the best service that we'd want to. some of this has been because of a much higher service volume than we would have expected. some because of the rampup on the in person assistance in communities, licensed agents, certified enrollment counselors, county workers, has been slower than we want. some of it's because we or our health plan partners haven't been as effective as we'd want in providing notices to consumers. so they've needed to call back again and again. for issues we'd rather not to have to call back about. so what have we done? we've done six or seven things to improve customer service now during open enrollment. adding literally hundreds of customer service workers. many of whom will be bilingual. adding self-service tools for consumers. doing e-mail campaigns. following up on consumers that have started enrollment.

improving our web functionality. supporting even better the agents and certified counselors in the field. second, we've been adjusting our marketing. the states had resources to do marketing. in tv, radio, digital. we're actually adjusting some of those strategies as we go into the last two months to have new and expanded placements. in particular, spanish language and target the latino community. but also with a shift of methods. many of the consumers, in particular uninsured, have said they really need more of the details. why is it affordable? what are the benefits? and we're going to be focusing on those messages. as well as focusing on the fact

that we now in california have over 25,000 people in communities to help people enroll sitting across the table. we think this is going to be vital as we go forward. and to communicate those. licensed insurance agents, county workers. it's free and confidential. and these are one of the things these are one of the things we think a lot of people uninsured worry that if they go see someone or cough on something or they're worried about confidentiality issues, we'll be addressing those issues head-on as we pivot in our marketing. finally, on marketing, we'll be telling the story through the voices of people that have gotten insurance and how they benefited. we think that's going to be crucial as we go forward. finally, i would just reiterate a couple other remarks made by my colleagues, which is rather than talk about open enrollment in a year, and we're already thinking about that, as susan cued up, i think the exciting thing is we're at now we need to be thinking about it's not just

about coverage, it's about health care. we're spending a lot of time working with the health plans to make sure that people enroll, get access to needed care when they need it, and the services that they are covered for. and we're looking forward to turning our attention not just to coverage, but to right care, right time, and a cost effective manner and that's the next place we're going to be turning our attention to. thank you very much and look forward to taking questions. >> great. well thanks so much to all of you. i think what you've heard is a series of common themes. everyone faced some aspect of health i.t. challenge. some more successfully than others. you heard from audrey the shout-out to the team they had the deloitte and also drawing on the experience of the state's medicaid department in standing up i.t. systems. but you heard, again, across the board a common theme in i.t. you also heard a common theme in sort of understanding the

customer. and what the particular different sets of customers needs and desires were. both in terms of functionality of websites, you heard mila talk about people wanting to be able to reset their usernames if they forgot it like most of us always do. et cetera. so common themes of finding out, learning as they go, about the challenges that arise, and adapting to them. and essentially, of very clear story here that these challenges can be overcome, and surmounted, and that a lot of people are in the end getting coverage as a result. so with that, let me take the moderator's prerogative to just ask one quick question and then we'd like to open it up to all of you here in the audience. want to come back to christy's statement that one of the learnings here has been that there still are issues in the actual law, the underlying law, that preclude the smooth enrollment of individuals and families. i'd like to ask you, christy, just to briefly expand on that.

what are the issues that you're identifying that in a perfect world congress and others would come back to, and revisit in potentially new legislation? >> there are numerous issues that relate to the back and forth between people who are on the cusp of medicaid and the tax credit. and some of the ways that they get stuck on either side of that. the affordability standard is based on an individual, and this is -- this is what will qualify somebody from getting a tax credit, if they're -- if they have access to employer based coverage. the problem is that they have access to employer-based coverage, and the affordability standard is based on the individual, not the family cost. which doesn't have the same kind

of employer subsidy. and so that -- that affordability standard excludes the family from accessing a tax credit that otherwise they would access. and then there are a number of other issues not so much related to eligibility, but related to how this is -- how the small business side of this works. and some -- there are some areas where i think it could be -- it could be made more effective for small businesses. so, i'll leave it at that. >> and just briefly, are others of you finding that? mila? >> so the biggest issue for us is identity proofing. if you are young and you don't have a credit history. if you were not born here, born somewhere else, or if you're --

if you were in a traditional family where the wife, in most cases, didn't work, and didn't have credit history in her own name, and is now divorced, it's very difficult to get through identity proofing instantly. so what we have to do essentially is, in person, verify that you are who you say you are. and so that is one of the biggest obstacles for us. i believe that we're losing many clients, many consumers, who, if they can't do everything online instantly, then they're not going to go to one of our service centers to in-person prove who they are. so that is at the top of my wish list to fix. >> okay, great. and now we'd love to open it up to those of you in the audience with questions. i'd ask you just to identify yourselves by name and affiliation for the benefit of our panelists. we'll start here with julia. >> hi, i'm julia appleby with kaiser health news. there's been a lot of talk in

the last week or so about whether we know if the folks signing up had insurance previously or not. and i know that's a difficult question to answer. but are any of you tracking that? and do we have a way to track that? and what do we know about that? >> actually, we started having these discussions about a month ago, and we're beginning to discuss with our department of insurance, as well as the insurance carriers that are participating with us, about how we track this. some of our insurance carriers do, and maybe one doesn't. so, we have been thinking about the same thing, because we want to get a clear picture. a lot of people can't afford insurance without the tax credit, and they have absolutely -- i mean, they can just go directly to an agent or to a carrier that they know and they're familiar with and they're not dealing with the exchange. so, we know that the numbers of people that are getting insurance for the first time possibly, or a better rate for

insurance now going privately without the exchange is much higher than our overall numbers reflect. we just don't know how much. >> and i can add, so we have anecdotal self-reported information from our in-person assisters, about 50% of the people they help do not have any kind of health insurance whatsoever. we do not collect uninsured status at the time the application is done online. it's not one of the questions. our plan is, after open enrollment finishes, we will do a survey of all consumers who are enrolled through the -- through the individual marketplace in qualified health plans to find out their insured status before they enroll. we'll also be asking other questions like if they had coverage, did it work for them, did it cover their medical needs, pre-x conditions, that sort of things. we'll also be asking them what

motivated them to get insured, whether it was a tax penalty or something else. so we'll have a lot of information based on a survey we plan to do. >> i could tell you that one of the most interesting moments that i had in the past couple of months was at the moment that i realized there wasn't a clear question in all of the -- in all of the eligibility and enrollment, and date that that we have which is massive, there wasn't a clear question. there are a couple of proxies that we can use, and we're developing that information, and there's some reports we can pull from the system, where we'll probably do a survey, as well. but we're looking immediately at putting that question in. >> okay. great. >> same for california. >> oh, sorry, peter, you want to speak to that? >> we're in the same boat. >> okay. great.

