that the U.S. government ensures strong U.S. IP 

protections and aggressively advances fair and transparent 

IP protection regimes elsewhere in the world. There’s more 

that can be done on this agenda both at home and abroad. 

We need to make sure the national intellectual property 

enforcement coordinator has the resources and authority 

to do the job and improve the training of IP-enforcement 

personnel at the local, state, national and international levels. Better supply-chain validation both for government and 

for the private sector—aimed at weeding out counterfeits 

through new technologies like RFID tracking—can also cut 

down on some of the more dangerous forms of IP infringement, such as counterfeit drugs. 

At the same time, we must make sure that our IP system 

accomplishes what it’s supposed to without inadvertently 

getting in the way of new ideas. Recent patent system 

reforms, which will streamline the application process, 

can help keep wait times from being an impediment. And, 

it’s critical that Congress ensures that fees paid to the U.S. 

Patent and Trademark Office are available for the agency’s 

work in improving its processes and reducing its backlog. Similarly, creating private-sector research coalitions 

or government-sponsored research platforms that allow 

private-sector researchers to collaborate across disciplines 

Invest IN our Future innovation
24 2011 YEAR-END REPORT THE JOBS COUNCIL

and companies without fear of patent tort or antitrust prosecution would go a long way toward keeping IP protections 

strong without squashing collaboration. 

2. Increase federal support for R&D and 

innovation, especially in precommercial and 

basic research, and target a larger share 

of federal R&D investment toward nextgeneration challenges.

Federally supported basic research and early-stage demonstrations have been critical to the development of new 

industries, including satellites, kidney dialysis, advanced 

prosthetics, biotechnology, supercomputing and even 

freeze-dried food. In particular, the Department of Defense 

DARPA agency helped create global positioning satellites, 

computer-aided design, stealth aircraft, the Internet and 

even the discipline of computer science. Many of DOD’s 

innovations haven’t had direct civilian spillovers, but many 

have. Similarly, the National Institutes of Health, the largest 

civilian recipient of basic R&D support in the United States, 

have developed lifesaving insights, like the importance of 

controlling blood sugar levels in diabetics, or discoveries 

that led to promising treatments for breast cancer. 

Given the federal government’s central role in funding 

basic research, the prospect of constrained federal budgets 

in the years to come could put at risk a generation of new 

ideas. Because the societal benefits of early innovations are 

far greater than those that accrue to any individual inventor, 

government has long provided a large share of basic research 

funding, ranging from 50 to 70% over the years.66 In the corporate world, where companies are looking for technology 

that they can develop directly into products, basic research 

plays a much smaller role, accounting for less than 20 percent 

of corporate R&D spending even at its peak.67

Given this context, reducing federal support for basic 

research would be a terrible mistake. The Council endorses 

President Obama’s call for significant new investments in 

R&D and urges the nation to set an overall R&D investment goal of 3% of GDP or more. We should also consider 

expanding the role of novel research agencies such as 

the Department of Energy’s new ARPA-E, modeled after 

DARPA. These innovative agencies stretch our research 

budgets further (by using new techniques to spur invention) and help make late-stage innovations more successful 

by targeting them to the needs of a final customer—our 

nation’s energy system and our military, respectively. 

3. Ensure entrepreneurs can access financing to 

scale up their firms through traditional funding 

methods and new ones.

Next comes access to capital. Capital is the critical fuel that lets 

breakthrough ideas become the breakaway companies that 

create the lion’s share of net new American jobs. Unfortunately, 

while the United States continues to have the largest overall 

venture capital pool in the world (amounting to more than $21 

billion in 2010), it ranks 12th in ease of access to venture capital, behind markets such as Israel, Hong Kong, Norway, Singapore and Malaysia, among others.68 What’s more, the average 

annual number of smaller-firm IPOs (of less than $50 million) 

has been one-tenth in the 2000s what it was in the 1990s.69

Removing regulatory barriers to small IPOs, as well as other 

Council proposals from our Interim Report aimed at boosting 

the capital available to small, growing firms (like making permanent the capital gains exemption for investments in qualified small businesses and streamlining access to Small Business 

Administration programs) needs to become a priority. These 

steps can go a long way to help innovations reach a broader 

market and realize their job-creating potential. We’re encouraged that bipartisan legislation in response to the Council’s recommendations has already been introduced—including a bill 

sponsored by Senators Mark Warner and Jerry Moran—and 

we urge Congress to act on it this year. 

New financing options can add further firepower to 

the innovation ecosystem in the United States. Connected 

platforms now allow entrepreneurs and researchers to tap 

the wisdom of the crowd by crowdsourcing*

 ideas. And they 

allow small-business owners or craftspeople just setting up 

shop easy access to markets, the way Etsy†

 does for artisan 

goods. Through platforms like IndieGoGo and Profounder‡

(which emulate the success Kiva§

 has had in raising charitable 

microfinance funds), entrepreneurs can raise money from the 

crowd to finance their ventures. Fully leveraging these “crowdfunding” opportunities will require the regulatory changes 

discussed in our last report, including those that will allow 

smaller investors to contribute small amounts through crowdfunding platforms. 

* Crowdsouricing and crowdfunding are new techniques, usually enabled by 

new online platforms and networks, that allow individuals and entrepreneurs 

to tap the knowledge and resources of many, thereby turning an aggregation 

of small contributions into significant sums.

† Etsy is an online marketplace that allows small and artisan producers to market and sell their products to a national community.

‡ Profounder is an online platform that allows business startups to access the 

wisdom and resources of crowds to perfect their business plans and to raise 

money toward their ideas.

§ Kiva provides an online platform for social impact and microloans to small 

entrepreneurs the world over.

Invest IN our Future innovation
2011 YEAR-END REPORT THE JOBS COUNCIL 25

4. Assure our workforce is ready to 

innovate through education and skills and 

front-line innovation.

A skilled workforce is the final critical piece of the innovation ecosystem. This means the education agenda we laid 

out in this report is tightly linked with our innovation 

agenda as well. It is also time, as we argued in our Interim 

Report, that Washington ends the reverse brain drain and 

welcomes highly skilled immigrants who, after getting their 

degrees in the United States, want to live, build firms and 

create jobs here in America. Why are we pushing fantastic 

engineers, programmers and physicists into the arms of 

our competition when there’s a global war on to attract 

such talent? Countries like Singapore are raising the stakes 

in this fight—both putting in place comprehensive strategies towards admitting highly-skilled individuals and, in 

some high profile cases, even promising individual grants 

as high as $6 million to woo leading researchers to their 

shores.70 We can’t let progress on attracting and retaining 

high skilled immigrants be thwarted by gridlock on difficult 

issues when the benefits to our economy are so clear. When 

fully half of all startups in Silicon Valley were founded by 

immigrants and one-third of all U.S. Nobel Prize–winners 

in medicine and physiology were born in other countries, 

what are we thinking?71

Our human capital edge won’t come just from what 

takes place in the classroom but from what happens afterward as well; front-line workers are now in the vanguard. As 

business leaders, we call on our colleagues to find fresh ways 

to unlock the creative potential of all of our employees. Providing them with the incentives, platforms and freedom to 

innovate is a critical new source of competitive advantage. 

Google famously provides its staff with dedicated innovation time, for example—and valuable insights like Gmail’s 

new email recovery system emerged from such work. Similarly, Toyota’s lean process improvements would be impossible without its culture of innovation or respect for ideas 

from the shop floor. And Cisco has used its Networking 

Academy not only to help train its employees in the technological foundations of innovation, but also to train other 

workers in innovative areas like broadband technology, network security and health care.

5. Target more of our R&D investments, both 

public and private, to some of our greatest 

challenges—like affordable delivery of highquality education and health care.

Just as innovation has the potential to create whole new 

industries, it also has the ability to help us rethink seemingly intractable problems—if we turn our innovative lens 

to the issues that matter most. 

A few facts may help drive this point home. Our 

national shortfall in college graduates means we need to 

lift the number of postsecondary degrees we award each 

year. But to do so without breaking the bank (via today’s 

outsized per-degree costs), we’ll need to innovate the way 

we do things, particularly in how we deliver instruction. By 

one estimate, to get the additional million postsecondary 

degrees our workforce needs each year by 2020 without 

increasing spending or compromising on quality, we’ll need 

to boost the productivity of our higher education system 

by 23%—gains that are achievable based on the practices 

of high-performing colleges today.72 Similarly, as 76 million baby boomers retire, we need to find cost-effective 

ways to deliver health care that boost quality while preserving America’s ability to invest in the future.73 When we’re 

spending 17% of GDP on health care without better outcomes than other advanced nations that spend 10 or 11%, 

efforts to achieve these savings must be a priority.74

Fortunately, there are no limits to the potential innovations that can take us in the right direction. The Khan 

Academy, for example, took an insight known to every math 

teacher—that “practice, practice, practice” is the secret to success in math—and created a tool that delivers high-quality 

lectures at home so teachers can spend classroom time on 

the more essential practice. Care management innovations in 

Invest IN our Future innovation

2009

1999

European Rest of World

Union

United States Asia*

13% 15%

25%

32%

49%

55%

5% 5%

Share of U.S. Patents Granted

By region of residence, first-named inventor

The shifting share of U.S. patents toward inventors in Asia.

*Includes patents credited to China and Japan

Source: The New Geography of Global Innovation, Sept 2010; U.S. Patent and Trademark Office (USPTO) data
26 2011 YEAR-END REPORT THE JOBS COUNCIL

Camden, N. J., have lowered costs for serving chronically ill 

patients while improving their health. Endless breakthroughs 

along these lines are waiting to be discovered. 

In the end, when it comes to innovation, America 

remains blessed with advantages built up over decades 

that other nations would find hard to duplicate through 

spending or training alone. Our unparalleled workforce 

flexibility allows new ideas and ventures to quickly find 

the talent they need to grow. Our freedom to speak and 

our freedom to fail—both of which are too often taken for 

granted—make it safer here than in most societies to push 

disruptive ideas and new ventures. These fundamental 

values, which serve as the bedrock of our dynamic culture, 

make America a nation born to innovate. As long as we 

renew our commitment to invest in innovation and tend to 

the people and ecosystems that drive new ideas, America’s 

imagination can continue to propel the world while helping 

sustain prosperity at home. 

Invest IN our Future innovation

High-Growth Enterprises: 

An Update

At the October 2011 Jobs Council meeting in Pittsburgh, 

the Council issued a series of recommendations aimed 

at jump-starting American job creation by improving the 

environment for entrepreneurs to start high-growth businesses and expand existing firms. The cornerstone of the 

Council’s proposals was a recommendation that Congress 

pass and the President sign legislation to increase U.S. 

global competitiveness and spur job growth through three 

policy changes: ensure that the United States wins the 

global competition for the most promising foreign-born 

entrepreneurs and innovators; increase access to capital 

for early- and later-stage companies; and reduce regulatory barriers and provide financial incentives for more businesses to go public. 

Public-Sector Action

To urge action and build bipartisan support for a legislative 

solution, Council member Steve Case launched an effort to 

build momentum around the importance of entrepreneurship, including reaching out to Republican and Democratic 

leaders in the Senate and the House. Considerable legislative progress has been made and a real opportunity exists 

to pass sensible, bipartisan legislation. 

Of special note is the Startup Act (S. 1965,) introduced 

by Senators Mark Warner of Virginia and Jerry Moran 

of Kansas. The Startup Act would make permanent the 

100% exclusion on capital gains for equity purchased in a 

qualified small business and held for five years as well as 

provide a 100% exclusion from corporate income tax for 

qualified small businesses during their first taxable year of 

profit, followed by a 50% exclusion on the subsequent two 

years of profit. The Startup Act would also create a STEM 

visa for as many as 50,000 foreign students who graduate 

from an accredited U.S. university with a master’s degree 

or Ph.D. in science, technology, engineering or mathematics and an entrepreneur’s visa for up to 75,000 immigrants 

who register a business and employ at least one non-family 

member within a year of obtaining the visa. 

Private-Sector Action 

Along with Congress and the executive branch, the private 

sector, especially large corporations, has a unique and critical role to play in supporting entrepreneurs and spurring 

job-creating, high-growth business in the United States. 

That’s why the Startup America Partnership, led by Steve 

Case, was launched in January 2011 to mobilize the private 

sector to dramatically increase the prevalence and success of high-growth enterprises in the United States. The 

partnership has achieved considerable success on behalf of 

America’s entrepreneurs. It has:

• Secured more than $1 billion in products, services and 

resources for startups from more than 40 companies.

• Opened a web portal with robust resources and a clear 

process for startups anywhere to become Startup 

America firms and access the resources that have 

been committed from partners. There will be 100,000 

Startup America firms by the end of 2012. 

• Launched seven Startup Regions that mirror the 

national public-private model on a local level and are 

helping to build regional ecosystems. 

• Launched the Startup-Corporate Connection Program, 

which facilitates interaction between startups and large 

corporations, assists startups with talent acquisition and 

helps young firms expand into international markets.
Build On

Our Strengths
28 2011 YEAR-END REPORT THE JOBS COUNCIL

Every business leader knows the basic principles of 

risk management: Diversify your portfolio and reduce your 

exposure to unacceptable outcomes. America must do likewise. An all-in approach is imperative if we hope to reduce 

our reliance on foreign oil and create a more diverse electricity generation portfolio. We need innovative, affordable and 

reliable energy solutions for the 21st century, a set of investments that will meet our energy needs today while creating 

job opportunities and economic prosperity for our future. 

The Council’s recommendations for energy policy, which 

reflect current policy discussions in Congress and within the 

administration, are aimed to achieve energy resilience and 

diversity. America needs to: optimize use of all of its natural 

resources while protecting public health and the environment; support efficiency measures in both electricity generation and transportation; and drive energy innovation and 

investment from basic invention to industry scale-up. 

The Case for Competitiveness

Seizing these opportunities won’t be easy; we’ll have to forge 

a consensus on safe, affordable and innovative solutions. 

We’ll need to balance public health and environmental 

concerns with an increase in global demand for energy and 

reliance on fossil fuels. We’ll need to responsibly address 

uncertainties surrounding profound new opportunities in 

shale gas and unconventional oil. We’ll need to maintain 

energy affordability and reliability even as low natural gas 

prices and new regulations force some power plants to 

retire. And in an era of intensified fiscal pressure on governments, we need to promote major investments in the sector 

without widening the federal deficit. 

