What nobody knew then was that on top of these long-term, chronic economic challenges we would soon be facing the most acute financial crisis in more than seventy years and the very real risk of a second Great Depression. In late 2007 through 2008, a massive housing debt bubble that had built up in the early 2000s began to burst-and a crisis that began on Wall Street very nearly brought down the entire Main Street economy.

When President Obama entered office, nearly 800,000 Americans were losing their jobs each month -- the equivalent of laying off the entire workforce of West Virginia every 30 days. The economy was collapsing at an annual rate of more than 8 percent. Deficits were projected to be more than $1 trillion before the President took the oath of office. Other indicators, like global trade and employment, were also collapsing at Depression-like rates. Nearly 9 million Americans lost their jobs in the Great Recession. More than 5 million lost their homes. Thirteen trillion dollars of household wealth was erased, far more as a share of total wealth than the losses that precipitated the Great Depression.

President Obama responded quickly and aggressively, marshaling $1.4 trillion of support for the economy in his first four years - through tax cuts, targeted investments, and support for keeping hardworking Americans on the job or helping the hardest-hit families make ends meet.  The President rescued the auto industry, saving more than 1 million American jobs. And he stabilized the financial system with infusions of both liquidity and equity, backstopped critical markets, and stress-tested the banks to help markets understand their condition. The Obama Administration also helped millions of Americans refinance or modify their mortgages, so they could lower their monthly payments and avoid foreclosure. The Federal Reserve, acting creatively and aggressively under its independent authority, complemented these efforts. Economists Alan Blinder and Mark Zandi estimated that these policies prevented the loss of 8.5 million more jobs and the unemployment rate from rising to nearly 16 percent.

By the end of 2013, we recovered our pre-crisis levels of per-capita output, faster than in the majority of past systemic financial crises. This was also ahead of most other advanced economies confronting the global crisis. Between faster wage growth and falling gas prices, American workers have seen their inflation-adjusted hourly wages rise more than 5 percent since the end of 2012, more than double the cumulative growth from 1973 to 2007. This business cycle has seen the fastest growth rate of real wages of any since the 1970s. And in 2015, household incomes grew across the spectrum, with the largest gains for families at the bottom.

But the President knew that it was not enough to just come back from this crisis. We had to work to immediately do whatever we could to prevent this kind of a financial crisis from happening again. And so, even as he led the effort to get growth and job creation going, he also called his economic team into the White House and charged them with developing an aggressive plan for Wall Street reform that would lead to legislation that he could sign into law.

By the end of February 2009, President Obama called on his economic team to work - in consultation with Congress - to develop a framework for financial reform that reflected seven key principles he laid out to guide that reform effort in the coming weeks and months. President Obama then pushed his key economic and financial staff to work at a remarkable clip to deliver that framework, and it was released on June 17, 2009.

This framework was the basis for a year-long legislative push that culminated in the Dodd-Frank Wall Street Reform and Consumer Protection Act, which the President fought for and signed into law on July 21, 2010. President Obama and Congressional Democrats prevailed despite the relentless opposition by Republicans who fought against reform at every step of the way. The resulting law, which reflected the principles the President laid out when the process began and followed the contours of the framework his economic team put together - was the most ambitious revamp of the rules preventing abuse, recklessness, and irresponsibility in the financial system since the Great Depression. Among other things, this legislation and other Wall Street reforms put in place by the Administration:

• Created a Financial Stability Oversight Council (FSOC) to monitor and address systemic financial risks, and subjected the largest and most dangerous institutions to much higher safety standards than prevailed before the crisis.

• Established orderly liquidation authority to prevent serious harm to the entire economy and to protect taxpayers from bearing the losses of private firms by giving regulators the tools to safely wind down large, complex financial institutions that fail.

• Established the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau (CFPB), the first-ever watchdog dedicated to protecting consumers from the types of abuses that preceded the crisis and holding financial institutions accountable.