>> from npr, one of the biggest glitches that i see popping up these days are people who are sort of incorrectly being sort of adjudicated into medicaid, and then being -- who clearly don't qualify for medicaid, then they can't seem to get out and buy an exchange plan until they get a denial from medicaid and i guess medicaid in many states is just so backed up that it can take weeks and weeks and weeks to get that denial from medicaid, and in the meantime they can't go ahead and buy an exchange plan. is that something that you have ways of dealing with? i don't know if this is happening in any of our states, or if you know of this problem, but i'm getting now, tens, if not dozens of letters of this same thing happening in multiple states, where people are wrongly being told, you qualify for medicaid when they clearly don't. >> there are actually two components to this question that are interesting one is that there are people who may qualify for medicaid who don't want to

enroll in medicaid and would rather buy a private plan. or their kids are getting put into medicaid, and there's -- so that's another piece of the law that needs to be fixed. because people should be allowed to do that. the second component is the interaction between medicaid and the tax credit piece, and people getting caught. and i think all -- i won't speak for my colleagues, but my understanding is that many of the states are seeing that. we -- the state base exchanges, in general, can be much more nimble when things like that happen. in the federal exchanges, they can't be. so we're -- we are absolutely taking those cases and working them through as quickly as possible. there are certainly wait times that i don't think ultimately are acceptable.

but, -- but that's -- that's being cleaned up. this is another one of those things that needs to be fixed and we need to have a 4ri bit more flexibility in how we can fix it. >> we've also had the issue of a person qualifies for medicaid, but does not want mid cade. it's not a large portion, i think, i am aware of less than 50 cases. but, the bottom line is if that person doesn't take medicaid the person cannot receive tax credits. so in the 50 or so cases, we manually deleted the original application from our system, and that enabled the consumer to complete the short form, which is full-price coverage, and that's how those folks were able to enroll. but essentially, that is not something i expected to see that

when folks qualify for the very comprehensive public program we have, the assumption initially was that they would get enrolled. >> what do you all think is causing that? is it the stigma that some people continue to perceive of medicaid? >> personally, i think that we have seen this with younger individuals, maybe. that there is a stigma, they've grown up in middle to upper-class families. they've gotten out of college, they don't have a job. so maybe they still qualify for their -- to be on their family plan, they just haven't been added, so there's still confusion in that. one of the things i would like to add to that, though, is there is an impression that you can just choose medicaid. that's completely incorrect. i'm sure that's not the way it is in rhode island or in the district or in california, you just can't go on and press a button and say, i choose

medicaid. so at least in kentucky, you fill out the information, and if you qualify for medicaid by the information you have put in and that we have been able to verify then that's how you are afforded an opportunity to sign up for medicaid. but to kind of build on what christine has said, there is a process by which that if you have incorrectly enrolled, you don't choose to enroll, it's an unfortunate thing, and most of these i bet were all working manually when people call, but you know, there is a process that the federal government requires us, we send people information to get more information, from them, to try to confirm identity, or confirm their salaries, or whatever, and so there is a process by which time it takes to get you

unenrolled. it is but it's not instant. >> so here's -- i hesitate to do this, but, i have no self-restraint on this issue. one of the core problems with the way that we developed this and the implementation of it, is the focus was on the eligibility and enrollment system as the thing that solved all problems. the reality is, that when you go in to buying a product or looking at -- looking at a range of products, you get a lot of information before you get to the point where you actually sign up and buy. that component was not as focused on by the -- by the federal requirements, by the systems folks. so many of us have websites that

were wrapped around or loaded on top of that system that allow -- that allow people to look at those things. but they're not anywhere near as sophisticated or developed, i think, at least in our case, as i would like them to be. so that people can draw those conclusions, have 80% of the information that would give them an 80% clue that they were eligible for this, or that they would get this kind of tax credit or that they were in a small business or that medicaid might be an option. and from that information, once they go in to the enrollment system, if something's not matching up, that's what customer service is about. that's what our ability to move should be about. and that's where i think you're going to see many of us really put a lot more effort, and we're urging and encouraging the -- at the federal level, the help that we're getting from the robert

wood johnson foundation, and others is critical in making that wraparound happen. so that's essential. >> great. let's see i think there was a question here. let's get a mic over to him. >> thanks. know up leave very with the los angeles times. i wonder if you all could talk a little bit about what kind of feedback you're getting from the carriers on your various marketplaces about their plans for next year, potentially carriers who are not in your market place who may be expressing interest in joining or the converse if you're hearing anything. >> i can answer pretty quickly yes, yes, and yes. in kentucky we have a small group of carriers involved in the individual plans. we only have three in one of them, humana had a much more -- a smaller area to choose from.

they're not completely statewide. anthem, on the other hand, they -- they made some adjustments to sort of narrow their provider network, and then we have a federally -- one of the co-ops in kentucky, and so we had a small -- a rather smaller insurance market than many have, such as the district, or california. i know i'm not sure about rhode island, christine. but we have a smaller market to start with. so we have heard from our managed care plans that are owned by larger carriers, we've heard that they want to come in the market. we have a great relationship with our insurance carriers because it's a small group of people, we talk to them regularly. some of them have talked to us about some mistakes that they made, and from the beginning maybe in their network, or their -- going statewide or just a certain area, very quickly, so

they, too, have been evaluating this all along. so we expect our number of carriers to certainly grow and our networks to become more robust. >> others of you want to comment on that? >> i have two components to the answer. one is, yes, we are definitely in conversations with other carriers and to come in. and i think we'll be successful with that. the carriers have been fantastic to work with in rhode island. all of them have really stepped up in great ways. because this is a complicated exchange. but i want to point out that there's some -- another interesting component that's happening in the marketplace. there are three streams. there's the medicaid stream. there's the tax credit for individuals stream. and then there's the small employer stream. and recently both two of our carriers, one of which is a

national for-profit entity, and the other which is a nonprofit, announced the formation of, and i hear that imitation is the sincerest form of flattery, so i'm actually, i'm happy that this gives us a chance to talk about this. but they've both announced that they're going to do private exchanges within their own carrier health plans, for businesses. and i think that part of that is because carriers are nervous about what full employee choice, where employees can choose between carriers, real competition on the consumer level, as opposed as on the business-to-business side. that's raising some interesting dynamics, and it really will give us to this question about transparency, and competition, and consumer-based work. and i'm -- i'm delighted to have

that conversation. but that's the interesting -- you got to look at all three streams. they're very different interactions. >> and i would just add -- >> peter -- >> hang on just a sec, we're going to get to you. mila will start and then we'll come to you. >> all right, thank you. >> so out of the gate in the district, we had all of the carriers who were in the commercial market on the individual side and the small group side. in fact, i think one of our carriers is -- we're the only jurisdiction where they're participating both on the small group exchange marketplace, and the individual marketplace. so we were very pleased early on. we built a carrier portal to make it as easy as possible to load their products and rates into our portal. we had a lot of testing with the carriers. we worked very closely with each of them. each company is in a different place when it comes to how

sophisticated their i.t. side is. over the years, different insurers have invested different amounts into their own i.t. so our approach from the start was we're realistic, pragmatic, just tell us where you are and we'll work with each of you in a different way and that's what we did. so we also have an excellent relationship with all of our carrier carriers and i have to thank them publicly. on the individual side, two of the carriers allowing consumers until february 15th to pay their january 1st coverage bill, which is pretty remarkable. and so, there's a lot of there's as i very close relationship around the 834s as well as the 820s. >> 999s. >> just to clarify these are all different forms that have to be

shifted back and forth to control. >> way more than anybody wants to know but it's essential. >> so the bottom line is, we're in the same boat -- we at the marketplace, we're in the same boat as the carriers, all of this is new, and the goal is to work with each one, and just get it done for the consumer. and i do hope that any carrier not in the marketplace that wants to come in to the district, they're welcome, and i will work with every carrier who wants to come in. >> we just want to give peter lee a chance to comment on this question, as well. peter? >> yeah, somewhat different philosophy. we actually told the plans a year ago that if they wanted to be part of the individual marketplace, to step up and play first year around and not stand by the sidelines. we're not letting plans that were not previously in the marketplace come in next year. the plans that are in want to stay. the one exception is medical

