Vdara Hotel & Spa
Las Vegas, Nevada
11:21 A.M. PST
THE PRESIDENT: Thank you, very much. (Applause.) Folks, look, I was — where — I’m going to stand in the middle here so I can get both sides.
Folks, you know, my dad used to have an expression, for real. He’d say, “You know, a job is about a lot more than a paycheck. It’s about your dignity. It’s about being treated with respect. It’s about making sure that people know what you do matters. It’s about being able to look your kid in the eye and say, ‘Honey, it’s going to be okay,’ and mean it.”
I have a reputation that I’m proud of: being the most pro-union president in American history. And there’s a simple reason for that. When unions are doing well, everybody does well. Not a joke. (Applause.) By the way, that’s a fact.
I had the Treasury Department do a study: What are the impact of union movement? What’s the impact? The impact is when you do well, everybody does better. Workers that aren’t even members of a union are getting raises because of the things you guys have done and the work you’ve done and organizations.
So, I came to say thank you, thank you, thank you. And we’re just getting started. We’ve got over 260- — 300- — 260,000 jobs — new jobs just here in the state of Nevada.
Come here, Congresswoman.
REPRESENTATIVE TITUS: (Inaudible.)
THE PRESIDENT: By the way, I’ve got a passport with me because she gave me — this is her district here — she gave me a passport to come here.
But all kidding aside, look, there’s a simple proposition. For the longest time — and I know I don’t look — I know I only look like I’m 40. (Laughter.) Times two. (Laughter.)
But, look, one of the things that I’m — I was raised in a family — we weren’t poor, but we weren’t — we were middle class and sometimes lower middle class. We lived in a three-bedroom, split-level home with four kids and a grandpop. It was a safe neighborhood, but it was — it was — you know, we didn’t have the money to make it to college. We had to go borrow the money or work through college, that kind of thing.
We didn’t — and I’m the first in my family to go to college — the first Biden to go to college. And it’s because a lot of people made sacrifices for me to get there, along with my sister. And my sister is a hell of a lot brighter than I am. (Laughter.)
My sister was three years younger than me. She’s now 23 years younger than me. I don’t know how the hell that happened. (Laughter.) And she’s managed all my campaigns.
We got — we went to the same university at the same time, two years apart. I graduated. She graduated with honors. (Laughs.) Anyway.
The point is this: I’ve never believed that trickle-down economics is the way to build an economy, meaning that if the very weal- — and, by the way, if the very wealthy do well, that’s good by me, as long as they start paying their taxes. That’s a different issue. But anyway. (Applause.)
But all kidding aside, the idea was the trickle-down economy would work because what would happen is you would have the very wealthy doing well and that would all drop down to the middle-class folks and poor folks. I’ve never believed that. Not a lot dropped on my dad’s kitchen table growing up.
So, I’ve always believed that you build the economy from the middle out and the bottom up. That way, the working-class folks have a shot and the middle class grows.
And guess what? You’ve heard me say it before, and I mean it. And when I first said it, everybody thought I was going to get in real trouble, but I didn’t care. Wall Street did not build America. The middle class did — built America, and unions built the middle class. (Applause.) There would be no middle class without the union. No, I mean that from the bottom of my heart.
And, by the way, even the business folks in — on Wall Street and other places are beginning to understand that. There’s much less resistance now to deal with these issues.
And so, we’re just on a roll here. We’ve created over 15 million brand new jobs just in three years — more than any president has in American history in that period of time. We’ve — we’ve actually made sure that we have all kinds of additional help.
People are getting the paychecks for — Hispanics at 4- — 4- — they’re making 40 percent more money than they did before we started, in terms of wealth. African Americans, 50 percent. But this — it’s about everybody. It’s not about just one group of people. Because when we all do well, everybody does well. I really mean it.
So, I came to say thank you — not just thank you for the support you’ve given me the last time out and this time, but thank you for having the faith in the union. Thank you for continuing to push it because this really matters. It matters, it matters, it matters.
And so, like I said, my dad would say, “It’s all about dignity — being treated with dignity.” My dad would no more walk by the — the shoeshine guy in the Hotel DuPont, where the DuPont company was, and — or the — if he saw the chairman of the board, he’d say hi. But he’d walk over and make sure he said hi to the shoeshine guy too, because that’s what we’re all about. That’s what built America.
And b- — we’re coming back. We really are. We have the best economy in the world. Inflation is coming down. There are still too expensive — too much is at expense and a little bit of corporate greed going on, too, nationwide. (Laughter.)
There’s — by the way, there’s a little article written — you ought to — I’ll get you a connection to it. It’s called — it’s about Snick- — what’s happening with the Snickers bars.
Snickers bars — you know that candy?
AUDIENCE MEMBERS: Yeah.
THE PRESIDENT: Well, they haven’t raised the price of a Snickers bars. They just took 10 percent of it out. (Laughter.) Oh, no, no. It’s a lot smaller. So, that’s how they’re making more money.
But, anyway, I thank you for all you do and the way you make people happy. And I know it’s not always easy. So, thank you, thank you, thank you, thank you. (Applause.)
11:28 A.M. PST