The stakes are high. If we don’t find our way to an intelligent long-term energy policy framework, America could 

cede its leadership in energy innovation to competitors 

like China (which is currently making bigger bets on new 

energy technologies than the United States). Moreover, it 

would stall the engine that could become a prime driver of 

U.S. jobs and growth in the decades ahead. There are other 

energy challenges noted in the Council’s Interim Report 

that also need to be met: The permitting process needs to be 

streamlined, transmission siting reform needs to continue 

moving forward, and financing needs to be more available 

to help new technologies scale up. 

It’s no secret that America’s energy and transportation 

sectors rely heavily on fossil fuels. Thankfully, our nation 

has an abundant supply of natural resources, and recent 

innovations in drilling have unlocked a century’s worth of 

natural gas supply and enormously increased the production of unconventional oil. Yet, to meet our huge demand 

for oil, the United States still imports more than 300 million 

barrels per month, at a cost of over $1 billion per day.75 Our 

transportation sectors’ dependence on oil not only leaves 

the United States vulnerable to global supply shocks and 

price fluctuations, but also hampers the economy as we 

send billions of dollars overseas that might otherwise lift 

homegrown businesses and domestic growth.76

Moreover, the growing global thirst for energy, sparked 

by 3 billion additional consumers aspiring to middle-class 

lifestyles, could raise primary energy demand 33% by 2030, 

according to the McKinsey Global Institute.77 78 And while 

new technologies have unlocked new natural gas and oil 

supplies domestically, we face a long-term decline in global 

production from existing, conventional sources of fossil 

fuels, which will collide with the expected surge in demand 

from the rise of global middle-class growth. In part, that’s 

why developing nuclear, wind, solar and other renewable 

energy sources is so important: Planning for future levels 

of energy demand, transitioning to a low-carbon energy 

future, and successfully diversifying the electric generation 

portfolio requires smart energy policies today.

The U.S. utility industry is undergoing a transition 

as it focuses on reducing emissions while still providing 

affordable and reliable electricity. In fact, new Clean Air Act 

rules and low natural gas prices are pushing less efficient 

power plants to retire early. It will require sizable capital 

investments in addition to meaningful coordination and 

Build on Our Strengths

Energy
2011 YEAR-END REPORT THE JOBS COUNCIL 29

flexibility from industry participants and regulators to keep 

America’s electric system running smoothly.

It will also require cooperation among industry participants, regulators and environmental advocates. Continuing 

to deliver inexpensive and reliable energy is going to require 

the United States to optimize all of its natural resources 

and construct pathways (pipelines, transmission and distribution) to deliver electricity and fuel. The Council recognizes the important safety and environmental concerns 

surrounding these types of projects, but now more than 

ever, the jobs and economic and energy security benefits of 

these energy projects require us to tackle the issues head-on 

and to expeditiously, though cautiously, move forward on 

projects that can support hundreds of thousands of jobs. 

Industry participants also must work with regulators and 

environmental advocates to implement best practices and 

develop safety and disaster relief plans that ensure that 

extraction and pathway projects protect sensitive coastlines, 

wild and marine life, water supplies and communities. In 

addition, regulatory and permitting obstacles that could 

threaten the development of some energy projects negatively impact jobs and weaken our energy infrastructure 

need to be addressed. Speedy adoption of best practice standards would allow government officials to reduce regulatory and permitting obstacles to important energy projects.

Finally, as we discussed elsewhere in this report, innovation has been a key part of America’s competitive advantage 

and productivity growth. Unfortunately, the government 

has historically underinvested in energy innovation. And 

while other countries like China and Germany are stepping up their energy R&D spending, the U.S. budget crisis 

threatens even current levels of publicly funded energy 

R&D. Cuts in this area would be terribly shortsighted. 

Because energy entails huge capital investments in projects 

that often last decades, utilities have traditionally shied away 

from making big investments in energy R&D or buying into 

new technologies. If the United States wants to build an 

energy infrastructure for the 21st century and remain globally competitive in energy technologies, we need to increase, 

not decrease, vital public and private investments in energy 

research, development and deployment. 

Recommendations: 

An All-In Approach

1. Optimize use of all of our natural resources 

while protecting public health and the 

environment.

The United States is blessed with an abundance of natural 

resources. We have a sufficient supply of traditional fossil fuels such as coal, oil and natural gas to provide us with 

energy for generations to come. Many regions of the country are also rich with one or more diverse sources of clean, 

low-cost fuels such as wind, solar, geothermal, uranium and 

hydro resources. This diverse set of onshore and offshore 

resources combined with technological advances presents 

an opportunity to develop a broad mix of fuel supplies, 

reduce our reliance on any single type of fuel, reduce emissions and help limit fuel price fluctuations. And while we 

believe the United States, as well as the rest of the world, 

needs to move deliberately and cost-effectively towards 

The growing global thirst for 

energy, sparked by three billion 

additional consumers aspiring 

to middle class lifestyles, could 

raise primary energy demand 

33% by 2030...In part, that’s why 

developing nuclear, wind, solar 

and other renewable energy 

sources is so important.

Build on OUr Strengths Energy

Germany

Italy

China

Canada

Australia

Spain

Brazil

U.S.

France

1.40

0.79

0.55

0.42

0.37

0.36

0.35

0.15

0.23

Clean Energy Investment per GDP

Percentage of GDP

Source: Pew Charitable Trusts, Who’s Winning the Clean Energy Race? 2010 Edition, March 2011
30 2011 YEAR-END REPORT THE JOBS COUNCIL

greater proportions of renewable and low carbon forms of 

energy, we recognize that this will be a long term transition 

and that traditional forms of fossil energy will continue to 

be important to our economy as we transition.

As a nation, we need to take advantage of all our natural 

resources to spur economic growth, create jobs and reduce 

the country’s dependence on foreign oil. First, we should 

allow more access to oil, natural gas and coal opportunities 

on federal lands. Where sources of shale natural gas have 

been uncovered, federal, state and local authorities should 

encourage its safe and responsible extraction. While the 

administration has supported holding additional lease sales 

and evaluating new areas for drilling, further expanding 

and expediting the domestic production of fossil fuels both 

offshore and onshore (in conjunction with more electric 

and natural gas vehicles) will reduce America’s reliance on 

foreign oil and the huge outflow of U.S. dollars this reliance entails. In addition, policies that encourage rapid lease 

development while emphasizing the highest safety standards will ensure companies responsibly drill for natural 

gas or oil and mine for coal or other our minerals in federal 

areas in a timely manner. 

And it’s not just about fossil fuels. As the largest owner 

of land in the country, the U.S. government should make 

more areas available for renewable energy development. 

Where this country’s wind, solar, biomass, hydro and 

geothermal resources are most ample, federal authorities 

should make land available to develop energy projects that 

help diversify the country’s electricity generation portfolio. The federal government should also streamline the 

permitting process, as it did for solar projects in Southern 

California and in Arizona to promote energy generation 

with no harmful emissions. Since 2008, the Department of 

the Interior has approved 25 commercial-scale renewable 

energy projects on public lands—including solar, hydro, 

and geothermal projects—more need to come.

The Council recognizes that providing access to more 

areas for drilling, mining and renewable energy development is controversial, but, given the current economic 

situation, we believe it’s necessary to tap America’s assets in 

a safe and responsible manner. Additionally, policies that 

facilitate the safe, thoughtful and timely development of 

pipeline, transmission and distribution projects are necessary to facilitate the delivery of America’s fuel and electricity 

and maintain the reliability of our nation’s energy system. 

Over the long term, we expect that innovation and technological advancements will greatly reduce America’s reliance 

on fossil fuels. Until then, however, we need to be all in. 

2. Support efficiency measures in electricity 

and transportation.

Any energy strategy for the nation would be incomplete if 

it relied solely on the strengths of our existing supply and 

the promise of innovations in production. We must reduce 

our overall energy dependence through bold and achievable 

efficiency gains. If we pursue this agenda creatively, we’ll not 

only save on energy costs, but also capture an opportunity 

to lead in emerging efficiency technologies, while creating 

tens of thousands of new jobs and reducing emissions. To 

stretch our domestic resources, the United States should 

continue to promote energy- and fuel-efficiency measures. 

There are several proven strategies private- and publicsector players can follow. The private sector, particularly 

the nation’s real estate agents and auditors, has a big part to 

play by incorporating energy audits into the standard practice for buying, selling and valuing a home and continuing 

to provide innovative financing options for homeowners 

undertaking retrofits. For the industrial sector, the Council 

encourages adoption of energy management best practices—such as empowering companywide energy managers and improving operations and maintenance to reduce 

energy use—that can greatly reduce the energy intensity of 

their work. Programs such as the Environmental Protection 

Agency’s (EPA) Energy Star Partnership or the Department 

of Energy’s (DOE) Better Buildings, Better Plants program 

can help private-sector partners identify opportunities here. 

Finally, the federal government can incentivize states to 

adopt increasingly strict efficiency standards for new residential and commercial buildings. All levels of government 

can encourage home energy testing. 

Finally, if we are truly to increase our energy resilience 

through new sources of supply and energy efficiency, we 

must address the transportation sector’s overdependence 

on oil. The announced CAFE standard improvements for 

cars and light trucks, created in partnership with industry 

and labor, hold real promise. These standards, which by 

2025 will be equivalent to 54.5 miles per gallon, could save 

Build on OUr Strengths Energy

Thankfully, our nation has an 

abundant supply of natural 

resources, and recent innovations 

in drilling have unlocked a century’s 

worth of natural gas supply 

and enormously increased the 

production of unconventional oil.
2011 YEAR-END REPORT THE JOBS COUNCIL 31

consumers more than $8,000 in fuel costs per vehicle relative to the standards in effect in 2010.79 More significantly, 

by 2025, these new standards could reduce our dependence 

on oil by 2.2 million barrels per day, equivalent to almost 

a quarter of our foreign oil imports.80 The Council fully 

endorses the spirit of collaboration that went into the creation of these standards.

We can reduce our dependence on oil even further by 

promoting alternative vehicle technologies, ranging from 

fully electric vehicles to hybrids to natural gas and alternative 

fuels. In the Innovation chapter we discuss the significant role 

that government procurement can play in scaling the adoption of new technologies, including electric vehicles. 

It bears repeating here that both state and federal government agencies should continue (and ideally increase) 

purchases of electric and hybrid vehicles to support scaleup of these critical technologies; and the military should 

continue to do the same with advanced energy and vehicle 

technologies. In addition, government research programs 

should continue to support advancements in battery and 

materials technologies and alternative fuels that can give 

America an edge in advanced technology vehicles. The 

potential returns on our investments here are significant. 

Widespread adoption of vehicles powered by electricity, 

natural gas, and alternative fuels could hasten and make 

permanent our return to being a net exporter of petroleum. 

3. Drive energy innovation and investment from 

basic invention to industry scale-up.

As discussed in the previous chapter, the importance of innovation to U.S. competitiveness is undeniable. Large investments in defense and health have led to U.S. superiority in

developing advanced weapons as well as cures for diseases. 

Similar levels of focus and investment in R&D are needed 

today in the energy sector in order to meet America’s future 

energy demands without increasing harmful emissions. Rapidly evolving technologies in areas like natural gas drilling, 

21st-century nuclear power, renewable energy, energy storage, 

coal gasification, electric vehicles, the smart grid and carbon 

capture, utilization and storage have enormous potential. 

Together, they can change the face of energy as we know 

it, boost jobs, economic growth and competitiveness, and 

improve the environment and public health. 

The Council believes we need policies that encourage 

private companies to invest in R&D and the deployment 

of new power generation technologies such as wind, solar, 

advanced nuclear and coal gasification. While gamechanging inventions are most likely to come from federal 

or joint public-private efforts, sequential and incremental 

innovations are more likely to come from companies that are 

involved in the manufacturing or operations of power products—staffed by employees that have been in the industry 

for decades and have hands-on, practical know-how when 

it comes to energy systems. Tax provisions that encourage investment in R&D (such as the R&D tax credit) and 

performance-based tax policies that support the deployment 

of technology are effective tools for bringing to market the 

technologies born of R&D and driving deployed technologies to long-term viability. Mobilizing private capital to 

invest in new power generation technologies and enabling 

new technologies to reach scale will help encourage further 

innovation, reduce the costs and increase the efficiency of 

new technologies while encouraging the construction of new 

projects that create jobs and economic growth. Making the 

R&D tax credit permanent and extending production tax 

credits will also promote the type of innovation and investment America needs to diversify its generation portfolio and 

prepare for rising levels of energy demand.

Also, increasing the federal government’s commitment 

to and financial investment in energy R&D is vital. The 

Department of Energy and U.S. universities already have a 

number of effective programs in place (Advanced Research 

Projects Agency–Energy, DOE Labs and Energy Innovation Hubs, to name a few) that support basic research and 

applied R&D. Recent funding for these federal programs 

has been approximately $4 billion.81 Doubling or tripling 

that amount would be a good investment. Similarly, establishing a Clean Energy Development Administration, as 

this Council called for in our last report, could help energy 

start-ups hurdle the financing valley of death. Given the 

current budget constraints, we understand the difficulty of 

increasing federal spending, and we encourage the administration to find sensible ways to offset at least a portion 

of these costs, such as redirecting funds from other energy 

programs that offer lesser returns.

The Council believes this all-in strategy for U.S. energy 

resilience and diversity can bolster growth, jobs and competitiveness even as it lowers emissions and protects the 

environment. If we optimize America’s natural resources, 

make energy and transportation efficiency a national priority and promote energy innovation and investment, we can 

fuel the prosperity Americans seek for the coming generation and beyond. 

Build on OUr Strengths Energy
32 2011 YEAR-END REPORT THE JOBS COUNCIL

As a nation, we need to go back to the future in manufacturing—and win global share via innovative industries 

and world-class exports. An ambitious yet achievable goal 

would be to realize the same gains in market share in terms 

of global value added that we did in the 1990s, meaning 

we’d gain 3 to 4 percentage points of manufacturing valueadded market share.*

 To realize this goal, we’ll need to get 

small manufacturers to boost their exports substantially. 

We’ll need to take steps to make sure next-generation innovative manufacturing industries are not only invented here 

but scale up and do their production in the United States as 

well. In addition (as discussed in the education chapter and 

in the Council’s Interim Report), we’ll need to improve our 

education and training so we have the most highly skilled 

advanced manufacturing workforce in the world by 2020. 