plans, plans in the medicaid market can potentially come in, obviously medi-cal extension is a big deal. all of the plans with covered california are really recognizing that this is a long-term play, and are looking at things like benefit design. how do we improve the benefits? but really how do we learn what's happening over the first two years to do then substantial benefit design changes not next year but the year after? so the plans are recognizing with us that this is not a short-term play. but rather one that we need to actually base our growth, and changes for consumers based on information. >> peter just a quick question about narrow networks as we heard from audrey in kentucky there's a sense that maybe the networks were too narrow. >> for some. >> at least for some of the carriers. and this has obviously been a controversial question across much of the country. what is likely to happen in california? do you think carriers next year

will go back to expanding their networks, or are they essentially wanting to plow ahead with a strategy of having narrow networks, agreeing on pricing, and high quality, and attempting to give people the best possible value for their money, as they enroll in coverage? >> well, a couple things. one, you know, across california, almost 60,000 doctors are in one or more than one of the health plans that are contracted with covered california. that's a substantial majority of the doctors. the question is, or the reality is, every doctor is not in every health plan. and we've made sure that every health plan has enough doctors, hospitals, nurses, to serve everyone that enrolls. and it's really going to be our job to make sure that that reality comes true for consumers. the second part of our job and i think this cuts across all of our exchanges around the country is that consumers understand the

implication of their choices. so having physician directories, and improving those directories over time, as we've seen in this last month, consumers say, well, i went to my doctor, who's in the directory, and they don't think they're part of the network. some of the doctors don't understand that there isn't necessarily a separate covered california network, rather they're part of the anthem individual product network and that's it. so those are some of the issues we're going to be focusing a lot on, and assuring adequacy. i don't know that any of the plans are relooking at their strategies overall. >> this is also fundamentally why state-based exchanges can be so much more effective than a federal -- a federal completely federally run system. because, every state has a different market. so in our state, for example, the private -- the plans, the

commercial plans that we're offering have extensive networks. everybody's covered pretty much. and so the question now is, how do you provide incentives to, and to rethink how you get really good integrated and innovative new products into the market, with full employee choice as a core component of that, so that the individuals making the choice and not the employer on behalf of the individual, and so that they have the kind of information and metrics in terms of work productivity trends, and quality trends that matter to individuals that are making choices. and that transparency. it's a completely different conversation, it's not -- you started with narrow networks because of geographic issues or limitations in terms of how you were able to bring plans in. but, a completely different

conversation in rhode island. so each of us is going to come at it from a slightly different perspective in terms of getting those innovative products online. but it's one of the reasons why the states, like ours, who chose to go the direction of the state-based exchange, are really going to be able to use this investment very, very effectively to be a catalyst for the overall change that needs to take place in the health care system. >> and susan, i know we're wrapping up here but i just really want to underscore that. what christine said, and the differences, and the importance of the state-based exchanges. it is so important, and you know, we you are state-based, when our governor announced that we were going to go the state-based exchange route, what he said then couldn't be more true today. which is he was making the decision to do this state-based, even though it was not the politically more popular decision, however, he was doing

it because he felt as though we knew our insurance market best, we have the personal and professional relationships with those carriers that most of them have been in our state for a long time, and they better understand our state, our demographics, and the market, and it is better for our people, whether it's medicaid, or whether it's in the private insurance market, you're really looking out for the consumer in a much more intimate way through the state-based exchanges, and we're so much more nimble. as mila had said so many of these individuals that somehow i call it, they're stuck in i.t. cyberspace somewhere, they're stuck, you know, somehow their information is not connecting up, that's a great example of same thing in kentucky. we've had a few of those. and literally, they are worked by hand between our exchange staff an

that's not something you get any much larger system. others who did not choose the state-based exchange will see this as a real consumer success story for their constituents and their voters and citizens within their state, to help them get better coverage. that's a perfect place to and because it encapsulates several themes. this has been a major learning process. processeen a learning particularly at the state level in states who now have the opportunity to make enormous differences in the health care delivery system going forward, on the basis now have a much greater understanding of what consumers are going to want, what kinds of tools will need to be made available to consumers, and how all of this can be brought to bear on effectuating

the ultimate goals of the affordable care act, which is to create an affordable and sustainable health care system over time. moret to say thanks once to peter liu joined us from covered california. christy ferguson from the rhode island exchange. haynes, as well as heather howard. thanks to all of you for joining us today, and we look forward to seeing you at our next reporters' roundtable. [captioning performed by the national captioning institute] [captions copyright national cable satellite corp. 2014] >> taking a look at our primetime schedule. at 8:00 eastern, another chance to see officials and experts discuss health care state insurance exchanges. onte of the state addresses c-span two. the center for strategic and international studies holding a

discussion on the upcoming winter olympics in sochi, russia . tonight, a conversation with the president and ceo of the mayo clinic. he discusses his thoughts on the u.s. health care system after attending this week's state of the union. atch that interview tonight 9:20 eastern here on c-span. >> we are very focused on the sochi olympics and we have seen an uptick and threat reporting regarding sochi and this is what we expected given where the topics are located. there are a number of extremists in that area, and in particular a group that is probably the most prominent terrorist group in russia. lasteader of that group july announced in a public message that the group would

intend to carry out attacks in sochi in connection with the olympics. we have seen a number of attacks stemming from last fall, suicide bombings that took a number of lives. the tourists are becoming more sophisticated and going to school on the repeated disclosures and leaks. it has allowed them to berlin and made it much more difficult for us to find them and to address the threats they pose -- in and made burrow it much more difficult for us to find them and to address the threats we pose. you never know what you don't know. >> the probability of attack now at least for me is a hard question to answer, principally because this

dispersion and diffusion of the threat, whereas we are very focused initially and particularly in that time period on al qaeda. now we're facing a much more dispersed threat. >> this weekend, the nation's top intelligence chiefs on worldwide security threats. saturday morning at 10:00 a.m. eastern. your calls and comments for the women's studies professor bonnie tv's "in-noon on book depth." for the-span3, confederate winter quarters. sunday evening at 7:00. earlier today president obama spoke about ways to help the long-term unemployed get jobs. he announced the labor department would soon launch a $150 million ready to work grant

initiative that would support partnerships with nonprofits and businesses helping to place the unemployed. this is 20 minutes. [applause] >> good morning. my name is erick. it is a great honor for me to be here at the white house today with the president and vice president, especially since, three years ago, i was unemployed and homeless. i am very happy to report that my story has a happy ending, but for a long time, my path forward was very unclear. i spent six years in the united states army where i proudly served my country as a combat infantryman. work was hard, the hours long, and the duty was dangerous. after my honorable discharge from the military in 2008, i returned home from california to begin a new life with my wife and daughter but was quickly met with the realization that there was no work for a skilled heavy equipment operator and i was struggling to make the transition to a new career.

