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A little-known federal program has helped to empower generations of underserved Asian American, Native Hawaiian, and Pacific Islander students. This week, the Biden-Harris Administration is taking new steps to strengthen it.

By Erika L. Moritsugu, Krystal Ka‘ai, and Philip Kim

Last Friday, President Joe Biden issued the first-ever White House proclamation celebrating the impact of the Asian American and Native American Pacific Islander-Serving Institutions (AANAPISI) program and formally proclaimed September 25 through October 1, 2023, as National AANAPISI Week. The move is not only historic – it is the latest in a series of unprecedented steps taken by the Biden-Harris Administration to uplift the vital role of Minority-Serving Institutions (MSIs), providing a critical pathway to higher education for millions of Americans and to secure safety and stability in the middle class.

Ever since Congress first established the AANAPISI program in 2007, these campuses have empowered generations of Asian American, Native Hawaiian, and Pacific Islander (AA and NHPI) students. Both federal data and independent research show the influence of the AANAPISI program in broadening opportunity and putting higher education within reach for underserved AA and NHPI communities, many of whom are low income and the first in their families to attend college. 

The facts are clear. Though AANAPISIs make up a small percentage of U.S. colleges and universities, they enroll nearly half of the nation’s AA and NHPI undergraduate students. AANAPISIs also confer almost 50 percent of the associate degrees and nearly 30 percent of the baccalaureate degrees attained by all AA and NHPIs in the United States. Their efforts have also yielded progress in other ways – including improved retention and degree attainment rates for underserved communities. 

In addition, AANAPISIs employ and cultivate many of America’s top AA and NHPI leaders in higher education, including college and university presidents, administrators, and faculty. And as efforts to promote the teaching of AA and NHPI history continues to grow, these institutions have been at the forefront of groundbreaking scholarship and research, developing tools and sustaining initiatives to better tell our communities’ stories.

Despite these benefits, the AANAPISI designation is little known in comparison to other MSIs like Historically Black Colleges and Universities (HBCUs) and Hispanic-Serving Institutions (HSIs), and numerous institutions of higher education are unaware of their eligibility. 281 colleges and universities qualified as AANAPISIs in 2022, but only a fraction have sought and received funding through the program. 

The gap in awareness can be partially explained by the “model minority” myth, a harmful stereotype coined in the 1960s that ubiquitously casts our diverse AA and NHPI communities as affluent, high-achieving, and immune from the socioeconomic challenges faced by other communities of color. In practice, the myth has fueled monolithic characterizations of AA and NHPIs in post-secondary education that mask major disparities in student outcomes and experiences, a feat in inaccuracy when you realize AA and NHPI communities encompass more than 50 distinct ethnicities that speak over 100 different dialects and languages.

Yet the model minority myth is not the sole reason of concern. Experts point to limited program funding, the lack of disaggregated data on AA and NHPI students, and other barriers such as hate, discrimination, and sometimes violence – and say the federal government has a larger responsibility to uplift AANAPISIs.

We agree. During National AANAPISI Week, we have the chance to elevate the work of these critical institutions and recommit ourselves to strengthening their capacity – so that more Americans can reach their full potential.

Each AANAPISI plays a role in how the next generation of AA and NHPI students excel. They create culturally responsive environments in places of higher learning and offer invaluable support through mental health, language access, and career development services. During the COVID-19 pandemic, AANAPISIs helped to foster environments of inclusion and belonging to combat increased xenophobia and hatred directed toward the Asian American community. They created meaningful spaces to prepare AA and NHPI college students to be civically engaged leaders and changemakers.

That is why the Biden-Harris Administration is actively investing in Minority-Serving Institutions, including AANAPISIs, and will continue its efforts to support all students through graduation and beyond. President Biden’s American Rescue Plan delivered $5 billion in funding to AANAPISIs, and the U.S. Department of Education provided them with millions of dollars to expand research infrastructure. Across the federal government, agencies including the Departments of Education, Defense, and Energy, are working to improve the capacity and infrastructure of AANAPISIs through grants, cooperative agreements, and direct financial relief to students. And as President Biden announced at his meeting with Pacific Islands Forum leaders at the White House on Monday, the United States will double the number of academic exchanges of Pacific Islander students beginning this year.

Furthermore, the Biden-Harris Administration has repeatedly sought substantial funding increases from Congress for MSIs. Along with securing the largest increase for Pell Grants in over a decade for low-income families and bold actions to provide relief to student borrowers, President Biden is fighting to ensure that places of higher learning have the federal support they need to thrive. 

