PRESS RELEASE from Obama
Transition Team
FOR
IMMEDATE RELEASE
December
21, 2008
Contact:
Obama Transition Press Office, 202-540-3483
OBAMA TRANSITION
TEAM ANNOUNCES WHITE HOUSE TASK FORCE ON WORKING FAMILIES
President-elect
Obama Taps Vice President-elect Biden to Chair
Washington,
DC –
Today the Obama Transition team announced the President-elect’s
intention to form a ‘White House Task Force on Working Families,’ to be
chaired by Vice President-elect Joe Biden, effective January 20, 2009.
The Task Force will be a major initiative targeted at raising the
living standards of middle-class, working families in America.
The task force will be comprised of top-level administration policy
makers, and in addition to regular meetings, it will conduct outreach
sessions with representatives of labor, business, and the advocacy
communities.
“My
administration will be absolutely committed to the future of America’s
middle-class and working families. They will be front and center
every day in our work in the White House. And this Task Force
will be one vehicle we will use to ensure that we never forget that
commitment. I think it can make a great contribution to our work,
and I’m grateful that the Vice President-elect has agreed to chair it,”
said President-elect Obama.
The
Vice President-elect said: “Our charge is to look at existing and
future policies across the board and use a yard stick to measure how
they are impacting the working and middle-class families: Is the number
of these families growing? Are they prospering?
President-elect Obama and I know the economic health of working
families has eroded, and we intend to turn that around.”
The
Vice President-elect and members of the task force will work with a
wide array of federal agencies that have responsibility for key issues
facing middle class and working families, and expedite administrative
reforms, propose Executive orders, and develop legislative and policy
proposals that can be of special importance to working families.
The
President-elect has set the following goals for the task force:
·
Expanding
education and lifelong training opportunities
·
Improving
work and family balance
·
Restoring
labor standards, including workplace safety
·
Helping
to protect middle-class and working-family incomes
·
Protecting
retirement security
Members
of the White House Task Force on Working Families will include the
Secretaries of Labor, Health and Human Services, Education, and
Commerce, as well as the Directors of the National Economic Council,
the Office of Management and Budget, the Domestic Policy Council, and
the Chair of the Council of Economic Advisors.
The
Task Force will operate in a transparent fashion, with any submissions
to it from outside groups posted online, and open, two-way dialogue
directly with the American people. The Task Force
will issue annual reports on its findings and recommendations, which
will be made available to the public and will be posted on the internet.
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