The Case for Competitiveness

Let us be clear up front: Manufacturing matters. There was 

a time a few years back when conventional wisdom in the 

United States held that it didn’t make much difference if 

America made silicon chips or potato chips. This Council 

is not agnostic. To be sure, “the rise of the rest” may make it 

harder for the United States (and Germany, for that matter) 

to retain the same levels of employment and the same share 

of global output from manufacturing as we did in the heyday 

of Western industrial production in the middle of the 20th

century. But there’s still an indispensable link between the 

health of our manufacturing sector and national prosperity.

In 1980, manufacturing accounted for 20% of American jobs; today, the 11 million or so jobs in the sector 

represent roughly 9% of overall employment.82 Germany, 

often touted as doing a better job at manufacturing, has 

also experienced significant declines, but from a higher 

base: from 34% of jobs in 1980 to 20% today.83

* Between 1990 to 2000, the United States experienced a strong manufacturing value added share gain: 3.9 percentage points according to IHS Global 

Insight Data, and 3.8, according to the OECD.

Why the drop? After the 1960s and 1970s, developed 

countries experienced an economic and employment 

transition from industry to services. As the economist Alan 

Blinder has noted, this was driven by three main factors.84

Rising productivity due to innovation in the manufacturing sector let firms produce a lot more goods with a lot less 

labor. Consumer tastes changed as well: As societies grow 

richer, people like to spend relatively more of what they 

earn on services (think travel or dining out) and relatively 

less on goods (e.g., shoes and appliances). Finally, as other 

nations industrialized, trade grew: Americans import a far 

bigger share of manufactured goods than we did a halfcentury ago. 

Even facing these headwinds, the United States gained 

substantial market share in terms of global manufacturing 

Build on Our Strengths

Manufacturing

South Africa

Brazil

France

UK

Italy

Russia

Germany

Japan

EU

4.2

3.9

1.2

0.3

0.3

0.2

0.1

0.1

0.1

0

0

-0.2

-0.7

-1.1

-1.1

-1.3

-1.6

-1.9

-2.9

-5.7

China

United States

South Korea

Canada

India

Mexico

Saudi Arabia

Indonesia

Turkey

Argentina

Australia

Manufacturing share gains in the 1990s

Point change in manufacturing value-added share, 1990–2000

Source: IHS Global Insight DataInsight Web: Global Real Manufacturing Value Added
2011 YEAR-END REPORT THE JOBS COUNCIL 33

value add and output in the 1990s. And even though manufacturing’s share of employment was dropping, the number 

of jobs in the sector held roughly steady between 1980 and 

2000, at around 18 to 19 million.85

But the period since 2000 has seen painful setbacks. 

The sector suffered a serious one-two punch: first, shedding 3 million manufacturing jobs after the 2001 recession 

and then when oil and gas prices spiked; and second, in 

the recent recession, when 2 million jobs were lost.86 There 

was also steady job erosion in between. Rapid productivity 

gains and foreign competition (especially from China) were 

the main culprits. “Competition from overseas helped spur 

U.S. firms to boost productivity,” a Congressional Budget 

Office report concluded in 2008, “but that competition has 

also dampened demand for goods produced in the United 

States, despite domestic manufacturers’ efforts to reduce 

costs through productivity enhancements.”87

The Council believes these recent trends can be reversed. 

But before describing how we can turn the tide, it’s important to remember why manufacturing is so important to 

the economy. 

Manufacturing breeds innovation

The complacent-about-manufacturing line goes something 

like this: Yes, it’s a shame we’ve lost many of these traditional jobs and sectors, but in a global economy it’s inevitable that lower-value assembly work will gravitate toward 

lower-paid workers in less-developed countries. That’s their 

path to a better life. Better that we focus on “knowledge 

work”—the higher-value, better-paid work that cuttingedge research will spawn. So long as we’re doing the highend stuff in America, we’ll be fine. 

There’s only one problem with this logic: As a growing 

number of observers point out, you can’t keep the innovation in America unless you keep the manufacturing here, 

too. Because the next wave of product innovation comes 

from the experience you get by manufacturing. That’s what 

tinkering and continuous improvement are all about: It’s 

the process of actually making things that leads to ideas for 

how to make them better, or faster, or lighter, or for slightly 

different purposes, or in ways more useful to customers. As 

Gary Pisano and Willy Shih showed in a seminal piece in 

the Harvard Business Review, such complacency has already 

cost America leadership in such important new industries 

as lithium batteries, liquid crystal displays (LCDs) and 

consumer-networking hardware. When what Pisano and 

Shih call the “industrial commons” moves overseas—that 

interwoven network of production, design and research 

expertise—so does the innovation.88 So even if the original new product is invented in the United States, the next 

wave of products gets developed and produced elsewhere. 

Because of this development, U.S.-based companies now 

perform a fifth of their R&D offshore. That figure will only 

grow if we allow manufacturing to continue to decline. 

“How could the United States have forgotten?” asks 

Andy Grove, the former chief executive of Intel. “The 

answer has to do with a general undervaluing of manufacturing—the idea that as long as ‘knowledge work’ stays in 

the United States, it doesn’t matter what happens to factory 

jobs.” But without scaling production within the United 

States, Grove says, “we don’t just lose jobs—we lose our 

hold on new technologies. Losing the ability to scale will 

ultimately damage our capacity to innovate.”89

Manufacturing bolsters the middle class

In previous decades, manufacturing paved a reliable path 

to the middle class even for Americans without postsecondary educations. Manufacturing now depends as 

much on skills as brawn. But even with global competition, 

manufacturing jobs still pay 20% more on average than jobs 

in the wider economy.90 That’s true whether we’re talking 

about the machinist on the factory floor or the engineer in 

the design lab. 

Manufacturing is uniquely reliant on large numbers 

of engineering and R&D personnel. Indeed, with roughly 

9% of the jobs, the sector employs 36% of the nation’s 

engineers.91 92 This means there are an outsized number 

of good-paying skilled jobs supported by a robust manufacturing sector. Beyond this, with a high school degree, a 

manufacturing employee still makes roughly $3,000 more 

annually than the average high school graduate.93 The same 

is true for manufacturing employees with four-year college degrees, who earn $13,800 more on average than their 

peers in other sectors.94 In addition, manufacturing creates 

an unusual number of high-paying jobs in other sectors. 

Motor vehicle manufacturing, for example, creates 8.6 

indirect jobs for each direct job; computer manufacturing, 

Build on OUr Strengths manufacturing

You can’t keep the innovation 

in America unless you keep the 

manufacturing here, too. 
34 2011 YEAR-END REPORT THE JOBS COUNCIL

5.6; and steel product manufacturing, 10.3 jobs in the surrounding economy for suppliers, maintenance and other 

service providers, engineers, restaurants and hotels. Seen 

this way, manufacturing is a middle-class multiplier.95

Manufacturing helps macroeconomic stability

Manufacturing exports should also play a crucial role in 

restoring the U.S. trade balance, with associated benefits for 

economic stability and wealth creation. As Dan Alpert, Robert Hockett and Nouriel Roubini document in their report 

The Way Forward, the Great Recession was in part the product of a credit bubble fueled by too much consumption 

and too little production here, and the inverse abroad. At 

the height of the bubble, the United States’ current account 

deficit reached 6% of GDP, up from an average of 1.6% in 

the 1990s.96 Boosting exports via more competitive manufacturing is a first step to bringing what we consume back in 

line with what we produce, with benefits for national prosperity and the fundamentals of economic stability. 

Manufacturing bolsters national security

Finally, America can never risk becoming so dependent on 

foreign production that we lose the ability to make what we 

need to defend the country and our interests abroad. That 

means retaining and bolstering a robust advanced manufacturing capability in such key industries as airplanes, 

automobiles and biologics. 

The Case for a Brighter Future 

There’s reason to be bullish about manufacturing in America, starting with the changing economics of outsourcing. 

Wages are rising in Asia’s dominant manufacturing hub, 

with wages in China projected to rise 18% annually over the 

next five years.97 Even in more developed manufacturing 

locations, wage inflation combined with strengthening currencies have raised compensation costs. For example, due 

to currency and wage effects, South Korea’s manufacturing 

wages rose 14.5% and Singapore’s 9% between 2009 and 

2010.98 For high-skill or high-demand occupations such as 

engineers or managers, wages are soaring even faster. Other 

factor costs are also on the rise. Industrial rents surged in 

Indonesia and China at 22% and 16%, respectively, in the 

past year.99

The underlying costs of shipping to the other side of the 

world are also increasing, and these spikes may be permanent. For instance, the real cost of a barrel of oil in 2009 was 

620% higher than it was in 1970 and 160% higher than in 

1990.100 To be sure, some firms will look at these new economics and move to the next set of low-cost countries in 

search of another decade of cheap labor production before 

the cycle repeats. And some firms, such as Foxconn (a large 

Chinese employer), may start to mechanize and replace the 

very low-cost labor that made Asia so attractive. But other 

companies, particularly in the capital-intensive and innovation-heavy sectors where we’re poised for a resurgence, may 

start to question the continued wisdom of going offshore. 

(Notable examples of “returning” manufacturing already 

exist: Caterpillar is opening a new plant that will triple its 

excavating capacity in the United States, and Ford is repatriating 2,000 jobs from China and other countries.)101

At the same time, it’s not just a matter of rising costs 

abroad, but also of strengths at home. There’s a reason 

Europe provides 78% of the manufacturing foreign direct 

investment in the United States.102 And that Japan has 

invested $80 billion in manufacturing here.103 Or Germany, 

$70 billion.104 Our mature, developed infrastructure (even if 

no longer the best among our peers) and our savvy supplier 

base let firms speedily meet demand in an era of shrinking 

cycle times. 

It has not gone unnoticed, for example, that you can 

reach Europe by ocean in a third the time from Dallas as 

you can from Beijing. Speed and customization are more 

important than ever, with new technologies such as 3D 

printing opening doors to batches as small as a single unit.

 In addition, despite rightful worries about trends in U.S. 

schooling and skills, America still boasts one of the most 

productive manufacturing workforces in the world, with 

more than a quarter of the world’s college-degree holders (and they’re 9% more productive, by some measures, 

than even Germany’s storied workforce).105, 106 In addition, 

even with today’s huge backlogs at the patent office, our 

legal regime for intellectual property protection remains 

unrivaled, leading one in two global executives to say they 

expect to increase IP-intensive product development in 

the United States.107 Given that IP is increasingly where 

manufacturers make money in a commoditizing world, our 

superior legal protections make a strong case for choosing 

America. And, of late, our low-cost energy advantage makes 

the United States a natural for energy- and feedstock- intensive production as well. 

So where do we think a manufacturing renaissance is 

most likely? For starters, industries where we’ve always 

been highly competitive, thanks to an early technology 

lead (in aviation, “early” means 1903), the strength of 

Build on OUr Strengths manufacturing
2011 YEAR-END REPORT THE JOBS COUNCIL 35

our industry clusters and the speed and reliability of our 

infrastructure for reaching customers and suppliers—

like in transportation equipment, heavy machinery and 

other bulky goods. The United States had a 19.3% share 

of worldwide manufacturing value added as a whole in 

2009,108 but in transportation equipment we led the world 

with 35% of value added.109

It’s tempting to call these sectors “old faithfuls,” but 

part of what keeps many of them in the United States is 

that they, too, are highly innovative—with new cars, for 

instance, functioning like computers on wheels. Elsewhere, 

in food and commodities processing, the strength of our 

resource base and our agricultural sector anchor production here. These are sectors where our traditional strengths 

create a natural edge so long as we sustain them. 

We can win in other sectors as well. Some—such 

as energy- and feedstock-intensive manufacturing as 

well as chemicals and related materials—are already 

expanding in the United States because breakthroughs 

in shale gas production have dramatically lowered the 

cost of producing in the United States. In other emerging 

sectors the challenge may be greater, as other nations 

work aggressively to best us in highly innovative advanced 

manufacturing. Take these in turn.

Thanks to shale gas, the United States now has the lowest-cost natural gas in the world outside of the Middle East, 

translating into low-cost energy feed stocks. That’s a huge 

advantage for energy-intensive producers, such as chemical 

manufacturers, that use energy both to power their plants 

and as a basic feedstock for production. Energy costs make 

up 41% of the cost structure of a chemical manufacturer 

like Dow Chemical, for example.110 So it’s no wonder that 

new chemical plants are in the works across the country, 

including Dow Chemical’s ethylene plant on the Gulf Coast, 

its first since 1995, and Shell’s announced ethylene cracker 

outside Pittsburgh. Keeping our energy costs low will be 

essential to keeping or expanding this production here.

Innovative industries are an area where we’re accustomed to winning. We’ve built an impressive ecosystem to 

do it, with nonfederal entities spending more than $169 billion on manufacturing R&D in 2007, more than the entire 

R&D spending of China or Japan.111 The results—25% more 

semiconductor patents than Japan and 53% more than the 

rest of Asia in 2008, or a 30% share of global semiconductor value added—are obviously a plus.112 But other countries are rapidly increasing their R&D investments and, 

as discussed in the innovation chapter, we need to lift our 

national investment in response. 

It should be noted that we simply aren’t likely to do well 

in some sectors, barring big increases in transportation costs 

or instability to our south. These sectors include labor-intensive commodities such as toys, textiles and commoditized 

electronics. With rising transportation costs, these could 

become candidates for near-shoring to Mexico or Panama, 

but production will basically keep heading where labor is 

cheapest—whether in today’s low-cost countries or tomorrow’s. That’s not America, nor should we want it to be.

Recommendations

So what’s the way forward? The Council believes we can 

make more of the right things in America again and raise 

our global value added share, if we renew our traditional 

strengths while taking more aggressive measures in key sectors to take share from global competitors. Our key recommendations follow.

1. Address key barriers to competitiveness 

in the areas of skills, regulation, tax and 

infrastructure.

The manufacturing sector is a bellwether for America’s 

standing as a whole, which means we can’t expect to keep 

manufacturing here if we don’t bolster our competitiveness 

more broadly. As long as our regulatory and tax competitiveness lags the best of our peers, we have a problem. When 

a global manufacturer like Siemens says 3,000 positions 

in the United States are going unfilled because it can’t find 

Americans with the right skills to do the work, we have a 

problem.113 And while Siemens has the resources and the 

determination to train the workers it needs here, not every 

manufacturer does and not every manufacturer will. Similarly, if manufacturers have to pay 13% of payroll for health 

benefits here, while paying only 7% in Germany and 4% in 

Japan, we have a problem.114 And if we keep getting a “D” 

or lower on our infrastructure report card—because we’ve 

failed to invest in maintaining or upgrading the infrastructure that gets our goods to market—well, before long, we’ll 

have even bigger problems.115

For these and related challenges there are a number of 

solutions proposed in this report and the Council’s Interim 

Report, which together frame a long-term approach to building our competitiveness. For instance, our recommendations in the Interim Report on accelerating infrastructure 

investment can help manufacturers reach customers. Our 

common-sense ideas to improve the regulatory process can 

Build on OUr Strengths manufacturing
36 2011 YEAR-END REPORT THE JOBS COUNCIL

make opening or expanding shop in America much easier. In 

the education and skills chapter we offer proposals to ensure 

our students and workers have the skills they’ll need. Finally, 

building on the work of other blue-ribbon panels, we lay out 

principles for getting to a more competitive tax code.