Finally, the White House Initiative on Asian Americans, Native Hawaiians, and Pacific Islanders (WHIAANHPI) is committed to tackling barriers to educational attainment in all forms. With the release of the Administration’s first-ever national strategy to advance equity, justice, and opportunity for AA and NHPI communities, we are working to create a higher education system that is more inclusive, equitable, and affordable. And we are urging the expansion of data disaggregation practices that help policymakers, administrators, and faculty gain deeper insight into the unique and varied educational needs of our diverse AA and NHPI communities.

Imagine the possibilities that we could unlock by investing in our educators and students. And with the AA and NHPI population rapidly increasing, the urgency to strengthen and support AANAPSIs will only grow in the years to come.

Our nation is stronger when we tap into the full range of talent of our students, who have demonstrated remarkable resilience and determination in the face of historic challenges. While AANAPISI Week is a time to celebrate and reflect upon the tremendous impact of this critical program, we recognize that more needs to be done to support our children and the schools that foster environments where students can lead and learn.

As President Biden wrote, “may we recommit to supporting these institutions as they raise the next generation of AA and NHPI dreamers and doers.”

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Erika L. Moritsugu is Deputy Assistant to the President and Asian American, Native Hawaiian, and Pacific Islander Senior Liaison at the White House.

Krystal Ka‘ai is Executive Director of the White House Initiative and President’s Advisory Commission on Asian Americans, Native Hawaiians, and Pacific Islanders.

Philip Kim is a Senior Advisor at the White House Office of Public Engagement.

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Heather Boushey, Chief Economist, Investing in America Cabinet and

Harin Contractor, Director for Labor Policy, National Economic Council

Today, the Biden-Harris Administration released a playbook on evidence-based workforce development strategies that state and local governments can use to support workers, families, and communities. After decades of jobs shipped overseas, communities hollowed out, and supply chains broken, President Biden’s economic vision—Bidenomics— goes back to what built the American middle class by growing the economy from the middle out and the bottom up.

The President is growing the economy from the middle out and bottom up by investing in America, supporting 21st century industries like semiconductors and clean energy; empowering and educating workers; and fostering fair and competitive markets. This agenda is a growth agenda, designed to deliver strong, stable, sustainable, and shared economic growth. And it’s designed to create jobs across the country, including in communities that have been too often left behind. External estimates predict that over the next decade, the Administration’s Investing in America agenda will create more than a million jobs in industries like manufacturing and construction. Already, investment in constructing new manufacturing facilities has skyrocketed.

With the President’s investments helping to build entire new industries in the United States, it’s to be expected that the entire workforce needed to fill those jobs isn’t already standing at the ready. That’s why the Administration is investing and scaling quality training efforts like Registered Apprenticeships—but training alone will not ensure a stable supply of skilled workers. The President believes that employers should prioritize ensuring that jobs are high-quality—including offering fair pay and benefits and quality working conditions—in order to attract and retain workers.

The challenge is that decades of offshoring, wage stagnation, lack of benefits, and increasingly aggressive anti-union activity on the part of some employers have left most workers without a sufficient support system to advocate for better benefits, safety, and voice. This has reduced the quality of jobs, including in construction and manufacturing industries.

Reduced union density and lower job quality can have repercussions for hiring and retention. In the construction industry, trainees who leave cite a number of issues, including being on call and dealing with unpredictable schedules; low pay and poor management; not enough time for training; little attention to work-life balance; and a lack of health insurance in a hazardous industry. Likewise, in manufacturing, one survey conducted before the pandemic indicates that most manufacturing firms were concerned about difficulties with hiring and the loss of institutional and technical knowledge as older workers leave the industry.

As the Council of Economic Advisers laid out in a brief last year, by improving job quality, employers can more easily attract and retain workers—benefitting their bottom line. At the same time, improved job quality enables workers to bring home the pay and benefits that provide an opportunity to reach the middle class, which in turn supports economic growth. Paying workers fair wages and providing benefits like paid leave can increase productivity, reduce turnover, and facilitate hiring and retention. Providing childcare lowers turnover while increasing the likelihood that parents can invest in training or additional education and work (especially full-time). Manufacturing firms that focus on job quality, like increasing pay and providing avenues for workers to have inputs into the firms’ practices, are better able to attract skilled workers, experience lower turnover, and higher productivity.

Similarly, unions are already playing a central role in developing and training the workforce for the President’s investments in America. And firms that allow unions to form uninhibited send a message to potential employees that the employer will value their work and that they can be confident in a stable, steady job that they can raise as family on.

