Janet Yellen:
Well, you said 10 years, and that’s an important proviso.
The spending is spaced out. Over time on an annual basis, it is really an amount that our economy can easily handle. And it will support faster economic growth and higher productivity and address structural problems that have plagued our economy and diminished the well-being of so many families for such a long time.
We’re investing in infrastructure that we badly need to be a productive and competitive society, in research and development, in training, both early childhood education, which will have a huge payoff for children, and in making community college free, affordable for everyone will make our work force more productive, and in supports for working families, not only continuing the child tax credit, but also the expansion that we have in the American Rescue Plan for support for child and dependent care, for paid family leave, supports for health insurance.
These are things that are necessary for families to work. I believe it will promote participation, especially by women, in the labor force. And we have seen female labor force participation fall off relative to many advanced countries where these supports for working families are available.
