Blumenthal, Connecticut Workers Call for Immediate Passage of Bill to Bring Jobs Home From Abroad

(Hartford, Conn.) – Today, Senator Richard Blumenthal (D-Conn.) joined Connecticut steelworkers, Waterbury Mayor Neil O'Leary, and Connecticut AFL-CIO President John Olsen in calling for immediate passage of the Bring Jobs Home Act (S.3364), legislation Blumenthal cosponsored that encourages American companies that have shipped jobs overseas to bring jobs back home. The Bring Jobs Home Act also ends taxpayer subsidies that help pay for moving costs when companies decide to ship jobs overseas. The Senate is scheduled to vote on the legislation this week.

“Passing this common sense measure will provide major tax incentives to bring jobs back to America and end outrageous loopholes that reward offshoring,” Blumenthal said. “We should reward companies that bring jobs home – restoring and re-shoring them – not those that send them to China or elsewhere. A 20 percent tax credit could be the tipping point for many companies considering – as many are right now – whether to bring back facilities or plants. I hope that a bipartisan coalition will come together this week to pass this bill, which hard working families in Connecticut deeply deserve. I'm proud to be a leading cosponsor and to be fighting for it.”

In the last 10 years, 2.4 million jobs were shipped overseas – mostly manufacturing jobs, including some in the steel industry – and American taxpayers helped foot the bill. In Connecticut, the manufacturing industry employs 165,000 people and accounts for approximately 10.5 percent of the state’s total economic output.

“I want to thank Senator Blumenthal for being a champion on [the Bring Jobs Home Act],” Olsen said. “It is very important to our state to bring back the good-paying manufacturing jobs we've lost over the years. I'm optimistic that it will pass listening to the debate in the last week.” 

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