While the federal, state, and local governments can help ensure job quality standards, employers themselves play a large role in lifting up good quality jobs. A key component of Bidenomics is helping employers create the conditions to attract and retain the skilled workforce they need. As Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen has laid out, the Biden-Harris Administration has put in place a “modern supply side” set of policies—policies that encourage private sector actors to take the high road, by creating high-quality jobs that provide dignity and enabling more workers to participate in the workforce. This means investing in job quality by supporting strong and stable economic growth, implementing labor standards around worker protection, and prioritizing worker empowerment and unionization.

This is why employers who pay prevailing wages for new clean energy projects and use Registered Apprenticeships—earn while you learn training efforts—to train skilled workers will receive enhanced tax credits up to five times the base value for specific credits.

Additionally, earlier this year, the President laid out a Roadmap to Support Good Jobs that outlined the Administration’s efforts to ensure America’s workers can access quality jobs from our historic investments. By investing $500 million in less than four months toward worker-centered sectoral training efforts, significantly Registered Apprenticeships in the Trucking and Cybersecurity, and investing over $200 million in training grants for infrastructure related jobs, the President is making sure we have strong pathways to quality jobs.

In the first comprehensive regulatory review in nearly 40 years, the Department of Labor has updated the Davis-Bacon regulations to strengthen and streamline the process for setting and enforcing wage rates on federally funded construction projects. And this month, the National Labor Relations Board issued a decision announcing a new framework for union representation proceedings—where if an employer commits any unfair labor practices during a representation election, the Board will order the employer to recognize and bargain with the union, rather than re-running the election.

While the Administration is setting up the essential training infrastructure needed for our in-demand jobs, employers should be part of the solution as well by investing in workers and improving job quality. When an employer or an industry is well known for high job quality, applicants will beat a path to the employer’s door. On the other hand, if an employer or industry has a reputation for low pay, unsafe conditions, and precarious work, it will have a hard time attracting a skilled team.

Quality jobs will ensure the benefits of the President’s Investing in America agenda are shared by all Americans, and that today’s investments lead to lasting, durable industries and long-term shared economic growth.

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Heather Boushey, Chief Economist, Investing in America Cabinet

Introduction

President Biden’s economic vision—Bidenomics—is centered around making smart public investments, empowering and educating workers, and promoting fair competition to lower costs and help small businesses thrive. As described in a recent report on the economic case for the first pillar of Bidenomics, Investing in America, this includes supporting critical sectors where private industry, on its own, has not made sufficient investments to meet our core economic and national security interests.

Through comprehensive supply chain reviews and an all-of-government strategy to combat the climate crisis, the Biden-Harris Administration has identified three areas that particularly need investment—infrastructure, semiconductors, and clean energy. In these three areas, it is in the United States’ national and economic interest to have sufficient domestic production capacity. Decades of disinvestment in these areas have hollowed out communities and deprived the U.S. economy of the productivity gains, increased growth, and high-quality jobs that come from investing in these strategic sectors.

To reverse this trend, the President worked with Congress to pass the set of policies that comprise the Investing in America agenda—the American Rescue Plan, the Bipartisan Infrastructure Law, the CHIPS and Science Act, and the Inflation Reduction Act—which invests in infrastructure, semiconductor manufacturing, and clean energy. This agenda includes two kinds of investment policies: incentives to invest—government funds that encourage a certain action (e.g., tax credits for facilities producing electricity from renewable energy)—and direct investments—government funds that directly pay for something (e.g., a government grant to modernize the electrical grid). These investment policies that make up the Investing in America agenda—described simply as “investments” in the rest of this brief—were designed to work together, with integrated benefits. For example, semiconductors are critical inputs for clean energy technologies, and a national charging network is critical for the widespread use of electric vehicles.

The long-run effects of these public investments ultimately depend on whether private investment flows into the industries. While the economic literature has pointed to cases where public investments can crowd out private investment, there are circumstances when public investments mobilize (“crowd in”) private investments. Now, new economic literature is developing to explain when and how this occurs. This brief examines the circumstances under which there is a positive relationship between public and private investment.

With a focus on these three laws, this issue brief lays out:

• The need for investment in key infrastructure and industries like semiconductors and clean energy;
• How the Investing in America agenda is designed to catalyze additional private sector investment;
• Recent signs of private sector response to the Investing in America agenda and proof that the laws are reaching the intended results of mobilizing private sector activity.

The Need for Investment

Significant public and private investments are needed to support the creation of durable, thriving domestic semiconductor and clean energy industries that meet our climate and national security goals, including in developing and building new infrastructure. In clean energy, for example, the International Energy Agency (IEA) and the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development estimate that $4 trillion and $6.9 trillion, respectively of annual global investments may be needed to meet the Paris Agreement’s emissions reduction target; both organizations also conclude that public investment alone will be insufficient to reach this target.