i cannot find work in the construction industry, so i started to apply for fast food restaurants and retail stores. with no luck, i was motivated to work and i wanted to work, and i knew i could contribute to society like i had in my military service, but i felt helpless, lost, and more importantly, a disappointment and failure to my family. i was very fortunate to find online a new program started by pacific gas & electric company in california called the power pathway program that offered job training and skills to people who had no experience in the utility industry. i quickly applied and was accepted into a 16-week program in san francisco and i'm happy to share that i graduated the pg&e power pathway program in 2009 and was hired in 2010, where i currently work as an

apprentice electrician in eureka, california. i want to thank pg&e for giving me this opportunity, and the work they provided me restore purpose in my life and gave me a sense of direction once again. i am glad that pg&e is expanding the power pathway program to address long-term unemployment and for signing on the president's initiative. let me end my remarks by thanking president obama for bringing companies together to help find work for thousands of americans who only want the opportunity to succeed. now it is my honor to introduce the president of the united states, barack obama. [applause] >> thank you. thank you so much.

thank you, everybody. first of all, let me thank erick for being here and sharing his story for his service to our country. erick, everyone recognizes what a great success story this is, but also the notion that someone with this kind of skill and talent was having this kind of difficulty finding a job indicates the challenges we face. i want to thank all of you, business leaders, philanthropists, elected officials, all members of my cabinet and administration, not only for coming, but for committing to more success stories for more people like erick, making sure that everyone in this country who wants to

work has a chance to get ahead, not just a paycheck, and the structure that a job provides to people. i said in a state of the union, while the economy is getting stronger, businesses like yours have created 8 million new jobs in the past four years. unemployment is at the lowest it has been in five years. we all know we have more to do to build an economy where everybody who is willing to work hard and take responsibility can get ahead. we have to do more to restore opportunity for every american. the opportunity agenda i laid out begins with doing everything we can to create new jobs here in america, jobs in construction and manufacturing, american innovation and energy, steps we can take to streamline our tax code, incentivize companies to invest here, things we can do to

make sure that we are continuing to lead the world in innovation and basic research. we have a whole lot of infrastructure we can build that can put people to work right away. we have a couple trillion dollars worth of deferred maintenance in america and the ramifications of us taking that on would be significant. we have to roll faster and put more shoulders behind the wheel of expanding economic growth. step two is making sure every american has the skills to fill those jobs. step three is we have to guarantee every child access to a world-class education, from early childhood, to college, to a career. [applause] step four, we have to make sure the hard work pays off, with wages you can live on, savings

that you can retire on, health insurance there when you need it. today we are here to focus on that second point, connecting more ready to work americans with ready to be filled jobs, so folks out of work can apply the skills they have already got. getting people back on the job faster is one of our top priorities, but i have to confess, last month, congress made that harder by letting unemployed insurance expired for more than a million people. each week congress fails to restore that insurance, roughly 72 million americans will lose their lifeline. for our fellow americans that have been laid off through no fault of their own, unemployment insurance is often the only source of income they have got while they look for a new job. when erick was out of work, it is a lot harder to look for work if you cannot put gas in the gas

tank. if you are worried about whether there is food on the table for your kids. if mom is not making the rent and paying her phone bill, it is a lot harder for her to follow up with a potential employer. unemployment insurance offers that security so that losing your livelihood does not mean that you lose everything you worked so hard to build. that is true whether you have been out of work one month or six months, but those that have been unemployed the longest often have the toughest time getting back to work. it is a cruel catch-22. the longer you are unemployed, the more unemployable you may seem. this is an illusion, but one that unfortunately we know statistically is happening out there. according to one study, if you have been out of work eight months, you are likely to get

called back for an interview only about half as often as if you were out of work one month, even with the identical resume. so we are here tonight to say that is not right. we know there are folks like erick all across the country who have enormous skills and talent and capacity, but they need a change. i invited a mother of two boys to my speech. she was employed since college, never collected on implement -- unemployment benefits, never dependent on the government. when she lost her job to budget cuts, she could not find another and turn to unemployment insurance to make sure she and her husband could keep the new home they just spend their life savings to buy. as i said on tuesday, she wrote to me and said i am confident i will find a job. i will pay our taxes and raise our kids in the home that we

purchased in the community we love. please give us this chance. i thought that spoke for so many americans out there, just give us a chance. they are our neighbors, friends, young and old, black and white, men and women, phd's and ged's. interestingly, the long-term unemployed are often times slightly better educated, in some cases better qualified, then folks who just lost their job. just because you have been out of work for a while does not mean that you are not a hard worker. it just means you have bad luck or were in the wrong industry or lived in a region of the country that is catching up a little slower than others in the recovery. i have heard from too many of these folks that show up early -- they will outwork anybody.

they fill out 200 applications, sending out resumes, still finding time to volunteer in their community or at a church. sometimes they have more education or skill then newly employed americans, but they just need a chance. someone that will look past that stretch of unemployment, put it into context of the fact that we went through the worst financial and economic crisis in our lifetimes, which created a group of folks who have to work longer than normal. -- were unemployed longer than normal. they just need employers to realize it does not reflect on their ability or their value. it just means they have been dealing with the aftermath of this really tough job market. all they need is a fair shot. and with that shot, and out of work young person can get the critical experience he needs to improve his employment prospects for the rest of his life. with that shot, someone with decades of experience could show

someone with less experience the ropes. that is what today is all about. we really do not have an alternative because giving up on the unemployed will create a drag on our economy that we cannot tolerate. giving up on any american is something that america cannot do. erick made an important point in his remarks. often times, folks, no matter how skilled or confident you are, you get discouraged, and that affects people's physical health, it affects their mental health, and over time, you can have a negative feedback where it becomes harder and harder for folks to get back in the game because they are getting so many discouraging messages. that can have long-term impact, particularly, if it is early on in a young person's career.

so while congress decides whether or not it will extend unemployment insurance for these americans, we are going to go ahead and act. we know it works. we're going to go ahead and see what we can do without additional legislation to make some serious dents in the long -term unemployment problem. we know what works for employers and employees alike. i spoke on tuesday about the head of the detroit manufacturing system. she was with us at the state of the union, sitting with first lady. when she was staffing her factory she worked with the local american jobs centers, early funded, to hire people that were out of a job but ready to work. on average, they were out of work for 18 months. today she says they are some of her best employees. greg is here today. greg has been working in sales for 30 years when he lost a job

in december 2011 for the first time in his life, found himself struggling to capitalize on decades of work experience. after months of pounding the pavement, greg's unemployment insurance ran out, and began, as erick described, started to feel hopeless and useless. then last year he got hooked up with a program called skills for chicagoland's future, thanks to the work of our secretary of commerce and my former chief of staff rahm emanuel, and so this intermediary trains folks like greg with the skills they need to be employed in a local company. two weeks later, he was back on the job helping people get signed up for health insurance they need. he said it made him feel relevant again, like i have something to offer. so today, more than 80 of the

nations largest businesses, over 200 medium and small sized businesses, are now making their commitment to set best practices like greg and misty and erick, can access, and feel as if they can have a partner in getting back on the job, making the contributions that we know they can make. so i want to thank all the companies who have made this commitment. [applause] with the support of andrew and ursula burns chairing the business council, randall stephenson of the business roundtable, the society for human resource management, we have engaged in companies all around the country, including

here today, to commit to inclusive hiring policies, for making sure screening practices do not disadvantage folks that have been out of work, to expand the open door policy that encourages all qualified applicants, and of course, it is only right the federal government lead by example. today i am directing every federal agency to make sure we are evaluating candidates on the level, without regard to their employment history. because every job applicant deserves a fair shot. i just had a chance to meet with some of the ceo's who are making these commitments. some of them are already participating with what is going on in chicago. they have some great ideas of what works. one of the things we will need to look at is the impact of credit histories on the long- term unemployed.

