The growth in merchandise exports since President Clinton entered office has been stunning. In 1993, exports grew 4 percent, in 1994, 10.2 percent. This year, exports are up by more than 16 percent. That means growth in good, high wage jobs. In the first three years of this Administration, 1.6 million jobs will have been created by exports.
American workers are in a unique position to make the most of the opportunities in the new economy.
Industrial production is up 12.7 percent compared to minus .4 percent in Japan. Our unemployment rate is 5.7 percent, down from 8 percent at the beginning of the Administration. The economy has created over 7 million jobs and 93 percent of those jobs have been in the private sector. We have dramatically downsized the federal government. We have added 283,000 manufacturing jobs over the last three years.