The President’s agenda has put the United States on a path to make historically large investments in these industries and the infrastructure that supports them. This represents only a fraction of the global total required to reach these goals. The IEA estimates that to globally reach Net Zero by 2050, 70 percent of global clean energy investments will likely need to come from the private sector—including from utility and energy companies, clean energy developers, and financing institutions like banks or venture capital (Figure 1).

Looking at specific clean energy technologies, recent analyses show that significant investments will be necessary to ensure nascent industries become commercially viable and can help us meet President Biden’s emissions reduction goals. For advanced nuclear, clean hydrogen, carbon management, and long duration energy storage technologies, the Department of Energy’s Liftoff to Commercialization Reports provide some initial industry-informed estimates of the necessary private and public investments needed to deploy these nascent technologies.

For example, the clean hydrogen report outlines that in the United States, $105–235 billion of investments are needed between now and 2030 to reach the U.S. goal of producing 10 million metric tons per year of clean hydrogen in 2030 (Figure 2). These investments will be spread along the value chain, with roughly half for midstream and end-use infrastructure. As of January 2023, already announced projects represent $21 billion in planned investment, leaving an investment gap of $85-$215 billion that are still required across the hydrogen value chain, including for midstream infrastructure (distribution and storage) and end-use applications (e.g., steel, chemicals, refining).

Public Investments Can Mobilize Private Investments

As outlined above, in infrastructure, clean energy, and domestic semiconductor manufacturing, there is a need for significant public and private investments to meet core U.S. economic and national security goals. Through his Investing in America agenda, President Biden has made a series of public investments, which are designed to crowd in private investment in these critical areas.

A growing body of scholarship supports a positive role for public investments to mobilize private investments. This includes economic research that has shown empirically how public investments are effective in advancing renewable energy goals and industrial policy priorities. For example, Dina Azhgaliyeva and coauthors estimate the positive effects of government investment in renewable energy—through government R&D expenditures, feed-in tariffs, and taxes—on private investment.

The economic literature suggests that targeted public investments can play an important role in coordinating complementary private investments in industry, infrastructure, and workforce. In addition, public investments can provide additional certainty for the private sector and help overcome market failures like financial frictions that may impede the development of early industries. This crowding in of private investments is more likely to occur in certain contexts, including when the economy is not at full capacity and in the presence of spillover benefits or bottlenecks that limit returns for the private sector.

Crowding in may involve shifts in investment across sectors. Depending on the state of the economy, public spending could theoretically increase private investment in one sector but reduce it in another. Thus, given the scale and speed of the necessary private investments in clean energy and semiconductor industries, it is possible that public investments might cause a shift of capital from one sector to another (i.e., a reallocation of capital but a still-positive aggregate net change). This would be consistent with the first-order goal of the Investing in America agenda: to channel private investment in order to advance specific national priorities.

Past examples from the biotechnology industry, the pharmaceutical industry, the information technology sector, and clean energy technologies like wind and solar illustrate how public investments can unleash private sector innovation—lowering costs, improving quality, and supporting domestic production of critical goods. Along the way, these public investments in strategic industries enabled the development and growth of companies like Tesla and Apple. As described below, the investments from the Bipartisan Infrastructure Law, CHIPS and Science Act, and Inflation Reduction Act are designed to build on lessons learned from the past and crowd in private investment in semiconductors and clean energy technologies.

Incentivizing Increased Supply

When goods have strong positive externalities—such as decreasing our carbon emissions, improving supply chain resilience, or promoting national security—the market can underprovide, as private actors do not experience all of the social benefits of their production. In these instances, government action, such as by lowering the cost of production for the firm, can correct the failure of the market to provide sufficient supply and improve overall welfare.

The President’s Investing in America agenda includes numerous intersecting investments to support increased supply of critical goods that the market has underprovided. For example, it includes billions for facilities that remove, use, and store carbon; nuclear energy plants; the electrical grid; facilities that process battery materials; and more, through the Bipartisan Infrastructure Law.

Likewise, through the CHIPS and Science Act, the Department of Commerce now provides grants and other incentives to semiconductor companies to build fabrication plants and plants producing materials and equipment used in semiconductor production in the United States. The Commerce Department will prioritize providing federal funding for companies seeking to make new investments—ones that companies can reasonably demonstrate would not otherwise have occurred without government as a partner. The Investing in America agenda also includes billions of dollars for semiconductor research and development and for workforce training. Investing in early-stage research and development and workforce training also has positive spillover effects for the private sector, lowering costs for firms.

