Invest at Home

Amy Liu argues that a major economic focus should be investment in firms and workers in the United States. Rather than trying to level wage competition, Liu says, the government should invest in its assets at home to keep companies from moving abroad.

"When we talk about the economy we need to invest here at home. We need to make sure that firms and workers stay here, and we've put so much of our sites about, you know, leveling the wage competition abroad and in other countries, but we're not investing in the very assets that we need here at home to keep our workers, to keep our firms, get our firms to expand here, to strengthen their work here; and when we talk to state and local leaders, chambers of commerce, nonprofits, businesses, and firms, this is what they're struggling with every day. They do have a temptation to move abroad at times, but that is because we're not focusing on their need here at home."

Amy Liu, co-founder and deputy director of Brookings' Metropolitan Policy Program, visiting scholar at UC-Berkeley and panel advisor to the National Governors Associations' State Development and Housing Policy Initiative.