• Adopted the Volcker Rule to prohibit banks from risky proprietary trading and from sponsoring investment funds that are unrelated to core banking activities.

• Required higher capital and liquidity standards for financial institutions both domestically and internationally.

• Overhauled the $600 trillion derivatives market to make it safer and more transparent, including by leading an international push to mandate central clearing of standardized derivatives, setting capital and margin requirements for derivatives that are not centrally cleared, and imposing new oversight of major swap dealers and participants.

• Increased transparency for securitization markets, hedge funds, and executive compensation.

• Required large banks to create "living wills" to help regulators wind down bankrupt firms in an orderly fashion.

These post-crisis Wall Street reforms have made our financial system more stable and supportive of long-term growth.

• American banks have added more than $700 billion in capital to absorb potential losses and are much less reliant on the kinds of short-term funding that disappeared in the crisis.

• We have subjected large swaths of the financial system – such as derivatives and investment banks – to higher safety standards and better oversight

• We have designated some of the largest and most complex institutions as systemically important, which requires them to reduce their risk of failure and operate more safely.

• And we have made major progress toward ending "too big to fail," as evidenced by the disappearing funding advantage for large U.S. financial institutions.

• And the new consumer watchdog-the CFPB-has held financial institutions accountable, putting nearly $12 billion back in the pockets of more than 25 million American consumers who were treated unfairly, while writing rules that ensure the American people get loans they can repay with terms clear up-front.

While Republicans in Congress predicted the sky would fall and that Wall Street reform would stifle growth and job creation, just the reverse has been true. President Obama hands to his successor a much stronger American economy than he inherited, that is now more than 10 percent larger than it ever was before the crisis began and with a record streak of job creation ongoing. Fifteen million private-sector jobs have been added since Dodd-Frank passed, while incomes rose at the fastest rate on record and poverty fell at the fastest rate in five decades in 2015. And our safer, stronger financial system has withstood a number of shocks in recent years without major financial firms failing or interruptions to the positive economic trends. So, Wall Street reform is working.

Learn more about how Wall Street reform works and the progress we have seen by checking out this slide presentation from the Treasury Department.

Tens of millions of Americans currently suffer from hearing loss, often age-related, but many either don’t realize they’ve been affected or cannot afford basic hearing aids—which currently cost an average of $2,300 apiece. (That means, for a pair, most consumers are forced to plunk down a hefty sum of more than $4,600.)

Today, consumers can buy simple corrective lenses—reading glasses—over the counter, but the same is not true for hearing aids. And while hearing aids do not restore perfect hearing, allowing over-the-counter sale would facilitate the availability of more innovative, lower-cost products, enabling millions of people who are negatively impacted by hearing loss to better their daily lives. 

Why this matters, by the numbers:

30 million

30 million Americans currently suffer from hearing loss, which is often age-related.

>$2,300

Hearing aids currently cost an average of more than $2,300 apiece (i.e. for both ears, they cost an average of more than $4,600.) Over-the-counter products offer the prospect of bringing these costs down into the hundreds—instead of thousands—of dollars.

< 1/5

Due to the high cost and the overly burdensome steps needed to access hearing aids, fewer than one in five Americans who could benefit from technology to help them hear better actually get the assistance of a hearing aid. Many of these consumers who don’t suffer from severe hearing loss just need help hearing a little better in a loud restaurant, for example.

10,000

Roughly 10,000 Americans are turning 65 every single day. Over 25 percent of Americans aged 60-69 have hearing loss, and that rises to over 50 percent for 70-79 years of age and over 75 percent for Americans aged 80+ years. The ongoing retirement of the baby boomers and increased longevity mean that the number of Americans who could benefit from an over-the-counter hearing aid will only be growing. That’s why AARP and the Hearing Loss Association of America (HLAA) have both supported allowing an over-the-counter product.

