Tax Relief for Middle Class and Working Families

• Created the Making Work Pay tax credit for families with incomes of up to $150,000, providing a credit of up to $400 for individuals and $800 for couples as the economy recovered from the depths of the Recession in 2009 and 2010.
• Cut the payroll tax for everyone who pays it, boosting the typical family’s income by about $1,000 in 2011 and 2012andhelping about 160 million workers and their families.
• Expanded the Child Tax Credit for low-wage working families; later made that expansion permanent in the 2015 tax and budget agreement.
• Expanded the Earned-Income Tax Credit (EITC) for working families with more than two children and reduced EITC marriage penalties; later made those expansions permanent in the 2015 tax and budget agreement.
• Created the American Opportunity Tax Credit (AOTC), an up to $2,500 per-year tax credit (up to $10,000 over four years) to help students and their families pay for college; later made the AOTC permanent in the 2015 tax and budget agreement.

Critical Investments in the Future

Restructured AIG

Treasury invested approximately $245 billion across five bank programs. Each of these programs was established to accomplish different goals as part of the overall effort to stabilize America's banking system. Because of the aggressive response, the financial system stabilized and Treasury has recovered $275 billion, a nearly $30 billion positive return to the taxpayer.

Supervisory Capital Assessment Program & Capital Assistance Program

The Supervisory Capital Assessment Program (SCAP) and the Capital Assistance Program (CAP) were established to ensure that our major banking institutions had adequate capital buffers to withstand losses and continue to lend to businesses, large and small, and consumers to support the economy.

Restarted Crucial Lending Markets

• Expanded the Term Asset-Backed Securities Loan Facility (TALF) to kick-start a secondary lending market to lower borrowing costs and get credit flowing again, especially for student and auto loans; recovered the entire taxpayer investment.
• Established the Public-Private Investment Program (PPIP) to create markets for the legacy securities and real estate-related assets that were at the center of the financial crisis; recovered the entire taxpayer investment of $18.6 billion plus a net positive return of more than $3.9 billion on a cash basis.
• Launched the Small Business Administration (SBA) 7(a) Securities Purchase Program as part of the Obama Administration’s efforts to help small businesses; recovered the entire taxpayer investment plus a small positive return.

“During our London Summit, we and our G-20 partners agreed that we will make more than $1 trillion in financial resources available to support global growth and trade. Much of that total will go to the emerging and developing countries, which as recently as the fall of last year accounted for fully 42% of all U.S. exports.  That will improve their economic and financial health which, in turn, will help improve ours.” – Secretary Timothy F. Geithner

Helped Families Stay in Their Homes

Check out our latest housing scorecard for more on our response to the housing crisis. 

New Issue Bond Program

The New Issue Bond Program filled in the financing vacuum for Housing Finance Agencies when the tax exempt market seized up during the crisis. It enabled tens of thousands of affordable multi-family units to be financed during the crisis and tens of thousands of mortgages for affordable homes to be funded through participating Housing Finance Agencies.

The Minimum Property Standards (MPS) establish certain minimum standards for buildings constructed under HUD housing programs. This includes new single family homes, multi-family housing and health care type facilities.

Making Homeownership More Accessible and Sustainable​

In 2015, the Federal Housing Administration (FHA) reduced annual mortgage insurance premiums by 0.5 percentage point from 1.35 percent to 0.85 percent. For the typical first-time homebuyer, this reduction translates into a $900 reduction in their annual mortgage payment.

The National Mortgage Settlement

Protecting Taxpayer Dollars and Consumers Against Financial Fraud While Ensuring Competitive Markets

The Rental Assistance Demonstration provides public housing authorities (PHAs) with a way to rehabilitate or repair units without depending on additional money from Congress. Congress has not provided enough funding for PHAs to keep up with capital needs. As a result, PHAs have had to make tough choices between things like repairing roofs and replacing plumbing—or worse, demolishing public housing.