if you have been out of work 18 months, you may have missed some bills. that cannot be a barrier of entry to you getting to work so that you can pay the bills. unfortunately, we are setting up, in some cases, perverse incentives and barriers, but in some cases, what i heard was, just pay attention to this. let's see if we are doing everything we can to look at every candidate on the merits. i was really grateful to all of them for stepping up in this way. i am confident that as a consequence of what we did, we will see progress across the country. going back to greg, his life was turned around because of a partnership, not just because he got a fair shot, but because he had advocates that helped him earn the skilled than he needed to land a job that made sense for him.

that is why we are excited to have programs like chicagoland's future platform to implement, and many others are presented in the room. as important as it is for the businesses to make this commitment, it is great to have these intermediaries and on -- nonprofits who are also able to show success, even with folks who have been out of work for a long time. my administration will partner with the business community and the nonprofit sector. i have asked joe biden to lead an across-the-board reform of all of our training programs, working with secretary of labor tom perez, secretary of commerce penny pritzker, to make sure our job training programs have a single mission. train americans with the skills employers need, and then match them to the good jobs that need to be filled right now. [applause] that is what we have to prioritize.

today, i am announcing that the department of labor will put forward $150 million in the ready to work partnership competition, to support more partnerships that we know work. innovative collaboration between local governments, major employers, nonprofits, all designed to help workers get the steel they needed to build bridges to the jobs required. even though the economy is getting stronger, it will not be enough until those gains translate enough into better opportunities for ordinary folks like erick, who have skills and the desire, just need a chance. we are going to keep knocking down barriers to reemployment so more of the nearly 4 million long-term unemployed americans can regain the stability and security that a good job brings their families. and by the way so they have more money to spend on local businesses, which will lift the entire economy up, creating a

virtuous cycle, instead of a negative one. we will keep encouraging employers to welcome all applicants. you never know who will have the next great idea to grow your business. we will keep building ladders so that every american can join the middle class. we are stronger as i said on tuesday when america feels a full team. i want to thank you for the business commitments, the nonprofits here for the work you are doing on the ground. we are going to scale this up and make it happen. most of all, i want to thank erick and some of the other folks that have experienced success. before we came out here, i said, when folks see him doing well, that gives them hope, and it reminds us that we cannot afford to let such incredible talent be wasting away. we have to get those folks back

in the game. that is what i am committed to doing and i know joe is as well. thank you. i am going to sign the federal commitment. after this, i think you guys still have some more work to do. [laughter] [applause] >> there we go. [applause] [captioning performed by the national captioning institute]

[captions copyright national cable satellite corp. 2014] join the conversation by twitter and facebook. here is a look at our primetime schedule on the c-span networks. at 8:00 eastern on c-span, officials and experts discuss health care state insurance exchanges. on c-span2, state of the state addresses. the center for strategic and international studies hosting a discussion on the upcoming winter x in sochi, sochi,-- olympics in russia. tonight, a conversation with the president and ceo of the mayo clinic.

he discusses his thoughts on the u.s. health-care system after attending this week's state of .he union addresses watched that interview at 9:20 tonight here on c-span. watch our program on first lady hillary clinton saturday at 7:00 p.m. on c-span and live monday night, our series continues. the whole time i was in the hospital, not injured, really. i had a cut on my leg and broken ankle. i was praying that the other ,erson in the car would be ok and the other person in the car was one of my best friends. i did not really recognize that at the site of the crash. because i played it over and over -- prayed over and over for thought, god was

not listening. my prayer was not answered. i went through a long time of not believing and not believing that prayers could be answered. it took me a long time, and a lot of growing up to come back to faith. >> first lady laura bush, monday night at 9:00 p.m. eastern. next, white house council of economic advisors jason furman. 2014 economic the outlook, and president obama's goals outlined in the state of union. he spoke earlier at the christian science monitor for about an

>> thank you all for coming. our guest is jason furman. our is his first visit with group although we have been honored to address a number of his right assessors starting with herbert stein. this came into 1996 during the clinton administration when he was still a graduate student at harvard and was hired as a staff economist to counsel. since then he has served as the cheap condiments of the world bank, a special adviser to president clinton for economic policy, and a senior fellow at economic study and drafter of the hamilton product at brookings. he is earned three degrees including one from harvard. he has been a visiting scholar at nyu. at yellsiting lecturer and columbia.

deputythe principal director of the national economic council before being named to his current post in june of last year. no introduction will be complete without the obligatory mention of our guest youthful ability to earn money on the streets of new york. great training for spending your life is rising about tough economic choices. that is the end of the biographical portion. we are on the record here. no live blogging or tweeting or while breakfast.ghtin if you would like to ask the question, these send me a subtle, nonthreatening signal and i will happily call on one and all. let me offer the guests to make some opening comments and then we will open to questions from around the table. thank you for doing this.

>> thank you so much for having me and for the long tradition of this brick this. i want to talk very briefly about where we are in the economy and where we are in economic policy. theerday we got gdp for fourth quarter of 2013. a group at 3.2% that followed a strong third-quarter and event that for the four quarters of 2000 13 as a whole the economy expanded at a 2.7% rate. that was the fastest rate in three years. one of the important things to understand about the economy in 2013 was that it was with the sequester. it subtracted from growth. with the shutdown which subtracted from growth and with other fiscal drags for things tax.the payroll

if you look at just the private component of gdp in 2013, they at a substantially faster rate, the fastest rate in a decade. that is important. as we look to 2014, we think drag is mostly behind us. the budget agreement in december is a substantial portion of the sequester. policy and aiscal much more neutral stance. job andess does its sends the president a debt limit without ransom or hostage taking, then we will be in a position that if the private sector can repeat what it did in 2013 that we could have strong

growth, but usually stronger growth, -- potentially stronger growth in 2014. that theme time economy is picking up, we continue to have a number of challenges. run cyclical challenges and longer run shoretel challenges. probably our biggest short run cyclical challenge is long-term unemployment. if you look at what is happened to the unemployment rate, it has come down from 10 to 6.7%. one point two percent reduction. it has come down very steadily. the entire elevation in the unemployment rate is now due to the long-term unemployed. is 2.5%.loyment rate

it has more than doubled them what it was generally prior to the great recession. the president today at the white house is having a group of ceos, foundations, and long-term workers over to illustrate just what you can do with his phone and with his pen to a deal with our economic challenges. over 300 companies have signed a best practices in hiring the long-term unemployed. that is the phone mobilizing all of the companies. we found would hundred $50 million that can be used to challenge competition for best practices in dealing with the long-term unemployed. that is something the president can do. then we have about 10 foundations that have made a range of specific, tangible commitments to do things they would not otherwise have done. that again is the phone.

that is an example of how the president is putting what he talked about in the state of the aion into action to deal with short run cyclical problem. our longer run structural problems is the challenges we face in terms of opportunity for american workers. you have seen several things the president has done in that regard including announcing that he would be giving a pay raise to federal contractors as the new contracts come online, r.a.lishing my are a -- my accounts through the treasuries and finally a revamp of skills and training. this builds on the strength of the economy we have. it deals with the outstanding challenges that we still need to make progress on. so. >> thanks for doing that.

