people who helped create this prosperity aren t feeling it. we can do better. and today is about how we do better. how we make sure we create shared prosperity where workers succeed, businesses succeed, and communities succeed. and secretary, you and i talked about this a lot. it always seemed our minority communities are the ones that are the slowest at seeing growth when there is not great growth, how do we help those communities get a part of the american dream and feel it? through a host of investments. education, my parents, your parents, they talk us education is the great equalizer. that s why the president is so focused on early childhood education and reform. on making higher ed accessible. the latino dropout rate has gone down and is moving in the right direction. investing in skills, making sure
the south over the years outside of our country. in addition to china and technology industry, and so the cheap labor that s only thing is that executives in new york are doing great. but the people out there in america aren t. we have to make it in america and bring jobs home. here s president barack obama s talking a bit in the state of the union about his economic vision. think about the america within our reach. a country that leads the world in educating its people. an america that attracts a new generation of high-tech manufacturing and high paying jobs. a future where we are in control of our own energy. our security and prosperity aren t so tied to unstable parts of the world. an economy built to last for hard work pays off and responsibility is rewarding. we can do this. i know would can because we have done it before.
what is at stake aren t democratic values or republican values but american values. we have to reclaim them. let s remember how we got here. long before the recession, jobs and manufacturing began leaving our shores. technology made businesses more efficient but made some jobs obsolete. folks at the top saw incomes rise like never before. but most hard-working americans struggled with costs that were growing, paychecks that weren t. and personal debt that kept piling up. in 2008, the house of cards collapsed. we learned that mortgages had been sold to people who couldn t afford or understand them. banks made huge bets and bonuses with other people s money. regulators looked the other way.
with a million jobs at stake, i refused to let that happen. in exchange for help, we demanded response built. we got workers and auto workers to settle their differences. got the industry to retool and restructure. today, general motors is back on top as the world s number one automaker. [ applause ] chrysler has grown faster in the u.s. than my major company. ford is investing millions in plants and factories. the entire industry added 160,000 jobs. we bet on american workers. we bet on american ingenuity, tonight the american auto
what is at stake aren t democratic values or republican values but american values. we have to reclaim them. let s remember how we got here. long before the recession, jobs and manufacturing began leaving our shores. technology made businesses more efficient but made some jobs obsolete. folks at the top saw incomes rise like never before. but most hard-working americans struggled with costs that were growing, paychecks that weren t. and personal debt that kept piling up. in 2008, the house of cards collapsed. we learned that mortgages had been sold to people who couldn t afford or understand them. banks made huge bets and bonuses with other people s money. regulators looked the other way.