President Obama on Stabilizing the Auto Industry

On December 19, 2014, Treasury announced that it had exited the last Troubled Asset Relief Program (TARP) equity investment under the Auto Industry Financing Program.

Did 'Cash-for-Clunkers' work as intended?

Statement by the President on the Volcker Rule

Also required the largest, most complex firms in the U.S. to meet higher capital, liquidity, and risk management standards than other firms that pose less systemic risk.

Meet the Law That’s Been Quietly Protecting You and Strengthening Our Economy for the Past 6 Years

"When large, complex, or interconnected firms (like Lehman Brothers) failed during the crisis, the regulators didn’t have the tools they needed to wind them down safely, without bringing down our entire financial system. That left us with a pretty awful choice: Let our system collapse and risk another Great Depression (which nearly happened after Lehman failed), or have taxpayers step in to clean up the mess? Wall Street reform fixed that. Today, regulators have something called “orderly liquidation authority,” which is a fancy way of saying that if a big Wall Street firm implodes again, taxpayers aren’t on the hook — investors in the firm and the financial industry pick up the tab. By law, no firm is too big to fail."

Greater Transparency: Wall Street Reform re-aligned incentives in derivatives and securitization markets, hedge fund reporting requirements, and executive compensation:

• Derivatives Reform: Wall Street Reform is bringing oversight and transparency to the over-the-counter (OTC) derivatives markets — shedding light on complex derivatives transactions.
• Securitization Reform: Dodd-Frank has strengthened the securitization process, to better protect investors and minimize the threats to financial stability.
• Hedge Fund Registration: Hedge funds and other private funds are now subject to registration, recordkeeping, and disclosure obligations.
• Executive Compensation: Wall Street Reform helps align business decisions and compensation with the interests of shareholders — increasing disclosure of executive compensation for publicly traded firms, giving shareholders an advisory “say on pay” for senior executives, and requiring that the board compensation committees be independent.

Transparency: Five Years after the Dodd-Frank Act

The financial crisis demonstrated that financial markets had become unacceptably and dangerously opaque. This lack of transparency allowed risks to build and be transmitted across different sectors of the financial system. As the financial crisis unfolded, not only did federal financial regulators lack adequate tools to address these risks, they had limited knowledge of their size, nature, and interconnectedness. And market participants pulled back further during the depths of the crisis in part as a result of incomplete market information.

The Financial Crisis: Five Years Later

New rules help make large financial companies simpler to unwind by requiring “living wills” that provide a roadmap for resolving the institution. These reforms force firms to bear the costs of their own risk-taking, instead of the taxpayer.

Since its creation, this new independent watchdog has:

• Established safer national mortgage standards to better determine a borrower’s ability to repay over the long term.
• Launched new transparency requirements that clearly spell out interest rates and payments, establish caps on fees and points, and impose training qualifications on lenders.
• Subjected credit reporting agencies, debt collection agencies, and payday lenders to federal supervision for the first time.
• Taken enforcement action against companies to crack down on deceptive marketing and unreasonable fees, recovering nearly $12 billion for more than 257 million consumers who had been harmed.
• Worked with industry to give over half of Americans with credit scores free access to their scores, to help consumers improve their credit health and monitor for identity theft.

Manufacturing USA invests in U.S. leadership in emerging manufacturing technologies critical to our future competitiveness. Each manufacturing hub is designed to build U.S. leadership and regional excellence in critical emerging manufacturing technologies by bridging the gap between early research and product development; bringing together companies, universities, and other academic and training institutions, and federal agencies to co-invest in key technology areas that can encourage investment and production in the United States; and serving as a ‘teaching factory’ for workers, small businesses, and entrepreneurs looking to develop new skills or prototype new products and processes.

Energy Department Announces $150 Million in Tax Credits to Invest in U.S. Clean Energy Manufacturing

The Investing in Manufacturing Communities Partnership (IMCP) program is an initiative designed to revolutionize the way federal agencies leverage economic development funds. It encourages communities to develop comprehensive economic development strategies that will strengthen their competitive edge for attracting global manufacturer and supply chain investments.

