Acting Labor Sec’y: ‘We’re Making Good Progress’ — Poor Economic Polls Partially Due to Feeling It’s Been Unfair

On Friday’s broadcast of “CNN News Central,” acting Labor Secretary Julie Su said that “we’re making good progress” on dealing with “the after-effects of the pandemic and the global economic stress that that induced” and part of the reason for poor views of the economy is “people feel like the economy has not been fair for too long.”

Su said, “So, when we talk to the American people about President Biden’s policies, do they want to see more manufacturing jobs in the U.S., do they believe that investments in infrastructure are important, should we be doing things to address the climate crisis? All of those are highly popular. At the same time, we are seeing unions get high positive ratings by the American public at the highest time in decades. So, I think some of this is a reflection of the after-effects of the pandemic and the global economic stress that that induced. People — we’re still coming back from that sense of insecurity, and we’re making good progress. But, to be frank, I think some of this is, people feel like the economy has not been fair for too long. That’s why the president says we have to build an economy from the middle-out and the bottom-up, in which everyone is included. … [I]f you look at the comparison between CEO pay and frontline worker pay, in 1970, CEO pay was something like 20 times higher, today, it’s 300-some times higher, and that feels unfair to people, it doesn’t make them feel good, and we’re doing everything we can to combat it, and I think when we succeed in that, it’s going to make people feel better.”

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