let me just picked up on what you are saying about the ex for a better economy coming along. aey expect a growth of about 3% pace, accelerating to about 4%. does that sound reasonable to you? budget comes out we will have a new forecast for 2014. and 2015. there are aking, lot of things that are unpredictable in the economy. there is always a lot of risks. they're constantly reminded of event and the rest of the world can have a big impact on the u.s. economy. the thing thatg, is the most predictable right now is the fiscal policy. last year we cut the deficit by 2.7% of gdp in a single year. it was a big headwind for the economy. the private sector muscled through. in 2014 we will not have

anything resembling that deficit reduction. we will continue to see the deficit coming down and to be stabilizing the debt. we will be in a much less construction very -- contractionary stance. >> 2015 as well? >> 2015 as well. in terms of the private sector of our economy, housing. we saw that decline in the fourth quarter after several years of increase in residential investment. there is a lot of fluctuation from quarter to quarter. it is also something fundamental in the housing sector. of a growingcause population and appreciation of the housing stock. we are going to need to build about 1.6 million houses a year. we are only building about one million houses a year. you know you're going to make your way out for one million to 1.6 million. that is about 2% of gdp that will be added over the time that

that happens. >> you're talking unpredictable things. there are unpredictable people including harry reid. on wednesday he said i am against something the president came out for in the state of the union. what is your reading on the fate of the trade deals that are pending? his views on this were not a surprise to anyone. they were not really his in that sense. is thatident called for trade with our specific partners, trade with our atlantic partners can be enormously beneficial to our economy. it can increase our growth. it can create more high-paying jobs. more opportunities for consumers. for the united states in particular, we have lower tariffs.

we have fewer nontariff areas. with many of the countries we have higher labor standards. that means we have a significant in terms of gain improving trade, reducing the nontariff barriers and a race to labor and terms of environmental standards. that is the economic case the president was making in the state of the union address. in terms of what we need from congress in order to implement the agreements, we have always said that would be a process. it is something we would work with them on. it is something that will be an ongoing effort. >> thank you, kevin. can you speak to people in the room back here? >> i will do my best.

>> without getting to the details, what do you expect in the labor market? this the degree to which is from long-term expectations. what it would be for the participation rate and more narrowly tied to that, how much do we know about the geography? can you give us a sense how you avoid being overly broad? >> in answer to your first question, there are two things that are impacting dissipation rate. there is a lot of things. there are two important things. the first is democracy. it was very much forgettable

that after 2008 you would start to see a decline in the trend , trend participation rate, as the first baby boomers turn a and became eligible for social security -- 2008 and became eligible for social security. it was not just predictable, it was predict it. in 2004 they said you would see an increase in decline in the participation rate after 2008. .bo predicted it when we take a look at the data, you can basically look at the participation rate, holding accounts of -- holding it constant and ask what would have happened if there were no changes in the economy but there's just the change in the ratios of these different aging demographic groups. with that type of methodology, that about half of the

decline and the participation rate since the end of 2007 is due to demography. if you zoom in on the last two or three years, pretty much all of the decline in the participant rate is due to demography. he saw that in the study from the philadelphia fed which uses somewhat different methods. the other factor is cyclical. riseshe unemployment rate , some people will stay in school longer rather than looking for a job. so maybe after having a baby. some will certainly be discouraged and give up looking for a job. as the unemployment rate comes thosewe expect to see people coming back into the labor force. that is important. as the president said, america is strongest when we are

fielding a whole team. as he people are coming back into the labor force, the demography will continue to pull the participation rate down. for the next couple of years, you're basically going to be seeing two offsetting effects on your participation rate. in terms of your second question on the long-term unemployed, to the first approximation to the long-term unemployed look a lot like the labor force as a whole. this is not some specially disadvantaged, poor, less skilled drupal. in fact, the educational attainment of long-term unemployment is slightly higher than it is for the employed. this is a group that for the luckpart, through the bad of the worst recession where we were losing over 700,000 jobs a month, at some point lost their job and have not been able to get back on their heat sense and

now we are in a position where he have a self perpetuating cycle of audit studies. if you just send resumes that say the person has been unemployed for eight months, they are less likely to even get interviewed than somebody with the same exact resume that was unemployed for one month. now they are just caught up in a bad cycle. we are to work with companies and foundations to set best practices to get them out of that place. speaker boehner city one of the debt to be raised by february 7. -- said he wanted the debt to be raised by february 7. do you think we will avoid the kind of debt standoff? >> i hope so. there is no reason congress can do what it did twice last year and basically with out ran some or hostagetaking send the

president a debt limit, an increase that he can sign so that we pay the bills. there is no reason they should not be able to do it with less drama. of the secretary, he mischaracterized it a little bit. the united states hits the dem -- the debt limit on february 7. at that point, the secretary will be able to deploy extraordinary measures. long as theyast as would have at other times because they have a lot of cash going out in the month of february. as a result, by the end of february or beginning of march, the secretary said it was more likely by the end of february, we will hit that point at which we basically cost of those extraordinary measures. they need to raise the debt limit. >> [no microphone] >> i really see no reason why

.ongress would not act i am very much hoping they can capitalize on the momentum we have in our economy and in the greater fiscal certainty we are creating to take care of the debt limit and take care of it without drama or delay. credit was part of the president's speech. we heard sister ruby are talking about it as well. senator rubio talked about itc andrid of the getting a wage supplement that will be part of every paycheck for childless workers. is there a middle ground there? are they completely different missions? a little bit about the proposal. then up with the details out yet. it will certainly be out no later than when the budget is released. over the last several decades, we have greatly expanded the

earned income tax credit for families with children. that is appropriate. the families both have higher haveses and also have higher poverty rate. the evidence is that it has had profound effects in terms of single mothers in the workforce. helping to increase mobility and upward rages -- wages and the impact it has on children in terms of everything from better child nutrition to test scores in reading and math. done is pay ast much attention to how how -- to households without children. the tax rate has basically been unchanged in the last 40 years.

there is this dramatic reduction for families with children. the president is proposing we take that told that has worked so well with families with children and expanded for households that do not have them. that is very much a work oriented approach. it is much about increasing this. we expect to have many of the same benefits in terms of participation and mobility. , there's absolutely no reason that that we could or would want to cut back on what we have done with families for children. expand opportunities for families. this has been proven to be extremely effective. what you are talking about is something that is budget neutral

where you are taking from one group in giving to another. there's a lot of space for conversation about how best to expand and build on the successes we have had over the last several decades and make are reaching more people and benefiting more people. i think it is terrific he have senator rubio talking about ideas in that space. you have a lot of economist on most sides of the spectrum talking about this for those who have criticized minimum wage. it will be good for the people to support this and help push it forward. >> as for way we are going next,

-- proposed the president -- last year the president proposed linking benefits to train cpi's. will the president renew that offer and attempt to bring down the long-term deficits? what vision does he have for dealing with long-term benefits? >> i do not want to lift the curtain on any specifics one way or another about the budget of the president is going to be putting out. i can't say that it is a budget of his just like all previous budgets and we will take seriously the need to make investments in key areas for economic growth and also will take seriously the need to reduce our deficit over the medium and long run to make sure that deficit reduction is done in a balanced manner. that includes revenue. it protects the things that are

most important. say iner thing i would thinking about the budget and the long-run budget is that i think it is important for people to understand that there has been a significant and prove meant, not just in the short run budget but also in the long-run outlook cbo putting the fiscal the the measure of how big deficit is over the next 75 years, at 1.7% of gdp which is considerably smaller than the fiscal gap had been even just a few years ago. that is the progress we have made on the growth of health care, what we have done in things like the budget control act on spending, and what we have been able to do on revenue with things like the higher rates and high income households.