FACT SHEET: President Obama Announces New Actions to Further Strengthen U.S. Manufacturing

About SelectUSA

Recognizing that the competitiveness and job-generating ability of a nation is determined by its desirability as a place for businesses to operate, SelectUSA was created at the federal level to showcase the United States as the world’s premier business location and to provide easy access to federal-level programs and services related to business investment.

FACT SHEET: Building a 21st Century Infrastructure: Increasing Public and Private Collaboration with the Build America Investment Initiative

President Obama launched the National Robotics Initiative as part of a broader effort to promote a renaissance of American manufacturing through the Advanced Manufacturing Partnership.  Four agencies (the National Science Foundation, the National Institutes of Health, NASA, and the Department of Agriculture) have issued a joint solicitation that will provide research funding for next-generation robotics.

President Obama Announces New Efforts to Improve Access to Credit for Small Businesses 

Learn more about the U.S. Small Business Administration

Learn more about the U.S. Small Business Administration

Business Lending Showing New Signs of Strength

State Small Business Credit Initiative (SSBCI)

Tax Relief for Small Businesses

BusinessUSA implements a "no wrong door" approach for small businesses and exporters by using technology to quickly connect businesses to the services and information relevant to them, regardless of where the information is located or which agency's website, call center, or office they go to for help. Looking forward, the more federal agencies continue to add resources to BusinessUSA to encompass the full range of business programs and services, the more we will be able to reduce the confusing array of websites that exist today.

FACT SHEET: The White House and Small Business Administration Launch Startup in a Day Initiative and Prize Competition

ESSA will maintain critical protections for equal educational opportunity and students’ civil rights by:

• Requiring, for the first time in law, every student be taught to high learning standards in order to prepare them for college and careers.
• Requiring statewide, annual assessments of all students’ progress towards these standards, providing vital information to educators, families, and communities.
• Maintaining the expectation that there will be accountability and interventions in schools that are chronically underserving their students or have low graduation rates, and where particular student groups are not making progress.
• Providing more children access to high-quality preschool.
• Supporting innovations, including evidence- and place-based innovations developed by local educators and leaders.

"Learning is about so much more than just filling in the right bubble. So we’re going to work with states, school districts, teachers, and parents to make sure that we’re not obsessing about testing, that the principles I just outlined are reflected in classrooms throughout the country—to make sure that our kids are enjoying learning, that our teachers are able to operate with creativity, to make sure we are preparing our kids for a lifetime of success." — President Obama (October 24, 2015)

Many states have boosted their investments in early childhood education; in FY 2014-2015 alone, 28 states and the District of Columbia increased their own investments in preschool.

Every Student Succeeds Act: A Progress Report on Elementary and Secondary Education

• Invested hundreds of millions of dollars in over 50 Promise Neighborhoods — working with over 700 schools — in our most distressed communities, helping to break cycles of intergenerational poverty.
• Established the Investing in Innovation Fund (i3), which has provided more than $1 billion in grants to support districts, nonprofit organizations, and institutions of higher education to research, replicate, and scale-up promising practices that improve educational outcomes.

Through the President’s ConnectED initiative, the Administration made unprecedented public and private investments in connectivity, teacher professional development, hardware, software, and digital content to provide personalized digital learning experiences for students.

Since launching ConnectED:

• More than 20 million more students have access to high-speed Internet, cutting the connectivity divide in schools in half since 2013.
• Over 5 million students are leveraging $2 billion+ of private sector commitments.
• Students in low-income families now have access to a world class library of eBooks.
• Teachers and education leaders are leading the charge, with over 3,000 school districts — representing over 19 million students — having committed to the ConnectED vision. These “Future Ready” leaders have received high-quality professional develop to make digital transitions in their schools.