Similarly, the Inflation Reduction Act includes tax credits to support investment in and deployment of clean energy, including to manufacture components for clean energy, battery components, and critical minerals that private markets had underinvested in. The Inflation Reduction Act updates and extends tax credits for clean energy production and investment to lower the costs of power generation. Starting in 2025, these credits become technology-neutral: the government sets the criteria in line with societal goals—to get the tax credit, facilities must produce energy with zero greenhouse gas emissions—but it does not dictate the technology that must be used to do so. This allows the market to do what it does best—finding the most efficient, cost-effective technologies to produce this energy.

These funding streams, combined, are designed to de-risk new technologies, support the development of necessary infrastructure, and more, making new technologies and domestic manufacturing cost-competitive.

Sending Demand Signals

Other public investments function by sending a clear demand signal to the private sector, spurring private investments to meet the anticipated demand. For example, the Investing in America agenda includes tax credits to increase consumer demand for electric vehicles and support energy-efficient upgrades to homes, including the installation of heat pumps or energy-efficient windows and doors. Likewise, the Administration is supporting the purchase of low- or no-emission buses to help reduce emissions and support private sector investments in electric buses.

The federal government’s purchasing power, and that of other public entities, can also be an important tool for seeding demand in nascent industries. The Federal Buy Clean Initiative, for instance, is working to leverage the $650 billion annual purchasing power of the federal government to build a market for low-carbon construction materials critical for reducing emissions from hard-to-abate sectors of the economy. Twelve states have joined the Administration to launch a Federal-State Buy Clean Partnership to use their own purchasing power further advance the use of low-carbon construction materials.

Additionally, domestic content bonuses in the legislation—along with the Build America, Buy America act—support domestic manufacturing by increasing demand for inputs like iron and steel manufactured in the United States.

Solving Coordination Problems

Other challenges can threaten the commercial viability of clean energy technologies. For example, although electric vehicle charging often occurs at home, consumers may be hesitant to purchase an electric vehicle without a robust network of accessible chargers across the country to support long-distance travel. At the same time, it may not be profitable for companies to produce EV chargers if consumers are slow to adopt electric vehicles. This creates a “chicken-and-egg” problem—while it would be optimal for consumers to adopt EVs and for businesses to install EV chargers simultaneously, neither party has an incentive to act without the other.

The President’s Investing in America agenda aims to overcome this challenge by providing incentives to both parties at the same time. Public sector leadership enables the private sector to move ahead with making the necessary investments in both clean vehicles and EV charging infrastructure. Federal investments and Made-in-America policies for EV charging have spurred over $24 billion in private commitments, from new plants to manufacture chargers to new partnerships to deploy them. Recently, seven automakers announced their intent to build 30,000 high powered fast chargers across North America, which would roughly double the current fast charging network. 

The “chicken-and-egg” dynamic can also hinder private investment in industries through workforce challenges. For example, new industries may experience challenges when neither employers nor the public sector have sufficiently invested in training workers so that they are equipped with the skills necessary to meet new levels of projected labor demand in the industry. Market failures sometimes prevent firms from implementing training even in the face of labor demand. For example, when investments in training are not the norm, there can be collective action challenges because if only one firm invests in training workers, other firms may hire away the workers and reap the benefits of that training. And in order for workers themselves to invest in training, they need to see high-quality jobs—with good pay, stable trajectories, and the option for upward mobility. In new or growing industries, there may be limited examples to show workers that the industry will provide them with high-quality jobs over the course of their career.

In the face of these challenges, the federal government is partnering with employers and other stakeholders—including unions, community and technical colleges, high schools, state and local governments, and others—to develop and invest in sector-based strategies for robust, equitable workforce development. For example, the Administration’s Infrastructure Talent Pipeline Challenge garnered over 350 commitments to expand equitable workforce development in broadband, construction, and electrification. In parallel, the Administration has taken action to stand up high-quality Registered Apprenticeship and career and technical education programs. This is on top of other efforts to connect workers and employers with quality training programs, centered in places that have seen significant public and private sector investments as a result of recent legislation.

By investing in the underlying infrastructure and working with employers to develop and support workforce training programs, the government can support the private sector in overcoming hurdles like a lack of infrastructure or a limited supply of trained workers, enabling the private sector to make more investment in key technologies.

Unlocking private capital

Because of how nascent they are, frontier technologies often find it challenging to access traditional (lower-cost) capital markets, like project debt from banks or project equity from other investors. This means these technology projects have less access to capital, which would be leveraged to boost returns (and make them more attractive to investors), accelerate the infrastructure and ecosystem buildout, and deliver the socioeconomic benefits promised by the technology.

