It is Obama's belief that such jobs will help raise living standards for middle-class families, who didn't fare well before the current economic downturn set in and are now feeling pinched along with millions of other people who have lost their jobs and homes, and watched retirement and college savings disappear.
The panel's purpose is to recommend ways to boost the middle class. It also will evaluate new and existing policies to determine whether they are helping or hurting the middle class.
"Quite simply, a strong middle class equals a strong America. We can't have one without the other," Biden has said. "It is our charge to get the middle class, the backbone of this country, up and running again."
Jared Bernstein, the task force's executive director, said middle-class incomes have fallen by about $2,000 in real terms since the start of the decade and that violates a basic American tenet: that you'll get ahead if you work hard and your children will fare even better.
"Part of this election was about recognizing that a key part of any effective government's economic agenda had to be reconnecting the living standards of the middle class to that of the expanding economy once it starts expanding again," said Bernstein.
Green jobs, broadly defined as related to improving the environment, pay up to 20 percent more than other jobs, are more likely to be union jobs, and likelier held by men, less so by minorities and city dwellers, according to a draft report to be released at tomorrow's meeting at the University of Pennsylvania. Green jobs also are largely domestic jobs that cannot be shipped overseas.