2. Reform export controls to help small 

manufacturers dramatically boost exports 

and to spur local manufacturing cluster 

development.

If we are to truly renew manufacturing, we need to win at 

the local level even as we compete more ambitiously in the 

global market. 

The export-jobs nexus is a matter of math. Given that 

the rate of productivity growth in manufacturing has outstripped growth in domestic demand for manufactured 

goods, we simply have to grow exports to boost manufacturing employment. Thoughtful reform of our export 

controls—to balance necessary protections for military 

technologies with export opportunities for our manufacturers—would help encourage high-tech exports. The 

President’s Export Control Reform Initiative is a good start. 

Similarly, we can take a page from Germany’s playbook 

and do much more to help smaller manufacturers reach 

foreign markets. Small and medium-sized businesses—in 

other words, 99% of U.S. manufacturers—contribute just 

20% of manufacturing exports despite producing 40% of 

the sector’s output.116 Leveraging the Manufacturing Extension Partnership*

 to further support SMEs in their export 

* With more than 1,300 technical experts and centers in every state, the Hollings Manufacturing Extension Partnership assists small and medium-sized 

manufacturers in applying technology and innovations to their business to 

create opportunities, including improving operations, developing innovation 

and leveraging new technologies. 

Controlling health-care Costs 

can boost manufacturing 

competitiveness

Gaining control of our nation’s health-care costs while 

improving the quality of our health outcomes is a competitiveness challenge for the private and public sectors alike. 

Across the country, business, government and health-care 

providers are leveraging innovation to treat the symptoms 

of this challenge and cure its underlying causes.

The Cincinnati Regional Health Transformation, a collaborative effort led by community leaders, health providers and employers, has raised the number of primary-care 

practices in the region with patient-centered medical 

home certifications from zero in the spring of 2010 to 80 

today and more than 100 expected in early 2012. At the 

same time, the transformation team rolled out cost-saving 

electronic medical records through its HealthBridge centralized medical exchange. This same team is putting its 

ingenuity behind payment reform—anticipating more than 

$1 billion in health-care savings by 2014.ii

CareMore has spearheaded another promising 

experiment in innovation with its coordinated care model 

for the elderly. It has lowered overall costs by 18% while 

achieving terrific results in its network of 26 centers in the 

Southwest—including a diabetic amputation rate 60% 

lower than average and a hospitalization rate 24% lower 

than average.iii Part of its success: proactively caring for the 

patient rather than treating diseases one by one.

Getting these innovations right could point the way 

to the future of health care delivery in this country. If 

the United States could meet the same performance 

standards as other developed countries, we could 

see 91,000 fewer premature deaths annually; 66 

million more adults receiving recommended levels of 

preventive care; up to $3.1 billion a year in savings from 

improved control of diabetes and blood pressure; and 

$114 billion saved per year from lower health insurance 

administration costs.iv This is not to mention the billions 

potentially shaved off the federal budget if Medicare 

spending growth slowed. These are some steep 

benefits—both in dollars and in lives.

Build on OUr Strengths manufacturing

Small and medium-sized businesses—in other words, 99% of 

U.S. manufacturers—contribute just 20% of manufacturing 

exports despite producing 40% 

of the sector’s output.
2011 YEAR-END REPORT THE JOBS COUNCIL 37

efforts, including expanding its ExporTech program, would 

be a promising beginning. And there are other successful 

programs on which we can build. For example, North Carolina’s Small Business and Technology Development Center 

provides comprehensive coaching and support on entering foreign markets. Similarly, the State Trade and Export 

Promotion (STEP) pilots underway should be mined for 

successful ideas to get small manufacturers exporting. If 

Germany can close the small-firm export gap, so can we.

And it’s not just about winning globally; we have to 

win locally as well. When a manufacturer chooses to locate 

in the United States, it is choosing a specific location—

places like Spartanburg, S.C., say, or Wichita, Kan., which 

have been successful in winning automobile production 

from BMW and R&D activities from Airbus, respectively. 

National competitiveness is not sufficient if we cannot 

make “competitiveness” translate very tangibly at a local 

level. The United States should therefore leverage its many 

strong industry clusters to attract investment and jobs in 

manufacturing. Researchers at the Brookings Institution, as 

well as other analysts, have identified what such an agenda 

might look like.117 So have many states.

One way governments can better leverage their economic development funding would be by issuing challenges 

to communities. The Council proposes a national challenge 

in this vein to identify and deepen the position of clusters 

where we have the potential for a manufacturing edge. As 

part of this challenge, we would develop a national gold 

standard of what it takes to excel at the local level—learning from those clusters that have done just that. We should 

target incentive funding to those states and localities best 

prepared to make improvements in their workforce or their 

infrastructure to meet that standard. 

3. Sharpen our edge in the industries we can 

win by maintaining our energy advantage, 

supporting the scale-up of nascent industries 

and competing more aggressively for capitalintensive industries. 

Finally, we should go to special lengths to win those manufacturing sectors up for grabs—by maintaining our energy 

advantage (as discussed elsewhere in this report), supporting the scale-up here of nascent industries, and competing 

flat out for capital-intensive manufacturing. 

What does that mean exactly? To capture new industries, 

there must be strategies to encourage them from startup 

to scale-up—something at which some other countries do 

a better job today. There is a range of ways to do this, from 

proving technologies outside the lab to easing the way for 

manufacturers to get off the ground. 

Production often goes where initial scale is achieved, so 

these early moves can have lasting impact. As a start, government grants and pilots can help provide “proof points” for 

new technologies—as the Department of Energy is already 

doing with some cutting-edge forms of advanced batteries, like the ones helping drive the manufacturing recovery 

in Michigan. When new technologies are proven, far more 

customers are willing to buy them. We should be asking what 

these proof points might look like in robotics, nanotech, 

advanced materials and biotech, and how such demonstrations can help. And like the Advanced Manufacturing 

Partnership—a coalition of universities, manufacturers and 

public-sector leaders led by Andrew Liveris, CEO of Dow and 

Susan Hockfield, president of MIT—we must build our scientific and research capabilities in these critical areas.118

Second, as we discussed in our last report and in this 

report’s chapter on innovation, there’s a lot we can do both 

within the private sector and through government action 

to smooth the road for innovative startups, including in 

manufacturing. Initiatives to ease the financing gap for 

high-growth entrepreneurs (through programs like Small 

Business Innovation Research/Small Business Technolgy 

Transfer, or SBIR/STTR) and to connect small firms with 

larger supply chains can help manufacturers and industries 

get started here. 

Other countries have targeted promising sectors that are 

up for grabs and devised aggressive strategies to capture the 

market. The question is how America responds. 

For example, recognizing that many advanced manufacturing facilities are highly capital intensive, countries like 

Japan, Germany and China have provided federal-level tax 

credits, subsidies and financing assistance to help offset the 

cost of starting a factory. While some of our states do this, 

there’s not an effective national response to these challenges. 

The United States must do more to attract advanced manufacturing inward investment, especially given the strategic 

focus other countries are placing on sectors they feel they 

must win—such as biotechnology, solar panels and highspeed rail.

There are other ways we can win these sectors without 

dipping our toes into industrial policy. It’s worth underscoring the Council’s agenda to bolster workforce skills in 

Build on OUr Strengths manufacturing
38 2011 YEAR-END REPORT THE JOBS COUNCIL

Build on OUr Strengths manufacturing

this regard (detailed ideas can be found in the education 

and skills chapter). That’s because there are growing skills 

gaps we must close if we are to win these key sectors. For 

instance, with the increasing integration of software into 

manufactured products, we face a shortage of software 

engineers and a growing need for mechatronics*

 graduates. 

And we’ll have a tougher time attracting advanced manufacturers if we don’t replenish our graying workforce of 

precision machinists and engineers as they retire.

To close these gaps, the private sector should expand 

its efforts, using the Council’s 10,000 Engineers Initiative 

as a model. Efforts like these—which recognize that the 

engineering gap is as much a retention problem as it is a 

* Mechatronics is a specialty that combines system design principles, an 

understanding of electronic controls and precision mechanical engineering 

into one discipline.

recruitment challenge—take targeted steps, including internships, publicizing the engineering profession and providing 

performance-based retention scholarships to keep engineering students on track to graduate. And maybe it shouldn’t 

be just 10,000 engineers but 10,000 software engineers and 

10,000 advanced materials engineers, as well. Universities 

and research institutions can do their part by resurrecting the 

manufacturing institutes, labs and undergraduate programs 

that flourished in the past. The University of Michigan’s 

Industrial and Manufacturing Systems Engineering program 

has partnerships with various manufacturers for education and research, include Boeing, Ford and Hyundai. We 

also need to scale up efforts like the National Association of 

Manufacturers’ Right Skills Now program, which provides 

workers with nationally portable, industry-recognized certifications in partnership with educational institutions. 

Winning in Manufacturing 

Many states have streamlined permitting and developed 

innovative best practices to attract manufacturers. States 

with access to industry clusters, workforce talent and 21stcentury infrastructure have been successful luring billiondollar manufacturing investments that create jobs and 

economic growth.

Winning Foreign Direct Investment

(South Carolina)

BMW opened its only full manufacturing facility outside 

Germanyv

 in Spartanburg, S.C., in 1994. In addition to 

nearby access to the engineering talent graduating 

from Clemson University and the strong transportation 

infrastructure of Interstate 85 and the Port of Charleston, 

BMW had a partnership with Governor Carroll Campbell’s 

team and the South Carolina Ports Authority that enabled 

it to find what it needed to set up shop and grow in South 

Carolina—including rapid permitting allowing the fastest 

plant startup in history, a committed talent development 

pipeline through community colleges, attractive tax 

incentives and a major port expansion to help exported 

vehicles reach more than 100 countries.vi With an overall 

$5 billion investment and a plant workforce totaling more 

than 7,000, BMW is making South Carolina its second 

home in a big way.vii

Winning Industries of the Future (Michigan)

To lure a new generation of clean tech manufacturing, 

Governor Jennifer Granholm and her administration 

leveraged the state’s strong auto parts suppliers in 2008 

to attract clean-energy manufacturing value chains. For 

example, recognizing that many auto suppliers could make 

parts for wind turbines but lacked a foundry, they recruited 

URV, a Swiss-Swedish foundry operator, to the state. The 

state also created 13 Centers of Energy Excellence to speed 

energy-tech transfer and leveraged Department of Energy 

grants to provide location incentives. To make it easier 

for manufacturers to set up shop, Michigan streamlined 

regulatory processes, including its environmental 

permitting. Finally, to ensure that manufacturers would 

find strong demand, the state created a renewable energy 

portfolio standard. As a result of its efforts, in two years 

Michigan attracted 159 clean-energy companies, 90,000 

planned jobs and $9.4 billion in committed investment.viii
2011 YEAR-END REPORT THE JOBS COUNCIL 39

Build on OUr Strengths manufacturing

In those areas of manufacturing we agree are critical, 

we should ensure that our regulatory processes are fast, 

transparent and aimed at getting products into production 

quickly (even as they protect our people). Some countries, 

like Germany (through its Germany Trade and Invest FDI 

promotion efforts), help manufacturers setting up shop 

to find the workforce they need and navigate regulatory 

hurdles. We should develop similar innovative locationassistance programs to attract FDI here. 

Back to the Future 

How do we know that if we get the equation right on manufacturing we can win back global market share? Because 

we’ve done it before. And not so long ago. 

During the 1990s, the United States gained 3.9 percentage points of share in global manufacturing value 

added.119 In the decade that saw the birth of the Internet 

and widespread adoption of the personal computer, U.S. 

manufacturing not only increased its share of global manufacturing output and valued added but also maintained 

relatively stable employment in the face of increasing labor 

productivity due to the emergence of innovative industries 

and steady demand. In that decade, the United States experienced a greater gain in its share of manufacturing value 

added than any other G-20 country besides China (and 

China beat us only by a nose). The industries that helped 

us the most during the 1990s are the same industries we 

need to win today—innovative new industries, which in the 

1990s were computers and communications equipment, 

along with precision devices, energy-intensive industries 

and many of our traditional strongholds, such as automobiles and metals processing. 

There are already signs of a revitalization of manufacturing. For the first time in 10 years, manufacturing 

employment is on a significant upswing, adding almost a 

quarter of a million jobs over the past year.120 At the same 

time, our goods exports, which include manufacturing, 

grew 18% in the first 10 months of the last year compared 

with the same period the year before, while services exports 

grew only 10%.121 We can restore the vitality of our manufacturing sector if we take the right steps now. 
Play to win
2011 YEAR-END REPORT THE JOBS COUNCIL 41

Through improved analysis and management practices, the Council aims by 2020 to ensure the U.S. leads the 

world in regulatory competitiveness. This would boost economic activity, job creation and per-capita income even as 

we assure the health and safety of the American people.

The Case for Competitiveness

Regulation is destined to be controversial, yet it’s essential 

to a well-functioning market economy. The question is 

always how best to strike the balance between competing 

public objectives. The public expects government to protect 

it against undue risk or harm while ensuring that regulations do not unduly burden private enterprise. The stakes 

are high: From the regulatory failures that helped produce 

the 2008 financial-sector meltdown to the complex permitting processes that can sometimes hold back important 

infrastructure projects, getting the regulatory balance right 

is important. 

In many ways, the American regulatory system has been 

a model for the world. The framework of regulatory review 

in the United States has strongly influenced reform efforts 

in Europe, Canada, and elsewhere, as these economies seek 

to become more competitive. But we can’t stand still. Just as 

with education, energy and innovation, our competitors are 

continuing to make advances and we need to intelligently 

modernize our approach to reflect global best practice 

and 21st-century realities. In the current economic crisis, 

the Council believes regulatory reform is needed to both 

achieve the right public policy balance and maintain confidence in the process. 