While this, in part, can be due to issues like the lack of existing workforce and infrastructure discussed above, these technologies are also perceived as having greater credit risk. The challenges are twofold. First-of-a-kind projects are sometimes more likely to experience large uncertainties in actual equipment manufacturing costs, construction timing and costs, revenue streams (especially if they involve new business models and use cases), or ongoing operating and maintenance expenses. Second, the novelty of frontier technologies can limit institutional investments in their own capacities to understand, assess, and underwrite investments or loans in the space. Because of this, traditional financing institutions may be hesitant to underwrite clean energy technology projects that do not yet have a more extensive track record at scale.

At the same time, more generally, manufacturing competes with other sectors—like software—that offer higher returns with fewer upfront capital investments. Manufacturing investments can take longer to pay off and may need sizeable upfront capital investments beyond the scope of certain investors like venture capital groups. Therefore, the industry tends to have less access to capital from investors.

Government investments in the Investing in America agenda help reduce these credit risks and enable private capital to flow into clean energy and manufacturing markets. Currently, this is being implemented through offices like the Department of Energy Loan Programs Office and Office of Clean Energy Demonstrations—along with investments in domestic manufacturing of semiconductors, requirements for domestic manufacturing of certain infrastructure inputs, and more. The Office of Clean Energy Demonstrations can provide financial assistance for first-of-a-kind commercial scale demonstrations that prove the technology works in real-world conditions and at scale. Similarly, the Loan Programs Office fills a key gap in the commercialization pathway by providing loans and loan guarantees to emerging clean energy projects that private lenders like banks are challenged in lending to. By supporting nascent yet promising technologies at a time when private financing institutions do not, the government carves a path for clean energy projects to scale, demonstrate viability, and eventually unlock private capital—spurring greater private investment.

Measuring the Success of Crowding in Private Investments

Measuring the success of President Biden’s Investing in America agenda in spurring private investment will be an ongoing effort. The investments that compose the Investing in America agenda are spread over the course of a decade; their full effects will play out over years, not months. In the near-term, the Administration is monitoring a set of economic indicators which, taken together, point to an increase in private sector investment and associated growth. Currently, the available data and analyses allow only for preliminary, descriptive assessments. More time and data will allow for analyses of the causal effects of the Investing in America agenda on investment and growth.

Near-term indicators

In the near-term, there are a variety of descriptive data that will indicate whether public and private investment is flowing to the identified industries. This includes announcements of planned investments, which are being tracked by the Department of Energy for U.S. battery, solar, and off-shore wind manufacturing; in the White House tracking of Investing in America progress; and by a number of  private entities. Additionally, Census’ Value of Construction Put in Place Survey provides monthly estimates of the total dollar value of construction work aggregated at the national level since 1960. Finally, the Bureau of Economic Analysis provides data on private nonresidential investment in manufacturing construction, which can be used to assess the share of GDP growth comprised of manufacturing construction investment.

These data point to a surge of private sector investment in related industries. There has been a wave of recent announced commitments by businesses to invest in sectors targeted by Investing in America legislation. Since President Biden took office, companies have announced investments totaling $503 billion (Figure 3). These clean energy and manufacturing commitments include $231 billion for semiconductors and electronics, $133 billion for electric vehicles and batteries, and $103 billion for clean energy, among other investments. According to a Financial Times analysis, in the six months that followed the passage of CHIPS Act and the Inflation Reduction Act, companies announced more than 75 large-scale manufacturing investments in the United States.

Of course, we need to track whether these announcements are followed up with actual investment. In the first several years of implementation of CHIPS and IRA, investment funds should flow towards construction, followed by investment in new equipment. In later years, we expect funds will flow towards manufacturing itself (through, for example, the purchase of manufacturing inputs or the hiring of workers). Given the scale of the public investment, we ultimately expect the Investing in America agenda to spur trillions in private sector investment. Goldman Sachs estimates that the Inflation Reduction Act alone will unlock $3 trillion in private sector investments over the next decade.

In the latest data, we see indications of an uptick in construction investment, as overall inflation-adjusted spending on the construction of manufacturing facilities, depicted in Figure 4, now sits at a six-plus decade high. This spending has risen 85 percent since January 2021, accompanying the passage of the Bipartisan Infrastructure Law, the CHIPS and Science Act, and the Inflation Reduction Act, which include tax incentives and direct funding to boost manufacturing construction. Much of this growth is driven by a boom in spending on construction for electronics manufacturing, which reached $101 billion (in 2022 dollars) in June 2023, representing 56 percent of all manufacturing construction spending that month and a more than tenfold increase since the President took office.

Preliminary data suggest that GDP growth is increasingly composed of growth in manufacturing construction. In the second quarter of 2023, private investment in manufacturing construction contributed nearly 0.4 p.p. to real GDP growth according to the Bureau of Economic Analysis’ Advance Estimate (Figure 5). This contribution amounted to the largest contribution of investment in manufacturing structures to real GDP growth in more than 40 years.