6

Currently only six manufacturers produce nearly all hearing aids, and only one of those companies is based in the United States. Opening up the hearing aid market to innovative, lower-cost, over-the-counter options brings with it the prospect of expanding the number of options for consumers and creating opportunities for economic growth and job creation in the United States. That’s why consumer electronics stakeholders representing innovative American companies have supported expanding the options and technologies available.

So, what happens next?

As a first step toward breaking down barriers, FDA has announced that it does not intend to enforce the requirement for American adults to get a medical evaluation before obtaining most hearing aids. The vast majority of people waive this requirement already. Currently, audiological services are bundled into the overall price of a hearing aid—and the market is constrained by bulk purchasing arrangements between hearing aid dispensers and the major manufacturers. Allowing the sale of over-the-counter hearing aids has the potential to deliver tens of millions of Americans the prospect of better hearing at much lower cost by increasing competition and innovation in the hearing aid market.

In 2015, the President’s Council of Advisors on Science and Technology (PCAST) examined the technology, regulation, and marketplace of hearing aids, leading them to recommend that FDA approve an over-the-counter device.  Now—after a two-year study by the National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine that also called for an over-the-counter product in alignment with the PCAST recommendation—FDA is announcing it’s ready to take the necessary steps to move forward. Today’s actions are yet another in a series in response to President Obama’s Executive Order promoting competition to benefit consumers, workers, and small businesses.

The Bottom Line

Today’s announcement could start a movement toward over-the-counter hearing aids that will cost a fraction of the $2,300 apiece of current products, helping more of the 30 million Americans who need assistance.

Charlie Anderson is a Special Assistant to the President for Economic Policy. Ashley Predith is the Executive Director of PCAST. 

Read the President's statement

For many, trade policy can seem obscure and remote to their daily lives -- but America's trade policy plays an important part in helping to level the playing field for our workers and businesses in an increasingly interconnected and global economy. Leveling that playing field helps expand access for Made-in-America products and services to growing markets. And every added boost we can give to exports helps give a jolt to American wages too—as exporters pay up to 18 percent more than non-exporters. That's what the WTO and trade agreements do: Set out a clear set of rules between trading partners to ensure each country's goods and services are competing fair and square in foreign markets. And as President Obama said, "when American workers, businesses, and farmers have a fair shot to compete in the global economy, we win."

But what happens when a country decides to flout the rules in order to give their own workers or businesses an unfair advantage? That’s where trade enforcement comes in. So here’s a few answers to questions many people may have about how all this works.

How do countries know what the trade rules are? 

Trade policies between countries are governed in two ways: Either by membership in organizations like the WTO, which has 164 member countries, or through bilateral or regional arrangements, such as free trade agreements,. Signing up to the WTO (known as “accession” in trade-speak) and negotiating trade agreements not only set the rules and obligate countries to follow them, but also provide a way for countries to hold each other accountable should one or more participants decide to flout those rules.

If a trade agreement—or a country’s membership in the WTO—helps lay down the rules of the road between countries, what happens if a country breaks those rules? 

In the case of the WTO, becoming a WTO Member means accepting basic standards of fair trade that are agreed to across most of the globe – that’s the baseline for participation in the 21st century global trading system. Free trade agreements add to and strengthen the rules on top of the baseline set by the WTO.

These agreements yield economic benefits by breaking down barriers between countries but also allow for the best value products and services to win – rather than those most favored or most protected by one government. They can prevent countries from singling out a foreign competitor and taxing or regulating them unfairly relative to a domestic company. Or, as in the case of today’s action, they can prevent a country from unfairly advantaging their domestic industries by providing support in excess of agreed limits, distorting trade and disadvantaging their competitors.

So, when a country feels that others in the WTO may be disregarding the rules, that country can bring a case before the WTO to resolve. Independent experts are then selected to examine the matter and deliver findings which all WTO Members have agreed to adopt. To date, there have been more than 500 disputes filed at the WTO in its more than 20 years of existence.