Our aspiration is to use a combination of sound analytics and sound management practices to enhance our 

competitive position. Our specific proposals are described 

below. They focus on actively improving: stakeholder 

engagement (through a regulatory ombudsman and 

regulatory portal); regulatory procedureswherever possible (through a permitting program management office, 

permitting one-stop shop and alignment of international 

regulatory standards); and regulatory impact analysis 

(through regular review and third-party analysis).

Guiding Principles of

Regulatory Reform

It may seem obvious that regulations need to be informed 

by a set of underlying ideas as to what society hopes to gain 

from the process. But in truth, these principles are often 

lost or ignored amidst battles over particular proposals. 

The Council believes it’s important to recap them briefly as 

a point of departure for potential reforms. These guiding 

principles are as follows: 

Regulations correct market failures and are 

sometimes essential for markets to function.

Markets do not always provide appropriate solutions to 

certain problems — such as externalities (like pollution), 

or information asymmetries that create risks of moral 

hazard (e.g., in finance) or adverse selection (in insurance 

markets, for example). Smart regulation can correct 

instances of market failure and leave our economy and the 

American people better off. In other cases, markets could 

not exist without rules of the road, transparency and other 

essential ingredients.

Regulatory reform efforts—just like regulation 

itself—should provide net benefits to society. 

Regulatory reform must focus on creating a more effective, 

efficient regulatory system, and avoid unnecessarily slowing 

down or complicating the process. 

Regulations have both costs and benefits. 

For example, regulations that limit pollution may improve 

public health and save lives, but they may also require firms 

to buy pollution-control equipment they would not otherwise have purchased. Regulations that achieve desired 

Play to Win

Regulatory Reform
42 2011 YEAR-END REPORT THE JOBS COUNCIL

ends via market-based mechanisms (e.g., tradable acid rain 

permits) or performance-based rules (e.g., fuel economy 

standards) should be considered where possible. 

Regulations should maximize net benefits. 

It is not good enough simply to minimize costs, or maximize benefits, when writing new rules. As detailed in 

Executive Order 13563, agencies should judge a regulation 

based on whether it achieves the regulatory objective and 

maximizes net benefits to society—and to consider, where 

possible, cumulative costs imposed.*

No single element of cost or benefit should 

predetermine the regulatory outcome. 

The goal is balance and reasonableness. For example, a 

restriction that prohibited any regulation that led to the loss 

of a single job would be misguided. If a regulation would 

save 1 million lives but cost 1,000 jobs, few people would 

argue that the 1,000 jobs are more important than saving 

1,000 times as many lives. 

Regulatory review should account for 

uncertainties and changing circumstances.

Since markets, technology and policy priorities evolve over 

time, regulations should be periodically revisited and, if 

warranted, revised.

The regulatory process should promote 

predictability and confidence in government. 

The process through which regulations are adopted, 

changed, and discontinued should be open, transparent, 

consistent, fact-based and sensible.

* This order is supplemental to and reaffirms the principles, structures and definitions governing contemporary regulatory review that were established in Executive Order 12866 (September 30, 1993). As stated in Executive Order 12866, and 

to the extent permitted by law, each agency must, among other things: propose 

or adopt a regulation only upon a reasoned determination that its benefits justify 

its costs (recognizing that some benefits and costs are difficult to quantify); tailor its regulations to impose the least burden on society, consistent with obtaining regulatory objectives, taking into account, among other things, and to the 

extent practicable, the costs of cumulative regulations; select, in choosing among 

alternative regulatory approaches, those approaches that maximize net benefits 

(including potential economic, environmental, public health and safety, and other 

advantages; distributive impacts; and equity); to the extent feasible, specify performance objectives, rather than specifying the behavior or manner of compliance 

that regulated entities must adopt; and identify and assess available alternatives 

to direct regulation, including providing economic incentives to encourage the 

desired behavior, such as user fees or marketable permits, or providing information upon which choices can be made by the public.

Significant Steps Already Taken

Partly at the Council’s urging, the administration has implemented a number of important measures that provide a 

strong foundation for further progress. These steps include:

Retrospective cost-benefit analysis and 

regulatory review

The administration issued Executive Order 13563 in January 2011 that requested a government-wide review of 

federal regulations and plans to determine whether any 

regulations should be modified, streamlined, expanded or 

repealed. In August 2011, executive agencies released their 

final review plans. The plans include more than 500 specific 

commitments that will reduce cost, simplify the regulatory 

system, eliminate redundancy, and increase consistency and 

efficiency. At the Council’s suggestion, the Office of Information and Regulatory Affairs (OIRA) also issued guidance 

that requests agencies to report regularly on their retrospective review efforts and to prioritize implementation of 

initiatives that will have an impact on competitiveness, job 

creation, economic growth and innovation.

Independent regulatory commission 

retrospective review

With the support of the Council, the President also issued 

Executive Order 13579 in July 2011 that called on the independent regulatory commissions and agencies (IRCs) to 

follow the principles of the President’s January executive 

order and produce their own retrospective review plans. 

Flexibility for small business

In January 2011, the President issued a memorandum on 

regulatory flexibility for small business, emphasizing the 

essential role that small business plays in the economy. The 

memorandum asked agencies to take additional steps to 

reduce the burden regulations place on small entities. In 

February 2011, OIRA directed executive agencies to develop 

initiatives to reduce paperwork and reporting burdens and to 

prioritize reforms that will reduce burdens on small business. 

Streamlining permitting

Beginning in June 2011, the Jobs Council has laid out a series 

of recommendations for improving permitting and environmental reviews and to speed up review of job-creating 

infrastructure investments consistent with health, safety and 

environmental rules. (The details of these recommendations 

can be found in the Jobs Council’s Interim Report.) Initial 

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2011 YEAR-END REPORT THE JOBS COUNCIL 43

steps to achieve these goals include selecting 14 high-priority 

projects that will receive expedited federal review. In addition, 

the administration will apply lessons learned and best practices from these projects to improve the permitting process 

for projects across government. To promote transparency 

and accountability in carrying out this initiative, the federal 

chief information officer and chief technology officer have 

together launched a centralized, online dashboard that allows 

all stakeholders to track the progress of these projects as they 

move through the permitting system.

Recommendations

To build on this progress, the Council urges the administration and Congress to pursue a series of further regulatory 

process improvements discussed below.*

1. Enhancing stakeholder engagement

Earlier public outreach and disclosure of data and costs

When developing rules that are likely to have significant 

economic impact, agencies should, whenever feasible, 

gather wide-ranging input from stakeholders on the scope 

and nature of the problem to be solved, and the benefits 

and costs of possible alternative solutions. The regulatory 

process should be open and transparent and should engage 

those affected at an early stage.

One method of promoting greater public involvement 

and transparency would be the expanded use of advance 

notices of proposed rulemaking (ANPRMs). A well-crafted 

ANPRM would solicit information agencies need to craft 

a notice of proposed rulemaking that: identifies the root 

cause of the problem they seek to address; outlines alternative solutions; makes a preliminary estimate of benefits and 

costs of those solutions; and calls for public comment on 

the agency’s early analysis of these factors. OIRA should 

issue guidance to agencies on the use of ANPRMs and other 

forms of early public outreach, such as requests for information and notices of data availability. 

In addition, to improve the depth and quality of public 

engagement, the public comment period should include 

an opportunity for interested parties to respond to comments made by others, so that agencies can benefit from a 

* There are two additional elements of regulatory reform that engendered substantial discussion within the Council: codifying certain executive orders and 

raising the standard of judicial review of agency decision-making. These elements were not included in the report because, although there were strongly 

held views on both sides, there was not a consensus among members.

thorough dialogue on issues.

The administration should continue its focus on transparency and high-quality analysis. Wherever feasible, it 

should continue providing underlying data and studies referenced in the ANPRM and subsequent rulemaking notices 

to the public in their entirety when the notice is published. 

The agency’s analysis of the problem to be solved, as well 

as the benefits and costs of alternatives, should be based on 

scientific and technical evidence that should be subject to 

public scrutiny and meet basic standards for quality. 

The process for the most costly rules (those with a projected economic impact of at least $1 billion per year) should 

involve additional opportunities for public engagement 

and input, such as public forums and web-based portals. 

Additional engagement efforts should also be made available for other economically significant rules ($100 million or 

more) where beneficial. OIRA should outline the process and 

requirements for enhanced and early public engagement. 

Regulatory ombudsmen

Agencies should establish ombudsmen or even a separate, 

independent office within the agency to assist in the development of petitions for rulemaking and to help with regulatory 

streamlining and improving existing rules. This office (the 

IRS offers a promising model) would reach out to regulated 

parties for their feedback and should include a web portal for 

people to submit examples of regulations that are outdated, 

too burdensome or in conflict with agency objectives. This 

office would coordinate its work with the agency’s regulatory 

retrospective review process and indicate where public comment was received that led to changes in regulations. 

Regulatory portal

The Council recommends that the administration create a 

regulatory portal that presents a variety of information about 

regulatory requirements for each sector of the economy in 

an easy-to-read format and a centralized location. The portal 

should also be scalable and extendable with an open architecture, and should contain a “frequently asked questions” 

section related to each major regulation. This portal should 

allow for research of regulations by industry NAICS codes. 

Guidance documents

There needs to be a clear distinction between guidance 

documents and rulemaking. Guidance should not be 

legally binding. Though it sounds a little funny, OIRA 

should update and reaffirm existing Office of Management 

and Budget (OMB) “guidance on guidance”—i.e., good 

Play to win regulatory reform
44 2011 YEAR-END REPORT THE JOBS COUNCIL

guidance practices that ensure the public and potentially 

affected stakeholders receive timely notice and have the 

chance to comment. 

Reconsideration of final rules

Since outside parties are not privy to the agency deliberations that lead to a final rule, they are sometimes unable 

to suggest corrections to analytical or technical errors that 

may occur following the notice-and-comment phase of 

the rulemaking. OIRA should develop guidelines for how 

agencies should respond to petitions for reconsideration of 

final rules. The administration should also ensure executive 

branch agencies and IRCs update and affirm processes for 

requesting comments on the technical accuracy of the data 

used in support of a final rule. Congress, where bills correcting errors in final legislation are common, understands 

the benefits of after-the-fact technical fixes. 

Consideration of small-business impact of final rules

Congress has decided that small business should be treated 

differently than large business. Under the Regulatory Flexibility Act (RFA), agencies must certify that a rule does not 

have a disproportionate effect on small businesses. Agencies 

cannot make the certification until they have done a regulatory flexibility analysis and taken steps to minimize the 

effects on small businesses. The adoption of interim final 

rules (IFRs), however, preempts the RFA process. OIRA 

should ensure that agencies conduct the proper analysis 

after undertaking IFRs (i.e., complete the certification or 

required RFA analysis before issuing the “final” final rule). 

In determining how to regulate, agencies should consider the attributes of the regulated entities. For example, 

in some cases, well-intended rules aimed mostly at large 

firms—which have the staff and resources that make 

compliance economically feasible—can prove onerous to 

smaller firms that are not really the source of the problem. 

Officials should take pains to make these distinctions. 

2. Improving regulatory processes

Permitting program management office

The President’s infrastructure permitting prioritization 

initiative is strongly supported by the Council. In order 

to ensure the effort is sustainable and achieves results, the 

Council recommends that a formal Program Management Office (PMO) be created and led by OMB. This office 

would receive professional staff from relevant agencies that 

would be detailed to the office on a rotating basis. The PMO 

would establish overall objectives and specific performance 

metrics, identify barriers, track progress, establish incentive 

and penalty structures, and regularly report to the public 

on best practices and lessons learned. OMB’s role would 

be focused on overall PMO leadership (including setting 

direction and establishing the pace for decision making), 

not on project-level analysis. 

Permitting “one-stop shop” 

In addition to creating an institutional capability to drive 

federal permitting reviews, the administration should work 

with Congress to pilot an approach to consolidated permitting on a small number of large-scale projects. This onestop shop would work with federal and local authorities 

to grant necessary federal, state and local approvals. State 

and local governments would have the option of choosing 

whether to participate in the program. If successful, the 

one-stop shop pilot might result in legal changes so that an 

approval by the shop would suffice to let an infrastructure 

project or other large-scale investment proceed. 

Aligning international regulatory standards

In a globalized economy, U.S. companies can be subject to 

the regulatory requirements of a number of jurisdictions in 

export markets. Divergent requirements can create unnecessary costs, burdens and delays that hinder market access, 

particularly for small and medium-sized companies that 

rely on exports to grow their businesses and hire workers. 

Consistent with domestic law and international obligations, 

the administration should seek better alignment between 

U.S. regulations and the well-crafted regulatory approaches 

of major trading partners (where feasible and appropriate), 

while ensuring that such efforts do not compromise our 

ability to protect health, safety and the environment, as well 

as achieve other legitimate public policy objectives. To the 

extent that statutes unduly limit such harmonization, the 

administration should seek congressional action to eliminate these barriers.

3. Stengthening Regulatory Impact Analysis

Retrospective review of rules and their impact

OIRA should provide guidance on how agencies should 

prioritize the review of rules and develop and implement 

a system for retrospective review in the future. This would 

include a review of the continuing relevance of the rule, its 

optimal design, and lessons learned and best practices since 

the rule was put into place, and, for economically significant 

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2011 YEAR-END REPORT THE JOBS COUNCIL 45

rules, an opportunity for the public to comment on the costs 

and benefits of the rule in its current form. The purpose of 

this review would be to measure the rule’s actual costs and 

benefits, and determine whether it is net beneficial. 

For example, for current rules above a predetermined 

dollar threshold, the retrospective review could be phased in 

over an agreed-upon period. For newly adopted rules above 

that dollar threshold, the look-back review could be set in the 

course of the rulemaking proceeding. At the time a new rule 

is adopted, the regulating agency could specify the types of 

analysis it will likely undertake, the data and other information that it anticipates needing for the analysis, and its plans 

to implement a process of collection, while minimizing the 

need for additional, redundant data collection.

To encourage the regulator to conduct reviews of existing rules, agencies should provide a means for affected parties and the public to track the status of the review process. 

Agencies should make their reports public, submit them to 

Congress and post them online.

Regulatory impact analysis for IRCs

Congress should require IRCs to conduct cost-benefit 

analysis for economically significant regulations. For most 

regulatory agencies, these requirements are established and 

enforced within the executive branch pursuant to Executive 

Orders 12866 and 13563. The Jobs Council, in its October 

2011 Interim Report, included a detailed recommendation for extending these requirements to IRCs. A requirement that IRCs must conduct regulatory impact analyses, 

coupled with some form of third-party regulatory review 

(through OIRA or some other office), would prompt IRCs 

to perform better analyses and to issue better and smarter 

regulations. (It would also be worthwhile to analyze mechanisms for assessing the cumulative effects, costs and benefits 

of existing and proposed rules across regulatory agencies.) 

