White House previews 2023 economic priorities: child care, housing prices, workforce training

President Biden’s economic advisers are looking to prioritize efforts to reduce the cost of living and encourage people to return to the workforce in the new year.

Brian Deese, the director of the White House’s National Economic Council, told The Wall Street Journal on Tuesday that the administration is looking for areas where it can “lower price pressures in the economy, lower costs for consumers and increase the productive potential of the economy.”

Deese said the White House is considering a renewed push for child care benefits, which could help working parents and encourage workforce participation. The Biden administration previously sought to increase funding for child care and establish universal pre-K in its Build Back Better package.

“Providing quality, affordable child care actually helps to reduce cost burdens on families and gets more people working,” Deese told the Journal.

The Biden administration is also looking at ways to provide workforce training and reduce housing prices, Deese said.

“One of the things that I hear over and over in the implementation of big projects like infrastructure is that we need a better workforce-training model to actually connect people who want to get into new high-growth careers with the skills and the opportunity to do so,” he said.

In the wake of the pandemic, the U.S. economy has continued to suffer from a labor shortage, with the share of working-age Americans in the workforce remaining more than 1 percentage point below pre-pandemic levels.

In November of this year, 62.1 percent of the available workforce had a job or was actively looking for one, down from 63.4 percent in February 2020, just before the COVID-19 pandemic hit the U.S.

Forecasters indicate 2023 could see a continued slowdown in housing sales even as home prices drop — largely due to high mortgage rates.