The American Jobs Act

The President’s job proposal jump starts our economy.

• incentives for businesses to hire new workers,
• expands jobs through infrastructure programs,
• encourages states to start innovative job creation programs,
• provides a tax break for working Americans and businesses who hire Veterans and the unemployed,
• extends support for workers while they look for work.

Tax Cuts to Help America’s Small Businesses Hire

• Cuts the payroll tax in half for 98 percent of businesses: The President’s plan will cut in half the taxes paid by businesses on their first $5 million in payroll.
• A payroll tax holiday for adding workers or increasing wages: The President’s plan will completely eliminate payroll taxes for firms that increase their payroll by adding new workers or increasing the wages of their current worker (the benefit is capped at the first $50 million in payroll increases).
• Extends business deductions for new investments into 2012: This continues an effective incentive for new business investment.
• Reforms and reduces regulations to help entrepreneurs and small businesses access to funds to expand and grow.

Puts Workers Back on the Job; Rebuilds and Modernizes Essential Infrastructure

• Provides a “Returning Heroes” hiring tax credit for veterans: This provision provides tax credits from $5,600 to $9,600 to encourage the hiring of unemployed veterans.
• Prevents up to 280,000 teacher layoffs, and keeps cops and firefighters on the job.
• Modernizes at least 35,000 public schools across the country, supporting new science labs, Internet-ready classrooms and renovations at schools across the country, in rural and urban areas.
• Creates a bipartisan National Infrastructure Bank, modernizing our roads, rail, airports and waterways while putting hundreds of thousands of workers back on the job.
• A New “Project Rebuild”, which will put people to work rehabilitating homes, businesses and communities, leveraging private capital and scaling land banks and other public-private collaborations.
• Expands access to high-speed wireless as part of a plan for freeing up the nation’s spectrum.

Pathways Back to Work for Americans Looking for Jobs.

• Extends federal long-term unemployment insurance program for another year: Prevents  5 million Americans looking for work from losing their benefits, and creates new innovations:
• Work-Sharing:  Provides support for workers whose employers choose work-sharing over layoffs.
• A new “Bridge to Work” program: Builds on and improves innovative state programs can pursue temporary training or work programs.
• Innovative entrepreneurship and wage insurance programs: States will also be empowered to implement wage insurance to help reemploy older workers and programs that make it easier for unemployed workers to start their own businesses.
• A $4,000 tax credit to employers for hiring long-term unemployed workers.
• Prohibits employers from discriminating against unemployed workers when hiring.
• Expands job opportunities for low-income youth and adults through subsidized employment, training programs and summer/year-round jobs for youth.

Tax Relief for Every American Worker and Family

• Cutting payroll taxes in half for 160 million workers next year: The President’s plan will expand the payroll tax cut passed last year to cut workers payroll taxes in half in 2012 – providing a $1,500 tax cut to the typical American family, without negatively impacting the Social Security Trust Fund.
• Allowing more Americans to refinance their mortgages at today’s near 4 percent interest rates, which can put more than $2,000 a year in a family’s pocket.

Fully Paid for as Part of the President’s Long-Term Deficit Reduction Plan

Source: The White House, September 8, 2011