Adequate staffing of the regulatory review process

Thorough review by OIRA improves the quality of agency regulatory analysis and decisions. Yet since its inception in 1980, 

OIRA’s staff has shrunk by half even though it has acquired 

additional responsibilities and its role is widely accepted and 

valued.122 Even modest improvements in regulations can yield 

billions of dollars in benefits to the public. Therefore, the 

Council recommends that OMB’s staff be increased to a level 

that will permit it to conduct meaningful review of both executive branch and independent agency regulations. 

Another way to promote objective analysis is to separate 

agency economists from the program offices that propose 

regulations. The work of agency economists should be evaluated by other economists, with compensation and career 

advancement tied to the quality of their analysis, not on 

whether the analysis supports decisions already made. 

Independent third-party analysis

Public confidence in government analysis is improved when 

it is reviewed by an independent party. Congress should 

consider commissioning periodic reports on the cumulative 

costs and benefits of regulations stemming from key authorizing legislation, and evaluating the impacts on public 

welfare and the GDP. Such work might be modeled on what 

the Congressional Budget Office (CBO) and the Government Accountability Office (GAO) do today. For example, 

studies could retroactively compare actual costs and benefits of a number of regulations to earlier projections and 

provide recommendations to improve projections. Such an 

office could also provide a means to better understand the 

cumulative effects, costs and benefits of existing rules across 

regulatory agencies, and their impact on economic activity, 

especially employment. 

Analysis of regulatory-enabling legislation

Since Congress delegates authority in legislation to executive and independent agencies, there is inherent difficulty 

in analyzing what regulations will be deemed necessary 

by agencies to fulfill the mandates required of them by 

Congress. However, in many cases, Congress proposes 

amendments to laws to respond to new conditions and 

public concerns. In the case of such amendments, Congress 

should consider requiring a cost-benefit analysis of the current regulations already promulgated. This would provide 

empirical support and a more compelling rationale for the 

amendment. When feasible, Congress could also adopt a 

system for conducting impact analysis of proposed regulatory legislation before voting on the legislation.

 The Council believes that the regulatory reform initiatives that have received consensus support can bolster American 

competitiveness over the long term, and contribute to productivity growth and job creation while ensuring the American 

people have the protections they expect and deserve. 

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46 2011 YEAR-END REPORT THE JOBS COUNCIL

Two blue-ribbon groups appointed by President 

Obama—the President’s Economic Recovery Advisory 

Board (PERAB) and the National Commission on Fiscal 

Responsibility and Reform (also called “Simpson-Bowles” 

or the “Deficit Commission”)—have already examined 

tax reform, building upon a number of bipartisan study 

efforts in recent years. With such distinguished panels having recently weighed in on this question, tax reform was not 

the Council’s primary focus. However, any serious agenda 

to bolster America’s long-term competitiveness must tackle 

this issue of enormous importance and relevance. To that 

end, the Council wants to underscore two central points.

First, our system of corporate taxation today hurts business competitiveness and American workers, and it cries out 

for reform. Second, as a society we must commit to a process 

that culminates in a bipartisan agreement on tax reform and 

long-term deficit reduction. It is simply too important to 

economic growth and the welfare of the American worker to 

delay the inevitable any longer. To move the nation forward, 

we must forge a new fiscal consensus. 

Corporate Taxation

There is a growing bipartisan consensus that we need comprehensive reform of the corporate tax system. The PERAB 

report articulated well the reasons reform is overdue (and 

the following summary draws from that work). 

As of April 1, 2012, when Japan reduces its rate, the 

United States will have the highest statutory corporate tax 

rate (including federal and state taxes) among the 34 OECD 

countries. The 2011 average OECD rate, excluding the 

United States, is 25.1%, while the United States is at 39.2%. 

(The top U.S. corporate rate, at 35%. is nearly 10 percentage 

points higher than the average OECD rate of 25.5%. The 

average American state corporate income tax rate is 4.2%, 

so when state taxes are included, the average top combined 

tax rate in the United States is 39.2%.) At the beginning of 

the 1980s, the U.S. corporate income tax rate was slightly 

above the OECD average, but since then most of the other 

OECD countries have reduced their rates significantly. As 

part of its long-term deficit-reduction program, the United 

Kingdom will actually lower its corporate tax rate to 23% by 

2015. Canada lowered its rate to 16.5% this year and plans a 

further reduction to 15% next year. 

Why does this matter? The high statutory corporate tax 

rate in the United States reduces the returns on saving and 

investment, and the tax expenditures can distort the allocation of investment. A reduction in the rate combined with 

a broadening of the base could encourage more investment 

in the United States by U.S. corporations, and it would also 

make the United States a more attractive place for foreign 

direct investment by foreign corporations (a priority the 

Council discussed in its Interim Report). An increase in 

investment in the United States by both domestic and foreign companies would, in turn, boost economic growth 

and employment. And the resulting increase in the capital 

stock—in the form of new businesses, factories, equipment 

and research—would improve productivity levels and wages. 

Economists generally agree that a smaller capital stock means 

less capital per worker and therefore less output per worker 

and a lower real wage. A recent OECD study concludes that 

of all taxes, corporate income taxes are the most harmful to 

economic growth because they discourage investment. 

A growing body of research also shows that in a world 

of mobile capital, workers bear a rising share of the burden of the corporate income tax in the form of reduced 

employment opportunities and lower wages. So corporate 

tax reform is not solely a “business” issue—it’s an issue that 

directly affects American workers and American firms. 

Yet the basic contours of corporate income taxes have 

changed little over the last three decades, even as the environment in which business decisions are made has been 

transformed. Thanks to globalization and technological 

change, capital can move easily across borders, and differences in corporate tax rates now have stronger effects on 

any firm’s decisions about where to invest. Recent research 

finds that such differences have a significant and growing 

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2011 YEAR-END REPORT THE JOBS COUNCIL 47

influence on where multinational companies decide to 

locate their production and on the size of their investments 

in different countries. 

The increased mobility of capital and the rise of 

multinational companies suggest that the appropriate 

corporate income tax rate is likely to be lower today than 

in the past. This is broadly consistent with the downward 

trend in corporate tax rates around the world during 

the last three decades. In the absence of coordination 

among countries on corporate tax rates, the appropriate 

competitive rate for an open economy like that of the 

United States will depend on corporate tax rates in other 

countries that are rival locations for internationally mobile 

investments. In short, the United States needs to view its 

corporate income tax rates as part of our nation’s package 

for attracting job-creating investment. 

To be sure, despite the high statutory rate, the corporate tax raises relatively little revenue—the fourth lowest in 

the OECD as a share of GDP. One reason for this apparent 

incongruity is that the corporate tax base is relatively narrow 

compared to the size of the business sector. About half of 

business income now accrues to pass-through entities such 

as S corporations and partnerships; although the income of 

such pass-through entities is subject to tax at the individual 

level, it is excluded from the corporate tax. In addition, the 

business tax system—which often applies to non-corporate 

businesses as well as corporations—has numerous provisions 

for special deductions, credits and other tax expenditures that 

benefit certain activities. These provisions reduce the effective 

tax rate below the statutory rate. In addition, these provisions also result in very different marginal tax rates applying 

to seemingly similar types of business activities. Reducing 

the corporate tax rate and broadening the base would reduce 

these distortions and create a more level playing field among 

alternative investments.

The combination of a high statutory rate and numerous deductions and exclusions results in an inefficient tax 

system that distorts corporate behavior in multiple ways. 

The high statutory corporate tax rate reduces the return to 

investments and therefore discourages saving and reduces 

aggregate investment. In addition, some tax expenditures 

create incentives that drive behavior based on tax, not economic considerations; encourage investment in tax-favored 

equipment and certain other assets; and drive capital out of 

the corporate sector into noncorporate forms of business.

In addition, because certain assets and investments 

are tax-favored, tax considerations can drive overinvestment in those assets at the expense of those that are more 

economically productive investments. Because the corporate 

tax means higher effective rates on corporate businesses, 

business activity and investment are shifted to such noncorporate businesses as partnerships and S corporations, or to 

such nonbusiness investments as owner-occupied housing. 

Because of its complexity and its incentives for tax avoidance, 

the U.S. corporate tax system results in high administrative 

and compliance costs by firms—costs estimated to exceed 

$40 billion per year (or more than 12% of the revenue collected). And because interest is a deductible business expense, 

the corporate tax system favors debt financing over equity 

financing. All of these factors act to reduce the productivity 

of American businesses and American workers and drain 

resources away from more valuable uses. Most of these distortions also affect businesses beyond the corporate sector.

The experts the Council consulted believe that reforms 

to move the corporate tax system from one with a high tax 

rate and a narrow tax base to one with a broader tax base 

and a lower tax rate could correct a number of distortions 

associated with the current system. The Simpson-Bowles 

Commission and the PERAB reached a similar conclusion. 

Perhaps not surprisingly, most OECD countries that lowered their corporate tax rates in recent years also introduced 

measures to broaden their corporate tax base at the same 

time. Broadening the base must be done in a way that does 

not undermine the competitiveness of U.S. companies and 

their workers however. For example, the R&D tax credit is 

an important spur to innovation; the administration has 

proposed that this tax credit be simplified, expanded and 

made permanent, and the Council supports this. 

Corporate Tax Reform and

Territoriality

The 2011 Simpson-Bowles report and the report of the 

President’s Export Council recommended that the United 

States move to a territorial tax system. We recognize that 

corporate tax reform, however, won’t happen without some 

fundamental issues being resolved.

Many members of the Council agreed that the United 

States should move to a territorial system of taxing corporate income akin to the practices of the other developed 

economies. Territoriality would eliminate the so-called 

lock-out effect in the current worldwide system of taxation 

that discourages repatriation and investment of the foreign 

earnings of U.S. companies in the United States. The current worldwide system makes investing these earnings in 

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48 2011 YEAR-END REPORT THE JOBS COUNCIL

the United States more expensive from a tax point of view 

than reinvesting them abroad where they are not subject to 

additional corporate tax.

These members believe that a territorial system would 

enhance the ability of U.S. companies to acquire foreign 

companies and would eliminate tax incentives of U.S. multinationals to merge with or sell their foreign operations to 

foreign companies. This would also reduce the vulnerability 

of domestic firms to takeover bids by foreign firms operating with lower tax rates. According to this view, a lower 

corporate tax rate and the adoption of a territorial system 

would increase the competitiveness of U.S. companies relative to their foreign counterparts in the United States and 

elsewhere, adding to the U.S. jobs that are needed to grow 

and support global growth. 

Some members of the Council, however, disagree with 

this point of view, arguing that a territorial system of taxing 

corporate income would strengthen incentives for companies 

to move investment and employment to lower-tax jurisdictions. They believe that, if the United States adopts a territorial system of taxation, it must be designed to prevent U.S. 

firms from exploiting U.S. markets while avoiding U.S. tax. 

They believe the U.S. corporate tax system must be designed 

to prevent such behavior. 

We are hopeful that such policy differences can be 

resolved as part of a broader, comprehensive tax reform 

initiative by policymakers. But with limited time devoted to 

these tax questions, the Council did not try to negotiate a 

consensus on territoriality as part of its work.

Fiscal Responsibilities

A final word on revenue and long-term deficit reduction. 

The Council notes that the retirement of the large baby 

boom generation will double the number of seniors on 

Social Security and Medicare in the years ahead. Even if 

fundamental reform of these programs has a material 

impact on their long-term projected costs, the sheer 

growth in the number of retirees entering the system will 

cause spending on Social Security and Medicare to rise 

substantially. For these demographic reasons, the SimpsonBowles Commission concluded that the aging of America 

would affect the role of revenue in a plan to get our fiscal 

house in order. 

A proCess with teeth

Given the stakes for U.S. competitiveness and fiscal responsibility, the Council urges Congress and the administration 

to begin to work on tax reform immediately. Leadership 

of both parties in the House and the Senate should make a 

public commitment to getting reform done—and should 

begin the process now. We know that procedural motions 

do not guarantee success (as the fate of last fall’s “Supercommittee” shows); political will remains essential. But the 

Council believes that pressures will build in the next year 

for policymakers to address this important fiscal matter. 

We believe a broad agreement should be possible. 

Play to win Tax reform
A FINAl WORD
50 2011 YEAR-END REPORT THE JOBS COUNCIL

Aspirations 

What we have tried to do in this report is highlight the major levers that can restore 

the country’s leadership in competitiveness. These are, by definition, aspirational 

and long term. There is an old saying that there are two great times to plant a tree:

30 years ago and today.

In that spirit, let us recap our aspirations for American competitiveness.

Invest in our future

•	Close the short- and long-term skills gaps so all Americans can reach their potential 

and every job can be filled promptly.

•	Reach the top 10 globally in student performance in math and science.

•	Grow private and public R&D to 3% of GDP, and ideally more. 

Build on our strengths

•	Take control of our energy future: Diversify our mix, reduce reliance on foreign oil, 

create jobs and reduce pollution.

•	Own the industries and the innovations that will create the energy future.

•	Increase our share of global manufacturing value added by 4% or more.

Play to win 

•	Ensure that the United States leads the world in regulatory competitiveness.

•	Implement corporate tax reform as outlined by the National Commission on Fiscal 

Responsibility and Reform, the President’s Export Council and the President’s 

Economic Recovery Advisory Board.

The Council is energized by our challenges and excited by our prospects. Together, we 

can achieve these and other aspirations to improve our country and our future.

Summary & status of

recommendations

The Jobs Council has identified more than 60 proposals that 

would help accelerate job creation and rebuild America’s 

competitiveness. Council members such as Darlene Miller, 

Steve Case and Paul Otellini have taken immediate action on 

the proposals that require private-sector leadership. And in 

partnership with the President’s Office of Management and 

Budget, the Council has moved aggressively to implement 

the recommendations that require common-sense 

government reform. As these next few pages show, we have 

made real progress.
2011 YEAR-END REPORT THE JOBS COUNCIL 53

Implementation of Jobs Council Recommendations

At the direction of the President, Chief Performance 

Officer and Deputy Director of the White House Office 

of Management and Budget Jeff Zients and Government 

Reform for Competitiveness and Innovation Initiative 

Executive Director Lisa Brown have led the administration’s 

interagency efforts to implement the recommendations the 

Jobs Council presented to the President at our meetings in 

June and October 2011. In some cases, the Council brought 

new ideas to the administration; in others, we recommended accelerating initiatives already underway. Working 

together, the Council and the administration have made 

significant progress. Highlights of the administration’s 

and the Council’s activities are described below, organized 

within the five initiative areas from the Council’s October 

report “Taking Action, Building Confidence.” 