As a result of trends in construction and infrastructure growth supported by the President’s agenda, Morgan Stanley improved its GDP forecast into 2024. Similarly, J.P. Morgan has said that the Investing in America agenda “represent[s] the largest U.S. commitment to industrial policy since the Cold War” and has the potential to create “exciting, long-term investment opportunities.” And Goldman Sachs has predicted that the Inflation Reduction Act will “accelerate both investment and innovation,” particularly for batteries and energy efficiency.

Conclusion

As laid out in a recent case paper, Bidenomics makes targeted public investments in industries like semiconductors and clean energy that are critical for U.S. economic and national security. However, successfully building these industries in the United States requires both public and private investment. Thus, consistent with the economic literature—which indicates that public investments can successfully crowd in private investments—President Biden’s Investing in America agenda has been designed to encourage private-sector investments. The early evidence suggests that the private sector is already responding to this agenda, with rising spending on construction of manufacturing facilities and over $500 billion in announced private investment since President Biden took office. Ongoing data collection and analysis will be necessary to continue tracking the progress of these major government investments.

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Heather Boushey, Chief Economist, Investing in America Cabinet

President Biden’s economic vision—Bidenomics—is about building the economy from the middle out and the bottom up. It starts with recognizing that in recent decades, the U.S. economy has seen rising inequality, mounting costs from climate change, and economic shocks like the pandemic and Great Recession. The pace of growth has been too slow and has delivered uneven benefits across our society. Economic policies have underestimated the importance of public investment for economic growth, equity, and wellbeing.

The three pillars of Bidenomics—making smart investments in America, empowering workers, and promoting competition to lower costs and help small businesses—were born from mounting evidence of the magnitude of these challenges. They are informed by a body of research that has shown that growing the economy equitably requires rethinking certain core economic assumptions, and instead expanding the productive capacity of the American economy through evidence-backed government investments. Taken together, these pillars will support strong, sustainable, and shared economic growth.

This post provides resources on the first pillar—investing in America—which is grounded in economic research about what investments need to be made and how those investments should be implemented in order to ensure sustained, equitable growth. The pillar includes investments in building the clean energy economy, manufacturing semiconductors domestically, and updating our infrastructure—all designed to support the middle class and re-establish a strong economic foundation in America, as opposed to benefitting those at the top and hoping those benefits trickle down.

Working with Congress, the President has signed into law three historic pieces of legislation to make this vision a reality—the Bipartisan Infrastructure Law, the CHIPS and Science Act, and the Inflation Reduction Act. Each aims to make the U.S. competitive in critical industries and a leader in innovation and infrastructure.

Tracking the latest economic research and improving analytic data and measurement tools are paramount to successfully implementing these Bidenomics policies. In the coming weeks and months, we will share additional resources to help track the research that informs our policies, and the evidence for what has happened since they passed. This post will be a living compilation of those resources—we invite you to follow along and help us build a stronger, fairer economy for the long-haul.

I. An introduction to Investing in America

The Investing in America agenda is a series of investments in areas of the economy that are critical for national and economic security but underfunded by the private market, including infrastructure, clean energy, and research and development.

• The Biden-Harris Economic Blueprint (September 2022) lays out the President’s economic plan to rebuild the economy from the bottom up and middle out in a way that (1) empowers workers, (2) makes it and builds it in America, (3) gives families breathing room, (4) makes American industry more competitive, less concentrated, and more resilient, and (5) rewards work, not wealth.
• There are resources that lay out the core Investing in America legislation:
  • The Bipartisan Infrastructure Law guidebook is a roadmap to the infrastructure funding available, with program-by-program information.
  • The Inflation Reduction Act guidebook is an overview of the clean energy, climate mitigation and resilience, agriculture, and conservation-related tax incentives and investment programs.
  • The CHIPS Vision for Success provides detailed information about the program objectives across three categories: strengthening semiconductor supply chain resilience, advancing U.S. technology leadership, and supporting vibrant U.S. semiconductor manufacturing ecosystems.

II. The economic rationale for Investing in America

The Investing in America agenda is grounded in economic evidence that explains why we are investing in these specific areas of the economy and why we are prioritizing people and places, fair markets, and strong supply chains.

• The Economics of Investing in America (July 2023) articulates the economic rationale for why the Investing in America agenda will spur stable, shared economic growth by investing in critical industries and infrastructure from the middle out and the bottom up.
• President Joseph R. Biden made the case for Investing in America in his remarks on Bidenomics (June 2023).
• Senior Administration officials have spoken about the economic reasons to invest in America—including First Lady Jill Biden, National Economic Council Director Lael Brainard, Domestic Policy Advisor Neera Tanden, Council of Economic Advisers Chair Jared Bernstein, Secretary of the Treasury Janet Yellen, Investing in America Chief Economist Heather Boushey, National Security Advisor Jake Sullivan, and former National Economic Council Director Brian Deese.
• An array of other resources, described below, make the case for specific aspects of the agenda…    

1. Investing in critical industries and infrastructure

Infrastructure investments are long overdue and support productivity and economic growth across industries.