have you looked [no microphone] is something the state department is handling, not something that i have personally been involved with any analysis related to. i expect the state department to continue to be doing that process. there are the policies of opportunity. [inaudible] it is very hard. have you talked to the president? [no microphone]

the cbo report said it expanded the gap. ?ow do you reconcile the report i guess i completely disagree with the premise of your question. cbo has said that immigration will expand output by $1.4 trillion. cbo has also said, and this is very important, that the expansion will not just be because it expands the labor force it's also because it expands what economists call total factor productivity, the total amount you can create out of a given amount of capital and labor. this the closest thing we have in economics to a free lunch.

this is a study done by the chief economist of the labor department. rates than at higher nativeborn americans. americans even -- end up patenting even more when they are in the proximity of immigrants. you have a lot of entrepreneurial immigrants, those that create jobs. the basic flaw is that there's not a fixed number of jobs in the united states. the question of how many people are there who are lining up for the jobs, the question is what you want to do to expand the number of jobs and expand the number of good jobs. or is no doubt that immigration will do that. we were talking about the participation rate. dealdegree you want to with something like a declining trend participation rate that creates challenges for your budget, for dealing with

programs like social security. immigration reform. it increases your participation rate. it helps with the deficit. the social security solvency. cbo did not say anything about what it would do to wages of people who are here in america who would have been here in america otherwise. it set wages, even including the lower wage people, would eventually be higher. regardless of all that, it widens the gap between the rich and poor. how does this increase the opportunities for americans, actual americans? >> if you look at the president's speech that he gave, he talked about several parts of the strategy to deal with the inequality mobility opportunity challenges.

all the economic policies that are on the agenda right now, the one that we do the most to expand it. it would expand it not just by having more workers in this country but by having more ideas , more innovation, more entrepreneurship. that has the potential to benefit everyone. the cbo has said that it would ultimately raise wages for everyone including a new set of will that you are bringing up. this is an interesting discussion. now whether there is a stagnation problem in the economy. whether it resulted to some

fundamental change in the economy to require new things. i wonder what more current view is on that? >> i generally do not think fore is very good evidence secular stagnation. i ain't, first of all, -- i think, first of all, there is placed a puzzle to be that stagnation would have you believe. terms of wherein the economy has been lately and where it appears to be going. less reason to believe going forward. to take those in turn, less of a puzzle. if you look at growth over the last couple of years, relative to what you normally have coming out of a systemic financial crisis like this, we have over

performed most of the other countries around the world and over for armed our own history. historyperformed our despite the fact we have had some very significant shock from the rest of the world. serious fiscal contraction in the past year. i think if you take those fact or is -- factors, they pretty much explain any deviation between what you might have forecast and what actually happened. and then you look going forward, we talked about growth in the last couple of quarters. we talked about the outlook for 2014. in 2015. i think that tells you that a lot of what you have seen has basically been a cool phenomenon

, not a secular one. the one important copy out to all of this -- caveat to all of this is the labor force. it is lower today than it was in the past. you do not have women entering the labor force en masse. now you have women having plateaued in terms of labor force participation. you have the baby boomers getting to retire. growth isnent of gdp growing more slowly. that is one of the motions for things like immigration reform, to help keep that labor force rose up and keep our potential growth. up on your to follow answer to immigration reform. how should we think about how

differencenalyze the between legal status between a path to citizenship? there is a lot of arguments for why you want to have a pathway to citizenship. d,e thing the president said in you do not want to do it once in a generation piece of legislation on solve half the problem and lead people in some type of in between state. i certainly think the more you bring all in from the shadows, the more you give them certainty , the better that is for the economy. if you look at investment, and investment could be going to school. setting up a store or anything like that. the more certainty you have, we

keep this under your able to invest. you invest in education. on the patht you're to become a citizen of this country. if you work hard and play by the rules. i cannot be of a particular economic study that states the difference between the two of these. it is not like there is a lot of impure coal variations from the past. another country runs it one way and another another way. everything i know from economic logic would tell me that you want a pathway to citizenship. >> thanks. i wanted to follow-up on the question. budgetf all, is the paying for that?

[inaudible] >> the president has, for his entire administration, always initiatives ongoing and is always believed they should be paid for. certainly you will see in our budget how to you would propose to pay for this. in answer to your second question, there is no reason you need to do a broader tax reform in order to do that. parameters in of terms of what the rate is, where the plateau starts, what the phaseout rate is. you could change any one of those four without a more thoroughgoing reform.

think when you get taxax reform i look at reform, the president looks at tax reform, and judges it less by what it does to the top rate and more by what it does for the middle class and for people all working hard to get into the middle class. precisely when you're looking at the tax code. it is almost the first place you would want to do. >> as you said, about people see this as an alternative to the minimum wage. you have some over what the minimum wage number would be in exchange for this.

>> i do not foresee this. i think it is not either or. they are complementary to each other. you're going to see the president out there vigorously pushing the minimum wage, not offering to bargain it away in exchange for something like that. >> another and gratian question. -- i have another and gratian question. is the path to citizenship a dealbreaker? >> that is something that the president has been very clear that th and what congress does.

he can put us on a going forward. people have explained it in terms of even just what could pass the congress. economically, i think we are allngest if you deal with the different aspects of this at once. you are increasing the amount of certainty.- that is why we are pushing so hard from it. i was wondering what your thoughts are on this point. there is not something that the white house or the council of

economic advisers has been. >> take a little swing. >> sorry. >> can i revise my question? >> certainly. about whether it should be done or can be done. we need to put in new sanctions. [inaudible] i do not want to talk a lot

about this. colleaguesome of my which is what their entire focus is, what the president would do for a sanctions bill it he said he would veto it. he said he needs the space to and continued the negotiations we had. i do not have anything to asked what my foreign policy colleagues would be able to say. >> thank you. what is your best sense of the cost benefit utilizing marijuana? >> i just really have not looked at the cost benefit of that question. at all. so.

i do not have anything for you on that. want to go to mark's question. as we get here, it has never change. >> you're just going to have to wait and see what is in the budget. dropped for the first time in a well. the made an aberration. i wonder what your take on that is. it has been slowing. to what extent has obamacare been in the labor force and job growth? >> as you noted in the way you framed your question, the health sector was one that pretty much was adding jobs throughout the whole cycle. month tove varied from month. muchber was obviously

weaker of a month in that regard. we're doing a lot to reduce the cost growth in health care. result, for cap it's a help is -- per capita health is growing. we have written a report. i talked a lot about the ways i think the affordable care act is one of the fact is that is interesting to that. even with all of that, all of the projections are that health will increase as a share of gdp. it will increase at a much slower rate. part of the increase is just the of anacy -- demography aging population. part of it is the fact that you have never had the same productivity growth in the health sector that you happen a lot of the other economy.

when you take those factors together and what we're going to need in terms of, we are not going to replace home health soon.with robots anytime this is going to be an area that i think you will continue to see medium-term drop growth, even if it does fluctuate from month to month and the things that might affect the pace of the job growth. >> we going to go next. how important is getting trade promotion for 2014? where does the president directly put in republican

lawmakers that he could do directly that would have an effect on the economy? >> what is economically important is tpp. we are currently negotiating. you cannot negotiate those with our partners and you cannot implement them here in the united states if we do not have tpa. the goal here is not some kind of process. the goal here is these two trade agreements. what we want to be looking at is all the ways which i spoke to these tradet how agreements would expand economic growth, expand good paying jobs in the united states. what is important in that regard is that it is clear that we are moving forward toward getting that on the trade promotion authority.