REGULATORY REVIEWS AND 

PROJECT APPROVALS 

COUNCIL RECOMMENDATION: Simplify 

regulatory review and streamline project 

approvals to accelerate jobs and growth. 

ACTION: Expanding regulatory lookback principles to 

independent agencies.

At the recommendation of the Council, in July 2011, the President signed an executive order asking independent agencies to 

develop plans to reassess and streamline their existing regulations and to make those plans public. Sixteen independent 

agencies have submitted regulatory review plans. Implementation of regulatory lookback plans by the independent agencies 

will remove outdated and inefficient regulations, helping to 

ensure that our regulatory system is consistent with economic 

growth while protecting public welfare. 

ACTION: Streamlining the medical 

device approval process. 

The Food and Drug Administration (FDA) is engaged in 

a major initiative to streamline and improve the premarket approval process for medical devices. The Council has 

worked with the White House to facilitate private-sector 

input into the effort, including the FDA engaging a Lean 

Six Sigma consultant. In 2011, the FDA took 27 actions to 

improve the predictability, consistency, transparency and 

efficiency of its premarket programs. As a result of these 

business process improvements, the backlog of the most 

common type of device premarket application, called a 

510(k) submission, decreased by 5% in 2011 after five years 

of steady increases. 

ACTION: Expediting high-priority infrastructure projects. 

The Council recommended that the administration streamline environmental permitting and, in particular, that it 

select projects with significant near-term jobs impact for 

expedited permitting and environmental review. In direct 

response to this recommendation, the President directed 

federal agencies in August 2011 to expedite review of infrastructure projects with significant jobs-creating potential 

and to pilot a public dashboard to track progress on those 

projects. By helping to launch major construction projects 

faster and more efficiently, these efforts will have a direct 

impact on job creation.

The 14 projects that agencies selected for expedited 

review range from the Tappan Zee Bridge replacement over 

the Hudson River in New York to NextGen aviation satellite 

navigation in Houston. The permitting and environmental 

reviews for three projects have been completed and a fourth 

issued its final environmental impact statement. Reviews 

for all of the pending projects are on target to be completed 

by their expedited deadlines. The Council’s goal is that this 

expedited review process will serve as a template to reduce 

permitting delays for all future infrastructure projects.
54 2011 YEAR-END REPORT THE JOBS COUNCIL

ACTION: Launching the Federal Infrastructure 

Projects Dashboard to track priority expedited 

infrastructure projects.

Progress on the 14 expedited projects can be tracked on 

the Council-recommended Federal Infrastructure Projects Dashboard at http://permits.performance.gov. Since 

the dashboard’s launch in November 2011, it has been 

expanded to pilot a tool for faster processing of public comments under the National Environmental Policy Act. The 

dashboard is a significant step in simplifying the tracking 

of the 14 expedited infrastructure projects, and the Council encourages the administration to extend the use of the 

dashboard to other significant infrastructure projects.

ACTION: Creating rapid-response teams to tackle 

transmission siting, transportation permitting and 

environmental reviews. 

At the Council’s urging to reform and accelerate the siting process for the electricity transmission infrastructure 

and to expedite infrastructure permitting, the administration announced in October 2011 the formation of two 

interagency rapid-response teams: a transmission team to 

accelerate the permitting and construction of electric transmission infrastructure and a transportation team to drive 

interagency coordination needed to expedite transportation project delivery. The Transmission Rapid Response 

Team will focus initially on seven pilot project transmission 

lines that, when built, will help increase electric reliability, 

integrate new renewable energy into the grid and save consumers money. The Transportation Rapid Response Team 

has coordinated scheduling for the Department of Transportation’s six priority infrastructure projects listed on the 

Federal Infrastructure Projects Dashboard and launched a 

working group to assist the Federal Aviation Administration 

with implementing NextGen aviation satellite navigation. 

ACTION: Issuing new guidance for agencies 

on efficient National Environmental 

Policy Act and permitting processes. 

The Council on Environmental Quality, which oversees 

federal agency implementation of the National Environmental Policy Act (NEPA), issued draft guidance in December 2011 instructing agencies how to improve the efficiency 

and timeliness of NEPA environmental review processes. 

Based upon Council recommendations, the draft guidance 

outlines how agencies should keep their NEPA reviews 

concise and focused; integrate the NEPA process into the 

early stages of project planning and development; use the 

scoping process to engage early with stakeholders and align 

NEPA requirements with other federal permitting processes; cooperate with state, local and tribal governments to 

produce joint environmental review documents that satisfy 

NEPA and other applicable requirements; and establish 

time limits for the various portions of the NEPA process. 

INFRASTRUCTURE AND ENERGY

COUNCIL RECOMMENDATION: Accelerate 

investment in job-rich projects in infrastructure 

and energy development.

ACTION: Committing nearly $4 billion in job-creating 

investment in building energy upgrades through the 

Better Buildings Challenge. 

With leadership from the Council, President Obama, former President Bill Clinton, members of the Council and 

representatives from more than 60 corporate and local government partners announced on Dec. 2, 2011, nearly $4 billion in combined private- and public-sector investments in 

energy upgrades to buildings. These investments will save 

billions in energy costs, promote energy independence and, 

according to independent estimates, create tens of thousands of jobs in the hard-hit construction sector. 

Summary & Status Implementation udpate
2011 YEAR-END REPORT THE JOBS COUNCIL 55

ACTION: Investing in transportation infrastructure to 

stimulate economic activity. 

Based upon a Council recommendation, in November 2011 

the President directed the Department of Transportation 

(DOT) to expedite transportation projects and leverage private-sector funding to promote growth. The DOT has since 

announced 46 transportation projects that will receive $511 

million in funding through the TIGER III program, which 

provides grants to transportation projects that will have 

a significant national or regional impact. These projects 

were chosen for their ability to create jobs quickly and to 

stimulate economic activity. The projects are being funded 

months ahead of schedule and include money for multiple 

public-private partnerships. 

NATIONAL INVESTMENT INITIATIVE

COUNCIL RECOMMENDATION: Begin a 

national investment initiative to boost jobscreating inward investment in the United States, 

from global firms headquartered elsewhere and 

from multinational corporations headquartered 

in the United States.

ACTION: Strengthen SelectUSA, the federal 

effort to promote and facilitate foreign 

investment in the United States. 

On June 15, 2011 the President established SelectUSA, an 

office in the Department of Commerce tasked with coordinating government-wide efforts to attract and retain investment in the American economy. Acting on a Jobs Council 

recommendation, the President recently announced an 

expansion of SelectUSA to provide additional resources 

and personnel to promote foreign investment in the United 

States in 10 pilot countries, which represent over 30% of 

foreign direct investment. By 2013, the program will expand 

to 25 countries, representing nearly 90% of foreign direct 

investment. The program expands the responsibilities of 

Commerce and State Department officials in these countries and in the United States to include actively promoting 

investment in the United States by, among other things, 

supporting “Investment Missions” with state and local officials and connecting foreign firms to SelectUSA services. 

ACTION: Accelerating visa processing in 

high-demand countries to stimulate growth 

in the travel and tourism industry.

The Council has been working closely with the State 

Department to accelerate visa processing—particularly 

in fast-growing countries such as China and Brazil, where 

demand currently outstrips processing capacity—while 

protecting our national security. Due to increased staffing and better use of facilities, the State Department has 

increased visa processing in China and Brazil by more than 

30% over the past year and is working to achieve an increase 

of at least an additional 40% in visa adjudications in these 

countries in 2012. The Council, meanwhile, continues to 

work with the departments of State and Homeland Security to identify further opportunities and possible policy 

changes to accelerate visa processing.

ACTION: Promoting international 

travel to the United States.

The Council and the White House team have been working 

with BrandUSA, a new public-private partnership dedicated to promoting travel to the United States, to accelerate 

its launch and fundraising plans. BrandUSA was created by 

the Travel Promotion Act, which the President signed into 

law in 2010. Private-sector funds raised by BrandUSA are 

matched by designated federal funds up to a maximum of 

$100 million. The Council has leveraged its deep privatesector expertise and extensive network to attract high-level 

chief marketing officers from the travel industry to advise 

BrandUSA and assist with fundraising. 

ACTION: Streamlining the EB-5 immigrant investors 

program to attract job-creating foreign investment.

The administration is working to improve and leverage 

the EB-5 immigrant investor visa program, another Council recommendation. The number of EB-5 visas issued 

has already increased from 1,360 in fiscal year 2008 to 

approximately 4,000 in fiscal year 2011. The Department 

of Homeland Security’s Citizen and Immigration Services 

is enhancing the program by creating specialized review 

teams with business expertise, improving customer service 

through enhanced use of technology, engaging re-engineering experts to streamline the process, launching a premium 

processing service and evaluating additional options for 

maximizing the program’s potential and reducing fraud. 

Summary & Status Implementation udpate
56 2011 YEAR-END REPORT THE JOBS COUNCIL

SMALL BUSINESSES AND 

HIGH-GROWTH FIRMS

COUNCIL RECOMMENDATION: 

Launch a comprehensive drive to ignite 

entrepreneurship and accelerate the 

number and scale of young, small businesses 

and high-growth firms that produce an 

outsized share of American’s new jobs.

ACTION: Speeding payments to smallbusiness federal suppliers.

Acting on a Council recommendation, the President 

announced in September 2011 that the administration will 

accelerate payments to small-business government contractors, which will, in many cases, cut payment time in half, 

getting money into the hands of small businesses faster so 

they can reinvest that money in the economy and drive job 

growth, a recommendation of the Jobs Council. More than 

80% of federal government agencies have already implemented an expedited payment schedule, and we expect all 

agencies will implement this policy by spring 2012.

ACTION: Creating a virtual one-stop shop for small 

business and exporters.

Based upon feedback from small-business owners who participated in the Council’s numerous Listening and Action 

sessions across the country, on Sept. 8, 2011, the administration announced BusinessUSA, a single online location 

to find out how to apply for loans, get critical information 

on exporting, identify potential contracting opportunities 

and connect with government services and programs that 

will help them grow. This new tool for small businesses and 

exporters will be available at www.Business.USA.gov. 

Summary & Status Implementation udpate
2011 YEAR-END REPORT THE JOBS COUNCIL 57

Jobs Council

June Recommendations

Energy retrofitting (Better buildings)

Graduate 10,000 more engineers

Build workforce skills in advanced manufacturing

Health-care workforce development

Leverage EB-5 program

SBA loan “one-stop shop”

Promote small-business exports

Establish mechanisms to attract more foreign direct investment

Streamline permitting

Federal agency supplier financing

Accelerate demand for U.S. travel and tourism
58 2011 YEAR-END REPORT THE JOBS COUNCIL

Invest Aggressively and Efficiently in 

Cutting-Edge Infrastructure and Energy

• Reauthorize the main surface transportation programs

• Leverage and expand existing public-private 

infrastructure financing mechanisms

• Create a national infrastructure financing organization to 

attract private capital to infrastructure projects

• Protect and preserve the user-based funding of the 

highway trust fund

• Speed implementation of the next-generation 

air traffic control system

• Promote broadband construction to reach all Americans

• Streamline permitting and approval processes 

for jobs rich infrastructure

• Make extraordinary efforts to strike a balance on 

energy investments

• Modernize and expand the electric grid through 

transmission siting reform

• Mobilize private sector financing for advanced 

energy technologies

Nurture the High-Growth Enterprises 

that Create New Jobs

• Win the global battle for talent

• Reduce regulatory barriers and provide financial 

incentives for firms to go public

• Enhance access to capital for early stage startups 

as well as later stage growth companies

• Make it easier for entrepreneurs to get patent-related 

answers faster

• Streamline SBA financing access, so more high -growth 

companies get the capital they need to grow

• Expand seed/angel capital

• Bring together investors and entrepreneurs, particularly 

from neglected geographic areas

• Foster regional ecosystems of innovation and support 

growth of startup accelerators

• Expand programs to mentor entrepreneurs

• Allow university faculty to shop discoveries to any 

technology transfer office

• Enhance commercialization of federally funded research

• Address talent needs by reducing student loan burden 

and accelerating immigration reforms

Launch a National Investment Initiative

• Leverage local advantages through innovation 

investment zones

• Establish supply chain partnerships

• Upgrade SelectUSA and improve coordination between 

SelectUSA and U.S. states

• Improve immigration policies to bring jobs to the 

United States

• Explore tax reforms that would increase the competitiveness of businesses locating in the United States

Simplify Regulatory Review and 

Streamline Project Approvals

• Reform permitting processes to accelerate job creation

• Conduct regulatory process reform for independent 

regulatory commissions (IRCs)

• Boost tourism by reforming the visa process

• Improve the FDA approval process

• Streamline Patent Office processes to bolster innovation

• Speed payments to small federal suppliers

Develop Talent to Fill Today’s Jobs 

and Fuel Growth

• “Right Skills Now” advanced manufacturing training

• “10,000 Engineers” initiative to graduate more 

U.S. engineers

• Health care workforce training in New York and California

• Stop the reverse brain drain by letting high-skilled 

immigrants stay in the United States

Jobs Council 

October Recommendations
2011 YEAR-END REPORT THE JOBS COUNCIL 59

Jobs Council 

January Recommendations

Invest in Our Future

Education 

1. Develop partnerships between businesses and 

postsecondary educational institutions.

2. Increase data-driven transparency mechanisms to align 

labor supply with demand.

3. Emphasize the importance of preschool to 

educational success.

4.Implement high common standards.

5. Bolster the teaching profession.

6.Achieve data-driven improvements in education.

Innovation

1. Bolster private R&D through a competitive R&D tax 

credit, speedy tech transfer and strong IP enforcement.

2. Increase federal support for R&D and innovation, 

especially in pre-commercial and basic research, 

and target a larger share of federal R&D 

investment toward next-generation challenges.

3. Ensure that entrepreneurs can access financing 

to scale up their firms through traditional 

funding methods and new ones.

4.Assure our workforce is ready to innovate through 

education and skills and front-line innovation.

5. Target more of our R&D investments, public and private, 

to some of our greatest challenges—such as affordable 

delivery of high-quality education and health care.

Build on Our Strengths

Energy

1. Optimize use of all of our natural resources while 

protecting public health and the environment.