Why has the U.S. brought cases before the WTO?

President Obama has made enforcing our trade rules a critical part of his Administration’s strategy on trade since Day 1. Vigilant monitoring and rigorous enforcement of U.S. trade rights is necessary to ensure that America’s working families are able to benefit from the job-supporting opportunities available under U.S. trade agreements.

The United States has brought 23 complaints to the WTO since 2009 – more than any other country -- and we have won every single case that has been decided so far. Export figures and industry estimates confirm that these enforcement victories are worth billions of dollars. 

What kinds of cases have we brought before the WTO?

We’ve won 12 major victories affecting billions of dollars of U.S. exports. Here are three examples:

• In 2012, the WTO found that China’s duties on high-tech steel were inconsistent with the rules, duties that contributed to over $250 million in losses for American steel exporters. President Obama challenged China on its misuse trade remedies that were harming our workers and businesses – the first time any WTO member had initiated a proceeding to challenge a claim by China. Following the U.S. complaint in the WTO, China announced that it was terminating the illegal extra duties on U.S. exports.
• In August of 2014, the WTO found that China had breached WTO rules by imposing unjustified extra duties on American cars and SUVs in a case brought by the Obama administration. In 2013, an estimated $5.1 billion of U.S. auto exports were covered by those duties. Following our complaint, China terminated the illegal extra duties on American exports.
• In 2015, the U.S. challenged India on its ban of U.S. agricultural products, like poultry, eggs, and live pigs, allegedly to protect against the avian flu. The U.S. challenged India’s ban, and the WTO found in favor of our charge that India’s ban breached numerous international trade rules, including one preventing countries from imposing a ban without sufficient scientific evidence.

What is the case that President Obama is bringing before the WTO today? 

The case we are bringing to the World Trade Organization (WTO) says very plainly that China’s excessive government support for rice, wheat, and corn must end. China made clear and specific commitments to the WTO on the level of government support it would provide for rice, wheat, and corn, but China’s government support programs go well beyond those limits.

But right now, China is providing trade-distorting farm subsidies, otherwise known as government domestic support, to wheat, rice, and corn producers in excess of the amounts permitted by their commitments.  In 2015 alone, we estimate that the aggregate value of support China provided to producers of these crops was nearly $100 billion in excess of China’s permitted level of support.  China has set prices for wheat, corn, and rice well above market levels, which leads to overproduction in China and puts American farmers at a competitive disadvantage. Here’s why:

China is the second largest export market for U.S. agricultural products, after Canada, accounting for 15 percent of total agricultural exports from the United States in 2015. The United States exported nearly $2.3 billion of wheat, rice, corn, and products produced using those commodities to China in 2015. But China’s excessive level of domestic support increases Chinese commodity prices and creates incentives for increased Chinese production of agricultural products. That shrinks the market size for U.S. products and restricts the growth potential in the Chinese market for U.S. exporters of these grains. 

America’s rice, wheat, and corn industries are vitally important to our national economy. Together, exports from these industries contribute an estimated $70 billion to the United States economy every year, and support 200,000 American jobs. Our farmers rely on access to China’s market to compete globally and support jobs and our economy back home.

As President said about today’s case:

When American workers, businesses, and farmers have a fair shot to compete in the global economy, we win. And when other countries flout the rules to try and undercut American workers and farmers, we hold them accountable. That’s what my Administration has done consistently in taking more claims to the World Trade Organization than any other country – and that’s exactly what we’re doing once again today by filing our latest complaint against China before the WTO.

How many cases have we brought against China?

Fourteen out of our 23 complaints at the WTO involve China. Under President Obama, we’ve won every case that has been decided so far and a total of 7 against China. 

Now that you’ve brought the case to the WTO, what happens next?

