Clinton-Gore Administration Accomplishments:
Improving the Quality of Life for America' s Working Families

Progress By The Numbers

Jobs & The Economy:

Unemployment

4.3 percent unemployment -- the lowest peacetime rate since 1957. The unemployment rate has stayed below 5 percent for 24 months in a row. [Bureau of Labor Statistics, 7/2/99]

Income

Typical family income is up $3,517 (8.6 percent) since 1993. Median family income has increased from $41,051 in 1993 to $44,568 in 1997. [Money Income in the United States: 1997, Bureau of the Census, 9/24/98]

Wages

Under President Clinton and Vice President Gore, real wages have risen 6.2 percent compared to declining 4.3 percent during the Reagan and Bush years. After adjusting for inflation, wages have increased almost 2.7 percent in 1998 -- the fastest real wage growth in more than two decades and the third year in a row and the longest sustained growth since the early 1970s. [Bureau of Labor Statistics, 7/2/99]

Tax Cuts

15 million working families receive additional tax relief through the President's expansion of the Earned Income Tax Credit. In 1997, the EITC lifted 4.3 million out of poverty -- that is more than double the number who were removed from poverty in 1993. Over half of the people removed from poverty by the EITC (2.2 million) were children under the age of 18. [Good News for Low Income Families: Expansions in the EITC and Minimum Wage, CEA, 12/98]

$500 per-child tax credit

27 million families with 45 million children will receive the $500 per-child tax credit. [Treasury Department]

Minimum Wage

10 million Americans received an increase in wages thanks to the President's leadership. [Good News for Low Income Families: Expansions in the EITC and Minimum Wage, CEA, 12/98]

New Businesses

Over 4.1 million new businesses have been created since 1993. [New Employer Firms Business Formation, Small Business Admin. 12/98, 1997 data]

National Debt

There is $25,000 less debt for each family of four because the national debt will be $1.7 trillion lower in fiscal year 1999 than was projected in 1993. [internal calculations based on: FY 2000 Budget Mid-Session Review (Table 1); OMB (1993 internal projection); Bureau of the Census]

Home Ownership

There are more than seven million new homeowners since 1993 -- the home ownership rate is at the highest level ever. [Bureau of the Census, 4/21/99]

Expanding Educational Opportunity: Elementary and Secondary Schools

Teachers

30,000 new, well-prepared teachers are being hired for fall 1999, the first down payment on the President's seven-year plan to reduce class size by hiring 100,000 well-prepared teachers. [Education Department, 6/99]

After School Programs

Approximately 400,000 school-age children in rural and urban communities have safe and educational after-school opportunities this year because of the expanded 21st Century Community Learning Centers program. In his FY 2000 budget, the President proposed to increase funding to serve approximately 1.1 million students. [Education Department]

Goals 2000

47 states plus the District of Columbia and Puerto Rico have set higher academic standards for public schools by adopting comprehensive Goals 2000 plans for education reform. [Goals 2000: Reforming Education to Improve Student Achievement, Education Department, 4/20/98]

Education Technology

30 million children and up to 47,000 schools and libraries are being connected to the Internet through the education rate, or E-rate, created by the 1996 Telecommunications Act. [FY 2000 Budget, p. 67]

Title I

11 million low-income students now benefit from higher expectations and a challenging curriculum geared to higher standards. [Statement of the Secretary of Education before the U.S. Senate Committee on Health, Education, Labor, and Pensions, 2/9/99]

Mentoring

Approximately 175,000 middle school students will be prepared for college this year through expanded mentoring efforts as part of GEAR-UP. [Education Department]

Expanding Educational Opportunity: Postsecondary Education and Training

HOPE Scholarships

5.9 million students are expected to benefit from the $1,500 HOPE Scholarship tuition tax credit. [Education Department, 4/2/99]

Pell Grants

3.8 million low-income students will receive a Pell Grant award to help them attend college. In the FY99 budget, the President increased the maximum Pell Grant award from $3,000 to $3,125 -- that is the largest maximum award ever. [Department of Education FY 2000 Budget Summary, 2/99]

Direct Loan Program

More than 3.9 million student and parent borrowers have received direct loans since the program began. [Federal Direct Loan Program, Federal Office of Student Financial Assistance, Education Department, 1/31/99]

AmeriCorps

More than 100,000 volunteers have earned money for college by serving their communities and their country in the AmeriCorps program since the inception of the program. [National Service News (issue no. 66), 11/2/98]

Lifetime Learning Tax Credit

7.2 million will benefit from the lifetime learning tax credit, which offers a 20 percent tax credit for the first $5,000 of tuition and fees paid by a student. [FY 2000 Budget, p. 69]

School-To-Work

470,000 high school students, 36,000 schools (K-12), and 136,000 employers, participated in school-to-work programs in 1997. [Progress Measures Survey 1997, National School-to-Work Office, Education Department]

Work Study

Nearly one million students will be able to work their way through college this year because of the President's expansion of the Work Study Program. [FY 2000 Budget, p. 69]

Dislocated Workers

An estimated 689,000 American workers will benefit this year from the dislocated worker program. In his FY2000 budget, President Clinton proposed to increase funding to serve 859,000 workers. [Department of Labor Budget Overview FY 2000, 2/99]

Crime and Public Safety

Declining Crime Rates

There has been a 21 percent drop in violent crime victimizations rate since 1993 -- to the lowest level since 1973 (the year of the survey's inception). The murder rate is down more than 25 percent since 1993, its lowest point in 30 years.[1997 National Crime Victimizations Survey, Justice Department's Bureau of Justice Statistics (BJS), 12/98; Justice Department Release, 1/99]