2. Support efficiency measures in electricity and 

transportation.

3. Drive energy innovation and investment from basic 

invention to industry scale-up.

Manufacturing

1. Build competitiveness broadly by addressing key 

barriers to competitiveness in the areas of skills, 

regulation, taxation and infrastructure.

2. Reform export controls to help small manufacturers 

dramatically boost exports and to spur local 

manufacturing cluster development.

3. Sharpen our edge in the industries so we can win by 

maintaining our energy advantage, supporting the 

scale-up of nascent industries and competing more 

aggressively for capital-intensive industries.

Play to Win

Regulatory

1. Enhance stakeholder engagement.

2. Improve regulatory processes.

3. Strengthen regulatory impact analysis.

Tax

1. Lower the corporate tax and broaden the base.

2.Address the issue of territoriality, consistent with 

the recommendations of Bowles-Simpson and the 

President’s Export Council.

3.Congress and the administration should begin to work 

on tax reform immediately. Leadership of both parties 

in the House and the Senate should make a public 

commitment to getting reform done, and they should 

begin the process now.
Listening & Action 

Sessions

Over the past year, the Jobs Council has reached out 

across the country to hear first-hand from Americans about 

how to get our economy back on track. We held nearly 

two dozen Listening & Action sessions nationwide with 

businesses, entrepreneurs, employees, and community 

leaders. The people we met believe in this country, and the 

ideas they brought to the table helped shape the Council’s 

recommendations for creating jobs and renewing

American competitiveness.
2011 YEAR-END REPORT THE JOBS COUNCIL 61

Small Business Listening and Action Session: 

May 10, 2011

Location: Hooven-Dayton Co., Dayton, OH

Attendees: Jeffrey Immelt, Chairman and CEO, GE

Christopher Che, President and CEO, Hooven-Dayton

Dick Parsons, Chairman, Citigroup

Darlene Miller, President and CEO, Permac

Official(s): Administrator Mills, Director Graves, and John 

Fernandez

Small Business Exports Listening and Action 

Session: May 17, 2011

Location: Permac Industries, Burnsville, MN

Attendees: Darlene Miller, President and CEO, Permac Industries

Antonio Perez, Chairman and CEO, Eastman Kodak

Official(s): Secretary Locke, Director Graves

Energy and Smart Grid Listening and Action 

Session: June 13, 2011

Location: North Carolina State U., Raleigh, NC

Attendees: Lew Hay, Chairman and CEO, NextEra Energy

Jeffrey Immelt, Chairman and CEO, GE

Gary Kelly, Chairman, President, and CEO, 

Southwest Airlines

Brian Roberts, Chairman and CEO, Comcast

Official(s): Secretary Locke

Entrepreneurship Listening and Action Session: 

June 13, 2011

Location: American Underground Co., Durham, NC

Attendees: Steve Case, Chairman and CEO, Revolution

John Doerr, Partner, Kleiner Perkins Caufield and Byers

Dick Parsons, Chairman, Citigroup

Sheryl Sandberg, COO, Facebook

Robert Wolf, Chairman, UBS Americas

Innovation Listening and Action Session: June 

13, 2011

Location: Biogen, Durham, NC

Attendees: Mark Gallogly, Co-founder and Managing Principal, 

Centerbridge Partners

A.G. Lafley

Eric Lander, Director, Broad Institute of MIT 

and Harvard

Antonio Perez, Chairman and CEO, Eastman Kodak

Manufacturing Listening and Action Session: 

June 13, 2011

Location: DuPont, Durham, NC

Attendees: Ellen Kullman, Chair and CEO, DuPont

Paul Otellini, President and CEO, Intel

Matthew Rose, Chairman and CEO, BNSF Railway

Laura Tyson, Professor, University of California-Berkeley

Official(s): Administrator Mills and Fred Hochberg, Chairman, 

Export-Import Bank

Workforce Training Listening and Action 

Session: June 13, 2011

Location: North Carolina Central University, Durham, NC

Attendees: Roger Ferguson, President and CEO, TIAA-CREF

Joe Hansen, President, UFCW

Monica Lozano, CEO, ImpreMedia

Darlene Miller, President and CEO, Permac

Penny Pritzker, President and CEO, Pritzker Realty 

Group

High-Growth/High-Tech Listening and Action 

Session: August 2, 2011

Location: VMware, Palo Alto, CA

Attendees: Steve Case, Chairman and CEO, Revolution

John Doerr, Partner, Kleiner Perkins Caufield and Byers

Sheryl Sandberg, COO, Facebook

Reed Hastings, CEO, Netflix

Dr. Stephen Herrod, CTO, VMware

Chris Anderson, Editor-in-Chief, Wired Magazine

Official(s): Aneesh Chopra, CTO, Don Graves

continued on next page

2011 Jobs Council 

Listening & Action Sessions
62 2011 YEAR-END REPORT THE JOBS COUNCIL

LISTENING & ACTION SESSSIONS

Infrastructure Listening and Action Session: 

September 1, 2011

Location: SMU, Dallas, TX

Attendees: Tom Donohue, President and CEO, U.S. Chamber 

of Commerce

Lew Hay, Chairman and CEO, NextEra Energy

Gary Kelly, Chairman, President and CEO,

Southwest Airlines

Matthew Rose, Chairman and CEO, BNSF Railway

Richard Trumka, President, AFL-CIO

Laura Tyson, Professor, University of California-Berkeley

Robert Wolf, Chairman, UBS Americas

David Cohen, Executive Vice President, Comcast

John Donovan, CTO, AT&T

C. Michael Walton, Professor, University of Texas

Official(s): Secretary LaHood, Director Graves, Aneesh Chopra, 

and Lauren Azar 

Foreign Direct Investment Listening and Action 

Session: October 7, 2011

Location: State Department, Washington, DC

Attendees: Jeffrey Immelt, Chairman and CEO, GE

Antonio Perez, Chairman and CEO, Eastman Kodak

Robert Wolf, Chairman, UBS Americas

Official(s): Secretary Clinton and Acting Secretary Blank

High Growth Entrepreneurship Listening and 

Action Session: October 11, 2011

Location: AlphaLabs, Pittsburgh, PA

Attendees: Steve Case, Chairman and CEO, Revolution

Christopher Che, President and CEO, Hooven-Dayton

Official(s): Acting Secretary Blank, Director Mayorkas

Innovation Listening and Action Session: 

October 11, 2011

Location: Aquion Energy, Pittsburgh, PA

Attendees: John Doerr, Partner, Kleiner Perkins Caufield and Byers

Mark Gallogly, Co-Founder and Managing Principal, 

Centerbridge Partners

Lew Hay, Chairman and CEO, NextEra Energy

Gary Kelly, Chairman, President, and CEO, 

Southwest Airlines

Laura Tyson, Professor, University of California-Berkeley

Official(s): Dr. John Holdren

Manufacturing Listening and Action Session: 

October 11, 2011

Location: Seegrid, Pittsburgh, PA

Attendees: Jeffrey Immelt, Chairman and CEO, GE

Paul Otellini, President and CEO, Intel

Antonio Perez, Chairman and CEO, Eastman Kodak

Richard Trumka, President, AFL-CIO

Official(s): Administrator Mills

Veterans and Small Business Listening and 

Action Session: October 11, 2011

Location: HERR- PITT, Pittsburgh, PA

Attendees: Ellen Kullman, Chair and CEO, DuPont

Darlene Miller, President and CEO, Permac

Dick Parson, Chairman, Citigroup

Matthew Rose, Chairman and CEO, BNSF Railway

Official(s): Fred Hochberg, Chairman, Export-Import Bank

Workforce Development Listening and Action 

Session: October 11, 2011

Location: Hill House Association, Pittsburgh, PA

Attendees: Roger Ferguson, President and CEO, TIAA-CREF

Brian Roberts, Chairman and CEO, Comcast

Robert Wolf, Chairman, UBS Americas

Official(s): Secretary Solis

Jobs Council Panel at Financial Times Event: 

October 13, 2011

Location: New York City

Attendees: Steve Case, Chairman and CEO, Revolution

Antonio Perez, Chairman and CEO, Eastman Kodak

Laura Tyson, Professor, University of California-Berkeley

Business Council Event: October 21, 2011

Location: Atlanta, GA

Attendees: Jeff Immelt, Chairman and CEO, GE 

Ken Chenault, Chairman and CEO, American Express

Matt Rose, Chairman and CEO, BNSF Railway

Advanced Manufacturing Training Event: 

October 27, 2011

Location: Minneapolis, Minnesota

Attendees: Darlene Miller, President and CEO, Permac

Chris Che, President and CEO, Hooven-Dayton

Administrator Mills

Jay Timmons, NAM

Healthcare Workforce Training Event: December 12, 2011

Location: LaGuardia Community College, New York City

Attendees: Ken Chenault, Chairman and CEO, American Express

Mark Gallogly, Co-founder and Managing Principal, 

Centerbridge Partners

Mayor Bloomberg

Secretary Sebelius
COUNCIL MEmbers

The President’s Council on Jobs and Competitiveness 

(Jobs Council) was created to provide nonpartisan advice 

to the President on continuing to strengthen the nation’s 

economy and ensure the competitiveness of the United States 

and on ways to create jobs, opportunity and prosperity 

for the American people.

The Jobs Council is made up of members appointed by the 

President from among distinguished citizens outside the 

federal government, including citizens chosen to serve as 

representatives of the various sectors of the economy to 

offer the diverse perspectives of the private sector, employers 

and workers on how the federal government can best foster 

growth, competitiveness, innovation and job creation.
64 2011 YEAR-END REPORT THE JOBS COUNCIL

Jeffrey Immelt, Chair

Chairman and CEO, GE

Ursula M. Burns

Chairman and CEO, 

Xerox Corporation

Steve Case

Chairman and CEO, 

Revolution, LLC; Co-Founder, 

America Online; Chairman, 

The Case Foundation

Kenneth I. Chenault

Chairman and CEO, 

American Express 

Company

Christopher Che

President and CEO, 

Hooven-Dayton 

Corporation

John Doerr

Partner, Kleiner Perkins 

Caufield & Byers

Roger W. Ferguson

President and CEO, 

TIAA-CREF

Mark T. Gallogly

Co-founder and Managing 

Principal, Centerbridge 

Partners

Joseph T. Hansen

International President, 

UFCW

PRESIDENT’S COUNCIL

ON JOBS AND COMPETITIVENESS

Lewis Hay

Chairman & CEO, 

NextEra Energy

Gary Kelly

Chairman, President and 

CEO, Southwest Airlines

Ellen Kullman

Chair and CEO, DuPont

A.G. Lafley

Former Chairman and CEO, 

Proctor & Gamble

Eric Lander

Director, Broad Institute of 

MIT and Harvard

Monica Lozano

CEO, impreMedia
2011 YEAR-END REPORT THE JOBS COUNCIL 65

PRESIDENT’S COUNCIL

ON JOBS AND COMPETITIVENESS

Jim McNerney

Chairman, President and 

CEO, The Boeing Company

Darlene Miller

President and CEO, 

Permac Industries

Paul Otellini

President and CEO, Intel

Richard D. Parsons

Chairman, Citigroup, Inc.

Antonio M. Perez

Chairman and CEO, 

Eastman Kodak Company

Penny Pritzker

President and CEO, Pritzker 

Realty Group

Brian Roberts

Chairman and CEO, 

Comcast Corporation

Matthew Rose

Chairman and CEO, 

BNSF Railway

Sheryl Sandberg

Chief Operating Officer, 

Facebook

Richard L. Trumka

President, AFL-CIO

Laura D’Andrea Tyson

S.K. and Angela Chan 

Professor of Global 

Management, Haas School 

of Business, UC Berkeley

Robert Wolf

Chairman, UBS Americas

President, UBS Investment 

Bank
66 2011 YEAR-END REPORT THE JOBS COUNCIL

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2. OECD. Education at a Glance, 2011. Chart A1.4. “Countries’ share in the total 25-64 year-old population with tertiary education, percentage 

2009.”

3. National Center for Education Statistics. Program for International Student Assessment. 2009 

4. OECD. Education at a Glance. Table A1.3a “Population with tertiary education.”, 2009

5. Goldman Sachs Global Markets Institute. The New Geography of Innovation. September 2010.

6. Manpower Group. Talent Shortage Survey Results, 2011

7. President’s Economic Recovery Advisory Board. The Report on Tax Reform Options: Simplification, Compliance, and Corporate Taxation. August 

2010.

8. Sunstein, Cass. Final Regulatory Plans Will Save Money and Reduce Waste. OIRA. (http://www.whitehouse.gov/blog/2011/08/23/finalregulatory-reform-plans-will-save-money-reduce-waste).

9. CEIC China Statistical Yearbook; EIA Industrial Electricity Prices.

10. U.S. Energy Information Administration. December 2011 Monthly Energy Review. Dec. 2011. ; figure is for primary energy consumption from 

low-carbon sources. 

11. Pew Environment Group and the Pew Center on the States. Who’s Winning the Clean Energy Race? Growth, Competition, and 

Opportunity in the World’s Largest Economies. G-20 Clean Energy Factbook. 2010.

12. Ibid.

13. US Patent and Trademark Office. Patenting in Technology Classes: Breakout by Geographic Origin. 2010.

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17. Ibid. 

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22. The projected CAGR for STEM degrees awarded between 2010 and 2020 is 0.8%, compared with 4.3% in health, and 1.7% in humanities 

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2011 YEAR-END REPORT THE JOBS COUNCIL 67

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35. Ibid.

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55. Ibid.

56. Ibid. 
68 2011 YEAR-END REPORT THE JOBS COUNCIL

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62. Ibid.

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94. Ibid.

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103. Ibid.

104. Ibid.
2011 YEAR-END REPORT THE JOBS COUNCIL 69

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i. Source: U.S. Department of Education, National Center for Education Statistics, 2009

ii. Press releases and website of the Health Improvement Collaborative of Greater Cincinnati. 

iii. Tom Main and Adrian Slywotzky, “The Quiet Health-Care Revolution,” The Atlantic Monthly, November 2011.

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in America,” The Atlantic Monthly, November 2011. 

v. BMW Spartanburg, S.C., Manufacturing Plant website.

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Research—Moore School of Business at the University of South Carolina, September 2008.

vii. BMW Spartanburg, SC, Manufacturing Plant website.

viii. Jennifer Granholm and Dan Mulhern, A Governor’s Story: The Fight for Jobs and America’s Economic Future, New York: Public Affairs 

(September 20, 2011).
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