we were very clear that this was a start of a process. this is a process that would involve a love of occultations and engagement. it is something that i can tell you right now the white house are really focused on continuing to push forward. particularve a timetable for you in that regard. >> [inaudible] this datet give you is this cost and that date is that cost type of answer. the important is that ambassador is negotiating with the europeans and our other partners in both of the agreements. he could make it very clear to them that, as we're asking for

concessions, that we are going to be able to deliver and limit those agreements here in the united states. that is why it is so important to strengthen the hands of our negotiation by having forward .omentum and a path forward that is something the president was putting forward. in terms of economic right ortiz, dutch priorities, this is one of several important priorities for the economy. -- in terms of economic right ortiz, this is one of several important priorities for the economy. but what can the companies do to help them? how much do you think can be achieved by best practices? be done by the administration, for instance to bring down the unemployment rate

for the long-term unemployed? where if zero-sum game more of them get hired it means fewer young people get hired coming right out of college? in answer to your first with the pen he is doing a presidential memorandum as one of the largest employers in the country. we are putting these practices into place for ourselves. we are asking companies to do the same. we have called around to ce o's about this. a lot of them this was not even on their radar screen. for a lot of then you're able to make the case that means good business sense to find the most qualified people and make sure that as you're looking for applications there are not some falling out for no good reason.

make onusinesses to these force of -- four specific pledges. -- for specific pledges. in terms of your second question, i do not think the economy is zero-sum. there's an old wall that supply creates demand. we discovered that about 80 years and we have rediscovered it rather painfully about six years ago that it is not true at every point in time. it is broadly true. run is bringing it to the field. it can expand the number of consumers, expand productive opportunities and increased the total number of jobs, not just

the total number of people seeking jobs. in particular, what we really want to avoid is that our economy fully hears itself from the great recession. there is a permanent class of andle that are discouraged no longer contributing to our economy. i think we can avoid that. the unemployment rate continues to come down. i do not think we have any evidence at all. think to make sure we do not have it will require our continued vigilance and continued effort. that is one thing we are doing today. >> earlier had a question about the labor participation rate that you had answers think a lot up byhad been propped women in the workforce but are starting to come down.

do you have a sense and the category in the boomer how much this is boomers just did well and how many are boomers that have been sort of squeezed out of the workforce, less than voluntary departure? >> there is very little of the latter. the labor force participation 75 and eachs 63 age of the groups with and that has actually gone up quite a lot in the last couple of years. that this cohort --in jobs for a little bit that are a little bit less physically demanding so they are able to work longer. more women are staying in the labor force longer.

you have actually seen them increased participation. it is still the case. i making up numbers here. you take a group participation rate. he goes from 25 to 30. if you are shifting a lot of people into something that used to have a 25% rate and now has 30%, that will still take your overall participant rate down. i was wondering, if given republicans reaching out to women, do you think there's a better chance of some sort of legislation on the paycheck? happen, what is the president prepared to do in terms of the executive order? i do not personally have [indiscernible] in terms of passing the paycheck fairness act.

i would note it has been before them for a while. rushingot exactly been its way through. in regard to your second question, we are always taking a look at the full range of executive actions the president i wantake, in particular to ask with all of them what it can do to improve the economy and efficiency of the federal government. [inaudible] is there ahistorical example where a president might look to whether it was particularly effective in this regard?

>> not that i am aware of. that is not to say that there is not. >> anyone you has been waving at me and i have not seen. >> you said we're not going to replace a home health aide with robots of the we are seeing major restaurant chains talking about eliminating waitstaff and just ordering from your table. does automation, does that keep you up at night worrying about job security? >> it doesn't keep me up at night because we have had hundreds of years of automation , about most of the time 95% of the people who want to work can find a job. this gives to the same issue we were dealing with of immigration. we tend to have an economy that

has a set of mechanisms that do not always work area well in the short run. it is not always work as quickly as we would like. they do get you to some type of equilibrium in terms of the people that want jobs. general, having more capital means people can produce more per hour. it is a big compliment for labor. that has not always been the case. president did say technology in some cases has taken away good paying jobs. that is why we need to be working hard with anxiety education, some people can take advantage of that technology and use it as a consummate rather than a substitute, why we need to do things like connect the education space. we are taking vantage of that to actually improve outcomes in terms of education and not

taking it for granted and assuming that the logical process will always be good. it creates opportunities. can help make sure you seize those opportunities. >> what are the two or three economic studies for the past five or four years that most orprised you were changed are different than what you would have expected? >> that is a good question. i don't know if it's a price mean. that if it surprised me, but the oregon research on medicaid has itn -- i do not know if

surprised me, but the oregon research on medicaid has been the most surprising. research finding that health-care insurance is good for your financial security , as of five or 10 years ago, it was a little bit weaker than a lot of economist with like to admit. not because it is clear that this is good for its help but there are so many issues in the causation that were hard to sort out. it was hard to prove that to the type of scientific standards we would all like. i think by taking advantage of that experiment you're able to establish a set of things. somexample, they had indicators of health did not approve. they only had an 18 month window and you would not have expected them to improve within that.

they finally had emergency departments that was part of that story. we complemented interest that drives people to care, what that would do to emergency room's. that is one set of studies that is among the best. the biggest questions are in economic development and growth of countries over long periods of time. economics hasme, gotten better at some of the micro questions in terms of randomized on trial. what we have been able to do in has been doing this for a while in terms of importance of institutions. it is not new. he has pulled together really well in his book.

and i think understanding interplay of institutions and growth has also been very important. >> i want to ask your question about income inequality. someone recently caused the response as "paranoia of the bureaucrats." denizensns wealthiest appeared to be having a collective meltdown. how can we have mobility without lapsing into a language of class paranoia? >> you can take a look at facts. thelook at the tax rate on top 1%, for example. even with the higher rates as part of the tax deal at the beginning of this year, it is still lower than it was in the mid-1990s. for example, the

capital gains and dividend rates are both lower than they were then. i think some is just notrventilation around paying attention to specific and data. no one here is talking about 100% tax rate or 70% tax rate. rate is a tadx bit lower than it was in the mid-1990s. of highan awful lot income, middle income, moderate income households in this country that are in the discussion about what we can do to make sure we have equality of

opportunity. the we can do to take tremendous resources this country has and make sure people can get a preschool education. can go to college, can complete college and the like. , there'sf anything probably more conversation of that type. >> we have about a minute left. talk about going forward. [inaudible] >> the bls does not produce a price index for the elderly that full set of things associated with the elderly in and the where they shop

composition in some respects. the experimental index partially adjusts from some aspects that is not anywhere close to ready for prime time. i do not believe they have any plans or have the budget to have a plan to have a more comprehensive measure of prices for the elderly. >> are you treating one for another? -- trading one for another? >> we can discuss the ins and outs of different price measurements. that is what they currently do. >> thank you for doing this. i hope you will come back. tanks. >> thank you. [captioning performed by national captioning institute] [captions copyright national cable satellite corp. 2014]

>> tonight, directors of state health insurance exchanges from around the country talk about enrollment level of the state level followed by discussion about the u.s. health care system in. president obama on assisting the long-term unemployed with a new initiative. the economic income for the year. >> watch our program on first lady hillary