Labor Secretary On Economic Outlook for Families in 2022

[00:00:00] Speaker 1: Joining me now to continue that conversation is United States Secretary of State, Secretary of Labor, I'm sorry, Marty Walsh. Secretary Walsh, good to see you this morning. Thank you for joining us. [00:00:10] Marty Walsh: Thanks for having me this morning. [00:00:13] Speaker 1: Part of this inflation issue is that we've got a shortage of workers in this country. We've got 11 million job openings roughly and about 8.38 million people available to work. And I'm trying to get a handle on what you think about this. Is this fantastic? Because the shortage of workers means that wages... ...20, or is it terrible because it's causing inflation? [00:00:35] Marty Walsh: I wouldn't say it's fantastic and I wouldn't say it's terrible. I would say that we're living within a pandemic. President Biden inherited lots of problems from the previous administration that he had to deal with. No plan to deal with the pandemic. No plan to deal with supply shortages. No plan to deal with manufacturing problems. And living within a pandemic at the same time. So, certainly, what we're doing now is working with businesses to alleviate the supply chain, creating pre-apprentice programs for trucking, looking at manufacturing and warehousing, looking at all those different issues. The president passed the bipartisan infrastructure law that we're going to be putting money out into the economy. Investments in roads and bridges. Secretary Buttigieg announced a bridge plan the other day. We're working on job training as well. So, I think when you think about... When I think about this economy, obviously, I heard the piece right before I came on. Yeah, there were a lot of challenges and a lot of concerns for the American worker. There's no surprise about that. And I can't sugarcoat that. But at the end of the day, when you look at what President Biden has done in 2021 around economics, around job development and creation, and laying out a plan for 2022 to deal with inflation as well as part of that, that's really important. But we can't go back, and I wish we could, and stop the pandemic, because a lot of these conversations on inflation we wouldn't be having today. [00:01:57] Speaker 1: Right, and I don't know what percentage we wouldn't be having if we didn't have the pandemic-related supply chains and factory closings and things like that. But some of this is labor cost. And, again, I'm stuck on this, because I think that we've struggled for years to try and increase the federal minimum wage and state minimum wages. I mean, it's ridiculous that in some places in this country, people still earn $7.25 an hour. We have raised those wages. In fact, according to the last Bureau of Labor Statistics report, average hourly earnings at the end of December were $26.61 versus $25.15. It doesn't seem like much if you're earning it, but it's an increase in the right direction. That's got to be a good thing, that wages are going up. So how do policymakers like you think about that, that higher wages are good, but they have knock-on effects that are not fantastic for some small businesses and for some consumers? [00:02:51] Marty Walsh: Well, I think the American people have realized during the pandemic, I mean, we thought of grocery store workers. We didn't necessarily always call them essential. And over the last year and a half, they've become essential. And they worked throughout the whole pandemic, and they put their lives on the line in the very early days of the pandemic when there wasn't a lot of masks and there wasn't a lot of still figuring out what's going on with this pandemic. And I think that people don't mind paying more if that money is trickling into the pockets of the workers. When I say that, I know I'm talking about 7% inflation. I'm talking some more money for whether a gallon of milk or a loaf of bread. But I also think that companies need to be very cognizant in the fact that as inflation goes up and as we can put those procedures in place to bring inflation down, it's important that they affect the kitchen table to bring those costs down. And, again, I think that as we go through 2022, we're going to see – I think our inflation number will start to go the other direction. As you said earlier about the dust on the shelf, I'm not sure if it will go back to zero. But certainly, I think if workers are making more money and they're putting more money in the economy and they're able to raise a family and they're able to support their family, I think that that's a very good positive sign. And that's quite honestly what President Biden, when he was running for president, when he talked about Build Back Better, Build Back Better turned into a bill. But what Build Back Better was is making sure people and families have the opportunity to get to the middle class. I want to see more families and we want to see more families in a better financial situation as we move into 2022 than certainly we saw they had it in 2019. [00:04:18] Speaker 1: Secretary, let me ask you about the Supreme Court decision to not uphold the OSHA mandate that caused companies with 100 or more employees to be vaccinated, wear a mask, or get testing. How are you reacting to that and what are you going to do about it? [00:04:32] Marty Walsh: Well, certainly it was very disappointing. You know, we're all disappointed about it. The intention behind that was to keep the American workplace safe. You know, as we're putting this rule together, we talked to medical experts who supported us wholeheartedly, saying it was the right thing to do. We spoke to legal experts who said we had absolutely the right to do it. And on top of it all, what we were doing at the Department of Labor and OSHA was not a mandate. It was a vaccine or testing option for people to get back into business. But we're still going to stay focused on making sure the American workplace is safe. And I've also reached out to companies that might want to institute what we were doing. We're going to help you along the way. We'll help you set up a VAX or testing program so that you can make sure that you can get people back into your workplaces safely. [00:05:18] Speaker 1: Secretary, good to see you as always. Thank you for taking the time to be with us. United States Secretary of Labor, Marty Walsh. We'll see you next time.