Under WTO dispute settlement procedures, we will hold consultations with China with a view to resolving these matters during those consultations.  If the United States and China are not able to reach a mutually agreed upon solution, the United States may request the establishment of a WTO dispute settlement panel. And because the measure we are challenging appears to provide advantages to Chinese farmers at the expense of farmers all over the world, not just the United States, this may impact other WTO member countries as well.

How else is President Obama making sure that countries play by the rules?

Actually, the President’s efforts to negotiate high-standard free trade agreements are a big part of that. The Trans-Pacific Partnership, or the TPP, is a trade agreement with 12 nations that puts in place the highest standards of any trade deal in history. From combatting illegal wildlife trafficking and banning child and forced labor to protecting a free and open internet and simplifying export rules for small businesses, the TPP ensures that our values are reflected in trade policies for the Asia-Pacific. And that’s important, because the Asia-Pacific houses some of the fastest growing markets in the world.

TPP will also make it easier for American entrepreneurs, farmers, and small business owners to sell Made-In-America products abroad by eliminating more than 18,000 taxes and other trade barriers on American products across the 11 other countries in the TPP—barriers that put American products at an unfair disadvantage today. And make no mistake, the U.S. is in a race with China to help define the rules of road in the region. China is looking to negotiate its own trade deal – one that doesn’t reflect American values and one that will leave U.S. workers and businesses behind. That’s why we need Congress to ratify the TPP this year.

In a century defined by an increasingly globalized economy, we cannot let other countries pass us by. If we don't pass this agreement and write the rules, our competitors will set weak rules of the road, threatening American jobs and workers while undermining U.S. leadership in Asia.

But you don’t have to take our word for it, read the deal yourself – and see what President Obama has to say about what the TPP will mean for workers, businesses, and America’s future in the 21st century.

Read about the TPP

Mandatory arbitration. Just seeing those words can make your eyes glaze over, but what you might not realize is – that’s kind of the point. This tiny phrase, buried in the fine print of hundreds of millions of contracts, is having real consequences on millions of Americans. But the companies who use it have been counting on the fact that it’s just too boring for you to notice. 

Not anymore.

Today, the independent Consumer Financial Protection Bureau (CFPB) is announcing new steps to stand up for consumers and push back – by proposing to require arbitration agreements for consumer financial products to allow consumers to file group claims in court. These clauses – which may show up in the fine print of contracts you sign when you do things like get a new credit card, open a bank account, or take out a student loan – require disputes to be resolved by privately appointed individuals only. That typically blocks consumers from banding together as a group to bring claims to court.

In Dodd-Frank, Congress required the CFPB to study the use of mandatory arbitration clauses in consumer financial markets. They gave CFPB the power to issue rules to protect the public from abuse of these clauses, if necessary. The CFPB went on to conduct what is believed to be the most comprehensive study of mandatory arbitration clauses in American history. What they found wasn’t pretty – which is why they’re now proposing to prohibit financial services companies from using arbitration agreements to block class action lawsuits. 

That’s a really big deal. Here’s why:

Mandatory arbitration clauses are rampant

If you interact with the financial system and your financial institution takes advantage of you, there’s a good chance you’ll get to learn all about how mandatory arbitration clauses short-circuit your ability to defend yourself. They’re buried in hundreds of millions of financial contracts – from bank accounts to credit cards. The CFPB study found that about half of outstanding credit card loans are subject to mandatory arbitration clauses (but even that understates the problem, as four large card issuers are under a temporary ban on these clauses that’s set to end). Banks with 44 percent of insured deposits include them in their checking account contracts. They’re also nearly universal across the subset of prepaid cards, payday loans, private student loans, and mobile wireless contracts CFPB studied. So, if you get bilked by a financial institution, you’ll likely run into them.

But most people don’t even know they exist

Often, these mandatory clauses are buried so far down in the fine print, that you wouldn't even notice them. And in that, you're not alone. More than 75 percent of consumers surveyed by CFPB in the credit card market did not know whether they were subject to an arbitration clause in their contract.