• Reduced the time required to complete FAFSA by two-thirds to about 20 minutes by allowing automatic retrieval of tax information and by revamping the online form for all families so they can skip questions that are not relevant to them.
• Made the FAFSA available earlier in the college application process so more students applying to start school the following fall can access college and make more informed college choices. Beginning in October 2016, students will also be able to fill out this early FAFSA form using the tax income data from an earlier year.

Information about college costs, graduation rates, and earnings will be featured front and center in hundreds of millions of Google searches related to colleges and universities.

America's College Promise: A Progress Report on Free Community College

Invested in strengthening more than 700 community colleges, connecting them with employers to train students for jobs in fast-growing fields like high-tech manufacturing, energy, IT, and cybersecurity.

Fact Sheet: Department of Education Launches Experiment to Provide Federal Pell Grant Funds to High School Students Taking College Courses for Credit

In his 2014 State of the Union address, the President tasked Vice President Biden with leading a review of federal employment and training programs that reach approximately 20 million people per year, with the aim of making them more job-driven. That review was completed, and the White House released a report you can read on progress and next steps. So far, the Administration has reoriented more than $1.5 billion in job training grants to align with job-driven training best practices.

WIOA is bringing job training programs into the 21st century by building on what we know works based on evidence — more partnerships with employers, tools to measure performance, and flexibilities for states and cities to innovate and run their training programs in ways best suited for their particular demographics and particular industries.

We challenged America's high schools to make sure students learn the skills that businesses are looking for in high-demand fields. And we asked high schools to develop partnerships with colleges and employers, and create classes that focus on real-life applications for the fields of the future — fields like science and technology and engineering and math.

The Trade Adjustment Assistance and Community College and Career Training grants have created 2,300 in-demand education and training programs at community colleges in all 50 states.  Nearly 300,000 participants have enrolled in these programs, which are helping job seekers get the skills they need for in-demand jobs in industries like information technology, health care, energy, and advanced manufacturing. Programs targeting high-demand jobs have been launched at more than half of community colleges across the country.

This growth was the result of the largest ever federal investments in apprenticeship including $175 million in grants to 46 public-private partnerships to expand apprenticeship to new industries and $90 million provided by Congress for new investments through ApprenticeshipUSA to help states strengthen regional industry partnerships, spur partnerships in fast-growing and high-tech industries, and increase diversity among apprentices. Investing in apprenticeships leads to strong outcomes for hardworking Americans and businesses. Nearly 90% of apprentices are employed after completing their apprenticeship, with an average starting salary above $50,000. And international studies suggest that for every dollar spent on apprenticeship, employers may get an average of $1.47 back in increased productivity, reduced waste, and greater front-line innovation.

TechHire is a bold, multi-sector initiative and call-to-action to empower Americans with the skills they need, through universities and community colleges but also nontraditional approaches like “coding boot camps,” and high-quality online courses that can rapidly train workers for a well-paying job, often in just a few months. Since the President launched TechHire in March 2014, more than 70 cities, states, and rural areas working with nearly 1,500 employers have signed on, and over 4,000 people have been trained and placed into tech jobs.

In his 2014 State of the Union address, the President launched the Upskill Initiative, calling on businesses to help workers of all ages earn a shot at better, higher-paying jobs, even if they do not have a higher education. To date, over 100 employers have committed to best practices to give their workers more opportunity to grow and contribute in the workplace.

As more jobs are created, it is critical that Americans with skills, experience, and a desire to work have every opportunity to get back to work to maximize the full potential of our talent pool. That’s why the White House has partnered with employers to ensure that the long-term unemployed have a fair shot at the same opportunities as other job-seekers. From the time businesses responded to the President’s call to action in January 2014 through November 2016, the long term unemployment rate was cut in half, accounting for roughly two-thirds of the total drop in unemployment.

Weekly Address: Ensuring Hard-Working Americans Retire with Dignity

Press Release: State retirement initiatives get guidance from US Labor Department

AboutmyRA

Blog Post: Treasury’s Continued Work to Promote Retirement Security

An America Built to Last: Strengthening Economic Security in Retirement

• Middle-class taxes are at historically low levels, with the typical middle-income family paying lower federal income taxes than in almost any other period in the last 60 years.
• President Obama’s new tax policies have increased the after-tax income of families in the lowest quintile of the income distribution by more than 6 percent on average – or more than $850 – thereby reducing the extent and severity of poverty for millions of working families and their children.

