President Obama Talks to CEOs About Raising Employee Wages
President Barack Obama told CEOs Wednesday that he wants to discuss "some tricky questions" about how to help wage growth as businesses and the stock market continue to rise.
In a question and answer session with more than 100 executives from top companies, Obama said he is optimistic about the U.S. economy but still worries that prosperity is not spread to many Americans.
"Domestically the area where I have the deepest concern is the fact that although corporate profits are at the highest levels in 60 years, stock market is up 150 percent, wages and incomes still haven't gone up significantly," the president said in a session with several members of the Business Roundtable. "That's part of what's causing disquiet in the general public, even though the aggregate numbers look good."
CEO of Caterpillar Inc., Douglas Oberhelman, pushed back a bit on the president saying that there are certain "sweet spots" for the Buisness Roundtable like infrastructure, immigration, tax and trade.
"Any one or any combination or all of them would lead to economic growth, job creation, and everyone in here wants to grow and everyone wants to add jobs and we all want to raise pay, believe it or not. It's what we want to do," he said.
Also included in the range of topics, Obama told the business leaders he would push to make a trade deal with Europe and try to navigate a broad trans-Pacific trade agreement. A deal like the Trans Pacific Partnership would boost labor and environmental rules, help to reduce corruption and increase intellectual property protection, according to Obama.
"Those who oppose these trade deals ironically are accepting a status quo that is more damaging to American workers," the president said.
He also discussed an overhaul of the tax system and spending on public works projects where and Congress could find common ground.
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