Giving people their day in court holds big corporations accountable

It also prevents other bad behavior. Because mandatory arbitration clauses stop consumers from banding together for a class action lawsuit, the harms to an individual consumer may be too small to make it practical to pursue litigation, even where the overall harm to consumers is significant. Consider a hypothetical situation where 5 million people have $500 taken from them unfairly in illegal bank fees: that’s a $2.5 billion problem. But for an individual consumer, the time, effort, and fees needed to get that $500 back could be worth many times that amount. In a telling sign, CFPB survey results have reported that only around 2 percent of consumers would consult an attorney to pursue an individual lawsuit as a means of resolving a small-dollar dispute. That’s a big reason why class action lawsuits are needed, but mandatory arbitration cuts that tool off at the knees.

Actions like today’s are why the President fought so hard to create the CFPB through Wall Street reform. And there are major, tangible signs it’s working—with stronger protections in mortgage markets, student loans, and credit cards. Tens of millions more Americans would be protected by today’s proposal. And CFPB has recovered nearly $11 billion for more than 25 million consumers through enforcement actions.

Given how many millions of Americans are being protected by the CFPB rules already in place and the importance of the work ahead, it’s appalling that Republicans are trying to repeal CFPB in its entirety. In this year’s House Republican Budget plan, they proposed getting rid of the CFPB. That’s completely unacceptable.

So, today, let’s also remember how important it is to have a watchdog tipping the scale back toward the consumer and let’s commit to fighting for this rule and this watchdog to be around for good.

Today, we learned that American businesses added 158,000 jobs in January, extending a record-breaking streak of private-sector job growth to 71 straight months – with wages growing at the fastest pace in years. We also learned that for the first time in almost 8 years, the unemployment rate dropped below 5 percent. Just two years ago, economists did not expect unemployment to fall below 5 percent until 2020. So here are five facts you should know about where America's economy stands today thanks to the President's leadership and the hard work of the American people.

1. We've beaten expectations on the unemployment rate

As recently as 2012, the Blue Chip consensus of independent private sector economists was that unemployment would be 6.7 percent in 2015; would still be almost 6 percent in 2018; and would not fall below 5 percent until 2020. And yet, today it’s 4.9 percent. 

Mitt Romney predicted his policies, if he were elected, would bring unemployment down to 6 percent – by the end of 2016, and one publication called that “a bold claim that Romney will surely be held to by Democrats if he’s elected.” To put that into perspective, if the unemployment rate were 6.7 percent today, roughly 2.7 million additional Americans would be out of work. If it were 6 percent, roughly 1.5 million additional Americans would be unemployed.

2. We’ve cut the unemployment rate by more than half

We've gone from a high of 10 percent in 2009 to less than 5 percent today. And the broadest measure of unemployment (known to econ wonks as “U-6”), which includes part time workers who want to work full-time and discouraged workers,has dropped even faster than the traditional unemployment rate (known to econ wonks as “U-3”). Long-term unemployment (>27 weeks) has also dropped even faster than short-term unemployment (<27 weeks) in the last year. Short-term unemployment is back to pre-crisis levels, and long-term unemployment is 90 percent of the way back to pre-crisis levels.

3. All of the jobs our businesses have been created are full-time jobs 

All of the net job creation since 2010 has been full-time jobs, despite erroneous claims by detractors that Obamacare (which passed in March 2010) would create or has created a “part time economy.”

4. We have the most job openings ever recorded

We have 5.4 million open jobs today – and job openings have been higher since mid-2015 than at any time since we started keeping records in 2000. 

5.  Wages have grown at the fastest pace since the financial crisis

Over the last six months, average hourly earnings for all private employees rose 2.9 percent at an annual rate, the fastest pace since the financial crisis.

Now we should continue to do everything we can to extend these positive trends, including increasing investments in infrastructure, implementing high-standards free trade agreements like the Trans-Pacific Partnership, and raising the minimum wage.