Seven Things You Need to Know About the Tax Deal

​The Budget Agreement Permanently Expands Important Tax Credits for Working Families

• Expansions of the Earned Income Tax Credit and Child Tax Credit provide an average tax cut of about $900 for roughly 16 million working families a year. This can have a major impact: If a single mother of two works full-time all year for the federal minimum wage — earning $14,500 a year — she receives an additional Child Tax Credit of $1,725 each year as a result of the expansion. She would not receive any CTC if the provision expired.
• The American Opportunity Tax Credit provides a maximum credit of $2,500 per year for the first four years of college — up to $10,000 per student – to help students and their families afford college.

As part of the President’s balanced approach to deficit reduction, he fought to reverse tax cuts for the highest-income Americans – pushing back on inequities in our tax code that leave some wealthy families paying a lower rate than many working families. The Bush tax cuts enacted in 2001 and 2003 cut the top tax rates for high-income Americans. The American Taxpayer Relief Act the President signed into law reversed these costly tax cuts, including by:

• Restoring the top income tax rate from 35% to its Clinton-era level of 39.6%
• Increasing the top tax rate on investment income from 15% to 20% (23.8% including increases enacted in the Affordable Care Act)
• Restoring limits on deductions for high-income taxpayers

After these changes became effective in 2013, effective tax rates increased sharply for the highest-income Americans, reversing a decade-long trend of tax cuts for the highest-income Americans. Altogether, reversing the high-income Bush tax cuts will reduce the deficit by more than $800 billion over the next decade. Overall, relative to the tax code in place before the Administration, in 2017:

• The top 1 percent of families – who on average earn $1.6 million a year – will pay effective tax rates about 5 percentage points higher than they would have under the pre-Obama tax code, meaning they are contributing over $80,000 more in taxes on average.
• The top 1 percent of families – who on average earn $1.6 million a year – will pay effective tax rates about 5 percentage points higher than they would have under the pre-Obama tax code, meaning they are contributing over $80,000 more in taxes on average.

Although Congress has not acted on the President’s proposal to stop corporate tax inversions, Treasury has used its authority under existing law to reduce the tax benefits of – and when possible, stop – corporate tax inversions. Treasury’s actions significantly diminish the ability of inverted companies to escape U.S. taxation.

Treasury proposed regulations to end a specific abuse of the carried interest loophole – the use of “management fee waivers” to convert fees into low-taxed carried interest.

Treasury proposed regulations to close a loophole that allows wealthy families to use certain estate planning strategies to claim large discounts on the value of their assets to reduce their estate and gift taxes.

Treasury.gov: Foreign Account Tax Compliance Act (FATCA)

A Critical Step Forward for a Stronger Economy and a Simpler, Fairer Tax Code

A Critical Step Forward for a Stronger Economy and a Simpler, Fairer Tax Code

Raise the Wage

Lilly Ledbetter Fair Pay Act

Affordable Child Care

Paid Sick and Family Leave

FACT SHEET: Growing Middle Class Paychecks and Helping Working Families Get Ahead By Expanding Overtime Pay

Learn more about the White House Equal Pay Pledge:

We released first ever Federal policy to guide the responsible testing and deployment of automated vehicles, which has the potential to save tens of thousands of lives in the United States.

We released a groundbreaking rule that provides the first national, uniform guidelines for non-recreational operation of unmanned aircraft systems (UAS). These systems will create jobs, enhance public safety, and advance public inquiry.

We partnered with Columbus, OH to prototype the transportation system of the future, supported by $40 million from the Smart City Challenge.

Thinking Outside the Cable Box: How More Competition Gets You a Better Deal

Three USDA Actions to Help Farmers Get a Fair Shake, Explained