On August 16, 2022, President Joe Biden signed the Inflation Reduction Act of 2022 into law. It is the country’s most ambitious investment in climate solutions to date; it also takes steps to rein in the cost of prescription drugs and make the wealthy and corporations begin to pay their fair share in taxes, all while reducing the deficit. The Inflation Reduction Act’s massive investments to fight the climate crisis will also help improve job quality in clean energy industries and incentivize the expansion of workforce training pathways into these jobs, which will help lift many people into the middle class. The legislation purposefully includes targeted labor and workforce development standards—primarily prevailing wage and registered apprenticeship targets—as well as significant investments in manufacturing and domestic content requirements for electric vehicles. Pairing climate action with the creation of good jobs—and pathways into those jobs—has long been a goal of many policymakers, especially President Biden, but the Inflation Reduction Act begins to turn that goal into reality on a scale not yet seen in the United States.
The above excerpt was originally published in the Center for American Progress.
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