• Modernizing U.S. Infrastructure: The Bipartisan Infrastructure Law (November 2021)
• Bringing Infrastructure into the 21st Century (November 2021)

Climate change is one of our greatest challenges, and decades of economic evidence supports building the clean energy economy as a solution that will lower emissions, grow the economy, and benefit workers and communities.

• The Economics of Demand-Side Support for the Department of Energy’s Clean Hydrogen Hubs (July 2023)
• The Department of Energy Liftoff Reports on advanced nuclear, carbon management, clean hydrogen, and long duration energy storage
• Accelerating and Smoothing the Clean Energy Transition (April 2022)
• Supporting Economic Growth While Tackling Climate Change (November 2021)
• Innovation, Investment, and Inclusion: Accelerating the Energy Transition and Creating Good Jobs (April 2021)

Semiconductors are the building blocks of the modern economy, and domestic capacity to produce semiconductors is important for the resilience of our supply chains and imperative for economic growth.

• Remarks by Secretary of Commerce Gina Raimondo on The CHIPS Act and a Long-term Vision for America’s Technological Leadership (February 2023)
• The Economics Behind the President’s Economic Agenda (August 2022)

2. Investing in people and places

The President understands that investing in people and places is vital for successfully implementing the Investing in America agenda, delivering strong and stable growth, and ensuring its benefits are shared.

• Description of the Justice40 Initiative
• Description of the Federal Interagency Thriving Communities Network
• Biden-Harris Administration Roadmap to Support Good Jobs (May 2023)
• Remarks by President Joseph R. Biden on Building Healthy Communities and Advancing Environmental Justice (April 2023)
• Revitalizing Energy Communities Two-Year Report to the President (April 2023)
• Equitable Workforce Development for Infrastructure Jobs: A Guide to Federal Resources (November 2022)
• Care Businesses: A Model that Doesn’t Work for Providers, Workers, or Families (April 2022)
• Blocking the Low Road and Paving the High Road: Management Practices to Improve Productivity (April 2022)
• Investing in People: Education, Workforce Development, and Health (April 2022)
• Coal-dependent Communities in Transition: Identifying Best Practices to Ensure Equitable Outcomes (September 2021)

3. Strengthening supply chains

Resilient supply chains protect our economy from unexpected shocks and facilitate stable economic growth.

• Unsnarled Supply Chains Appear to Help Ease Goods Inflation (June 2023)
• Brian Deese, John Podesta and Jake Sullivan on the Inflation Reduction Act (January 2023)
• Building Resilient Supply Chains (April 2022)
• Improving and Tracking Supply Chains Link by Link (November 2021)
• When the Chips Are Down: Preventing and Addressing Supply Chain Disruptions (September 2021)
• Why the Pandemic Has Disrupted Supply Chains (June 2021)

4. Shaping markets to be fair and competitive

Stable, shared economic growth requires policymakers to shape markets to avoid monopoly power and build industries that are productive and fair.

• Protecting Competition Through Updated Merger Guidelines (July 2023)
• Investing in America Means Investing in America’s Small Businesses (May 2023)
• The President’s Initiative on Junk Fees and Related Pricing Practices (October 2022)
• Recent Data Show Dominant Meat Processing Companies Are Taking Advantage of Market Power to Raise Prices and Grow Profit Margins (December 2021)
• Addressing Concentration in the Meat-Processing Industry to Lower Food Prices for American Families (September 2021)
• The Importance of Competition for the American Economy (July 2021)

5. Overcoming barriers to scaling production

Overcoming barriers to scaling production is necessary to meet the needs of the moment with effective investments in America.

• Remarks by Senior Advisor John Podesta on the Biden-Harris Administration’s Priorities for Energy Infrastructure Permitting Reform (May 2023)
• The Biden-Harris Permitting Action Plan to Rebuild America’s Infrastructure, Accelerate the Clean Energy Transition, Revitalize Communities, and Create Jobs (May 2022)

Finally, central to our mission is tracking the progress of the Investing in America agenda through the latest data and research. That includes progress on empowering workers, making and building it in America, giving families breathing room, and making America more competitive, less concentrated, and more resilient. Invest.gov is a resource that maps the latest private and public investments, and provides relevant economic data at the national and state level.

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