Items filtered by date: May 2016

Ahead of the President's speech in Elkhart, here's what you need to know about our economic progress.

Just now in WH press briefing, @PressSec previews @POTUS trip to Elkhart, Indiana - https://t.co/SkdYzWAJH8

— Eric Schultz (@Schultz44) May 31, 2016

Email from President Obama: Elkhart

This evening, President Obama wrote the below message to the White House email list to announce his trip to Elkhart, Indiana on Wednesday, June 1st and reflect on the economic progress we've made in both Elkhart and across the country since he originally visited there in the first weeks of his presidency.

This blog is cross-posted from Energy.gov.

This week, I’m in San Francisco to host the first gathering of global energy ministers since last December’s climate negotiations in Paris. These leaders represent countries that make up 75 percent of global greenhouse gas emissions. The focus of these meetings will be to expand international collaboration in clean energy research, development, demonstration and deployment to combat climate change, drive economic growth, and help ensure energy security.

In this week’s address, President Obama solemnly reflected on the meaning of Memorial Day and recognized the sacrifices made by the American warriors who never made it back home.  Though the President stressed that citizens should thank active-duty troops and veterans every day of the year, he emphasized that Memorial Day is reserved for remembering the unselfish men and women who gave their lives in defense of the nation.

In September 2009, the President announced that—for the first time in history—White House visitor records would be made available to the public on an ongoing basis. Today, the White House releases visitor records that were generated in February 2016. This release brings the total number of records made public by this White House to more than 5.38 million—all of which can be viewed in our Disclosures section.

First-quarter economic growth was revised up 0.3 percentage point to 0.8 percent at an annual rate. Strong growth in residential investment boosted real GDP growth, but weakness in business investment and exports—exacerbated by weak foreign demand and low oil prices—weighed on growth. Consumer spending grew at a moderate pace in the first quarter.

This afternoon, Ashwani Jain, a cancer survivor and Director of Outreach for the Cancer Moonshot Summit, wrote the below message to the White House email list to share how every American can play a part in the Vice President's national effort to advance progress toward a cure.

If you didn't get the email, make sure to sign up for updates.

This evening, President Obama wrote the below message to the White House email list to announce his trip to Elkhart, Indiana on Wednesday, June 1st and reflect on the economic progress we've made in both Elkhart and across the country since he originally visited there in the first weeks of his presidency.

If you didn't get the email, make sure to sign up for updates -- and check back right here for updates on President Obama's trip to Elkhart.

I hope that the time you’ve spent here has given you a sense that you really can make a difference. You can’t transform the world overnight. It’s frustrating. There are setbacks. Progress is incremental. 

And because change is hard, it’s going to be tempting at some point when you’re in the middle of whatever job you’re doing, and things aren’t going exactly the way you want them, and you’ve had some disappointments, to kind of say, ‘you know what? This is all, not worth it, and I just gotta look out for myself.’ The culture sort of pushes you in that direction. But I want you guys to resist it.

You have more capacity, more power in your hands right now, and your prospects for your lives are better right now than they’ve ever been, in the aggregate, on average. And so you’ve got to take advantage of that. That’s because somebody along the way imagined something better, and worked for it, and that’s your job. Ok? Good luck! (Applause)

In this week's address, President Obama discussed one of the single most important steps to help grow middle-class wages – expanding the number of workers who are eligible for the overtime that they have earned. Every week, millions of Americans work more than 40 hours but do not receive the overtime pay they deserve.

“We have a narrow window of opportunity to scale up programs, to figure out how the virus is spreading, to stop it, and to develop a vaccine." Dr. Frieden of the CDC and Dr. Fauci of the NIH explain why Congress needs to pass the President's emergency funding request to combat the Zika virus. go.wh.gov/zika