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Newark Mayor Booker urges Congress to approve proposal

Newark Mayor Cory Booker on Friday joined the mayors of Salt Lake City and Seattle to urge Congress to approve President Obama’s proposed American Jobs Act.

Obama argues the legislation would bolster the stalled economy and create jobs.

The White House detailed the impact it believes the Job Act will have on New Jersey:

Tax Cuts to Help America’s Small Businesses Hire and Grow

• The president’s plan will cut the payroll tax in half to 3.1 percent for employers on the first $5 million in wages, providing broad tax relief to all businesses but targeting it to the 98 percent of firms with wages below this level. In New Jersey, 200,000 firms would receive a payroll tax cut.

Putting Workers Back on the Job While Rebuilding and Modernizing America

• The plan includes $50 billion in immediate investments for highways, transit, rail and aviation, helping to modernize an infrastructure that now receives a grade of “D” from the American Society of Civil Engineers and putting hundreds of thousands of construction workers back on the job. Of the investments for highway and transit modernization projects, the president’s plan will make immediate investments of at least $1,325,100,000 in New Jersey that could support a minimum of approximately 17,200 local jobs.

• The president is proposing to invest $35 billion to prevent layoffs of up to 280,000 teachers, while supporting the hiring of tens of thousands more and keeping cops and firefighters on the job. These funds would help states and localities avoid and reverse layoffs now, and would provide $831,100,000 in funds to New Jersey to support up to 9,300 educator and first responder jobs.

• The president is proposing a $25 billion investment in school infrastructure that would modernize at least 35,000 public schools – investments that will create jobs, while improving classrooms and upgrading our schools to meet 21st century needs. New Jersey would receive $518,600,000 in funding to support as many as 6,700 jobs.

• The president is proposing to invest $15 billion in a national effort to put construction workers on the job rehabilitating and refurbishing hundreds of thousands of vacant and foreclosed homes and businesses. New Jersey could receive about $98,100,000 to revitalize and refurbish local communities, in addition to funds that would be available through a competitive application.

• The president’s plan proposes $5 billion of investments for facilities modernization needs at community colleges. Investment in modernizing community colleges fills a key resource gap, and ensures these local, bedrock education institutions have the facilities and equipment to address current workforce demands in today’s highly technical and growing fields. New Jersey could receive $123,800,000 in funding in the next fiscal year for its community colleges.

Pathways Back to Work for Americans Looking for Jobs

• Drawing on the best ideas of both parties and the most innovative states, the president is proposing reforms to the unemployment insurance (UI) system in 40 years help those without jobs transition to the workplace. This could help put the 216,000 long-term unemployed workers in New Jersey back to work.

• Alongside these changes, the president is reiterating his call to extend unemployment insurance, preventing 104,300 people looking for work in New Jersey from losing their benefits in just the first six weeks. And, across the country, the number saved from losing benefits would triple by the end of the year.

• The president is proposing a new Pathways Back to Work Fund to provide hundreds of thousands of low-income youth and adults with opportunities to work and to achieve needed training in growth industries. Pathways Back to Work could place 3,500 adults and 11,300 youths in jobs in New Jersey.

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