Juvenile Arrests Down

The nation has seen a six percent drop in the juvenile violent crime arrest between 1993 and 1997. [FBI's Uniform Crime Reports for the United States 1997, Justice Department]

Community Policing

The President's goal of funding 100,000 more community police officers for our streets was reached in May 1999 -- meeting the pledge ahead of schedule and under budget. [COPS program, 6/12/99]

Brady Bill

Over 400,000 felons, fugitives and stalkers have been stopped from buying guns. ["Presale Handgun Checks, 1997" Bureau of Justice Statistics Bulletin, 6/15/99]

"Zero-Tolerance" for Guns In Schools

6,093 students were expelled from public schools for bringing a firearm to school in one year under zero tolerance policies. [Final Report on State Implementation of the Gun-Free Schools Act, School Year 1996-97, Department of Education, 5/98]

Domestic Violence Hotline

More than 300,000 calls -- averaging a little more than 8,000 a month -- have been received by the nationwide, 24-hour domestic violence hotline President Clinton established. [Violence Against Women Office, DOJ, 6/99]

Families

Patients' Bill of Rights

85 million people covered by Federal health plans received patient protections -- protections included in the President's Patients' Bill of Rights legislation that Congress has yet to pass -- by executive action taken by President Clinton. [FY 2000 Budget, p. 85]

Health Insurance Reform

As many as 25 million people will benefit from the Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act. [FY 2000 Budget, p. 83]

Welfare to Work

6.5 million fewer people are receiving welfare benefits today than in 1993, a 46 percent decrease and the largest decline in the welfare rolls in history. The welfare rolls are the smallest in 30 years. [HHS Administration for Children and Families, 4/99]

Family & Medical Leave

About 91 million workers are covered by the Family and Medical Leave Act -- about 70 percent of the American labor force. Millions of Americans have taken job-protected leave. [Five Years of Success: Report on FMLA, Department of Labor, 8/98 (updated number provided 7/99)]

Children's Health Care

As many as 5 million more children will receive health insurance under President Clinton's Children's Health Insurance Program (CHIP). Already 2.5 million uninsured children have enrolled in CHIP. [FY 2000 Budget, p. 85; FY 1999 Budget, p. 69 ]

Head Start

More than 200,000 additional children are enrolled in Head Start today than in 1992. Head Start now reaches a total of 822,316, and will serve one million children and their families by the year 2002. [Head Start 1998 Fact Sheet; Administration of Children and Families, HHS]

WIC

1.7 million more woman, infants, and children are now served by WIC than in 1993 -- currently reaching 7.4 million participants. [Food and Nutrition Service, USDA, 12/98]

Child Care

Child care funding has increased by 70 percent under the Clinton Administration, helping pay for the care of an additional 1 million children. An average of 1.25 million children were served by states under the child care block grant in FY 1997 -- a 25 percent increase from the estimated 1 million children served in FY 1996. The 1996 welfare law increased child care funding by $4 billion over six years. [Administration for Children and Families Fact Sheet, HHS, 11/12/98]

Immunization

90 percent or more of America's toddlers received the most critical doses of each of the routinely recommended vaccines in 1996 and again in 1997 -- surpassing the President's childhood vaccination goal. [Budget of the United States Government FY 2000, p. 91-92]

Child Poverty

Under President Clinton the child poverty rate has dropped from 22.7 percent in 1993 to 19.9 percent in 1997 -- the biggest four-year drop in the child poverty rate in nearly 30 years. [Poverty in the United States: 1997, Bureau of the Census, 9/98]

Teen Pregnancy

There has been a 13.8 percent decrease in the teenage birth rate -- from 60.7 in 1992 to 52.3 in 1997. [Decline in Teenage Birth Rates, 1991-97: National and State Patterns, CDC, 12/98; Revised 4/99]

Infant Mortality

There has been a 15.2 percent decrease in the infant mortality rate -- to the lowest level in history -- from 8.5 in 1992 to 7.2 in 1997. [America's Children: Key National Indicators of Well-Being, NIH, 7/8/99]

Child Support Collections

There has been a 80 percent increase in child support collections from FY 1992 to FY 1998. [Administration for Children and Families, HHS]

Government That Works Better

Less Regulation

16,000 pages of Federal regulations have been eliminated by President Clinton and Vice President Gore as part of the Vice President's National Performance Review. [Accomplishments fact sheet, National Performance Review]

Smaller Government

There are 365,000 fewer employees in the Federal government workforce than in 1993 -- giving us the smallest Federal workforce since the Kennedy Administration. [Budget of the U.S. Government FY 2000, "Historical Tables" (table 17.1); Budget of the U.S. Government FY 2000, "Analytical Perspectives," (table 10-1) p. 248]

Lower Government Spending

At 19.5 percent, Federal Government spending as a share of the Gross Domestic Product is at its lowest level in 25 years. [FY 2000 Budget Mid-Session Review (Table 1) p. 3; FY 2000 Budget Historical Tables (Table 1.3) p.23-24]

Motor Voter

28 million new voters registered to vote -- and voting was made easier for millions more Americans -- since 1995 because of the National Voter Registration Act. [FEC, 6/99; FEC, 6/97]

Environment

Toxic Waste Sites

448 toxic waste dumps were cleaned up during the first six and one-half years of the Clinton Administration -- nearly three times more than the 155 dumps cleaned up in the previous twelve years. ["Superfund NPL Construction Completions Since 1/20/93 to 6/22/99," EPA]

National Parks

Over 3.2 million acres have been protected as national parks or monuments by President Clinton. The President has also created 13 new national park areas. [Department of Interior]