We've got some pretty cool stuff up here, and we also

have people here who can explain what it all is.

But thank you so much for being here.

We've got, first and foremost, some people

who I'm proud to call friends and have been fighting on

behalf of American workers every single day.

We've got the Governor of the great state

of Illinois -- Pat Quinn is here in the house.

(applause)

We've got somebody who is

responsible for trimming my trees and potholes

in front of my house -- (laughter) --

and shoveling snow.

And I haven't been back for a while; I don't know

how it's going, but I'm assuming he's handling his

business -- the Mayor of the great city of Chicago,

Rahm Emmanuel is here.

(applause)

We've got Phil LaJoy, who's the

supervisor of Canton Township, Michigan,

who is here.

There he is.

(applause)

Good job, Phil.

And we've got some outstanding members

of Congress who are here, especially someone who

just announced that this would be his last term in

Congress, but is somebody who so many of us have

learned from, have admired.

He is a man who has every single day of his life, in

office, made sure that he was fighting on behalf of

people who really needed help.

And he's going to be very missed.

John, you are not just the longest-serving member

of Congress in American history,

you're also one of the very best.

Michigan's own John Dingell is here.

(applause)

And we are better off because of

John's service, and we're going to miss you.

Now, today I am joined by researchers

who invent some of the most advanced metals on the planet,

designers who are modeling prototypes in the digital

cloud, folks from the Pentagon who help

to support their work.

Basically, I'm here to announce

that we're building Iron Man.

(laughter)

I'm going to blast off in a second.

(laughter)

We've been -- this has been a secret

project we've been working on for a long time.

(laughter)

Not really.

Maybe.

It's classified.

(laughter)

But keeping America at the cutting edge of technology

and innovation is what is going to ensure

a steady stream of good jobs into the 21st century.

And that's why we're here today --

to take new action to put America at the forefront

of 21st century manufacturing.

This is a moment when our economy is growing,

and it has been growing steadily for over four years now.

Our businesses have created about 8.5 million

new jobs over the past four years.

The unemployment rate is the lowest it's been

in over five years.

Our manufacturing sector is adding jobs for the

first time since the 1990s.

So there's some good news to report, but the trends

that have battered the middle class for decades

have become, in some ways, even starker.

While those at the top are doing better than ever,

average wages have barely budged.

Too many Americans are working harder than ever

just to keep up.

And it's our job to reverse those trends.

We've got to build an economy that works

for everyone, not just a fortunate few.

We've got to restore opportunity

for all people.

That's the essence of America: No matter who you

are or where you come from, what you look like,

how you started out -- if you are willing

to work hard and take responsibility,

you can get ahead in America.

So I've been talking now for months about

an opportunity agenda.

And let me break it down into four parts.

Number one, more good jobs

that pay good wages -- jobs in American

manufacturing, rebuilding our infrastructure,

innovation, energy.

Number two, training workers with the skills

they need to fill those jobs.

Number three, guaranteed access to a world-class

education for every child in America.

And number four, making sure that hard

work pays off with wages you can live on and savings you

can retire on and health insurance you can count

on when you need it.

Now, I'm looking forward to working with Congress

wherever they're willing to do something

on any of these priorities.

And I have to say that the members of Congress who

are here all care deeply about these issues.

But let's face it -- sometimes it's hard

to get moving in Congress.

We've got a divided Congress at this point.

And so, in this year of action,

wherever I can act on my own to expand opportunity for more

Americans, I'm going to seize that opportunity.

And that's why we're here today.

Already, my administration has launched two hubs

for high-tech manufacturing.

One is in Youngstown, Ohio and is focused on 3-D

printing, an entirely new way by which

the manufacturing process can accelerate and supply

chains get stitched together,

and you integrate design and all the way through production

in ways that can potentially

be revolutionary.

We've also focused on energy-efficient

electronics in Raleigh, North Carolina.

And what happens at each of these hubs

is we're connecting leading businesses to research

universities, so they're able to ensure that

America leads the world in the advanced technologies

that are going to make sure that we're

at the forefront when it comes to manufacturing.

Now, my friend Congressman Tim Ryan,

who's here today, helped -- where's Tim?

I just saw him, there he is -- helped us get the

first of these hubs off the ground.

There's growing bipartisan momentum

now behind these efforts.

We've got two Republicans and two Democrats, Roy

Blunt and Sherrod Brown in the Senate, and Tom Reed

and Joe Kennedy in the House, that have written

bills that would help us create a true network

of these hubs all across the country.

So I'm really encouraging Congress

to pass these bills.

They're good ideas.

And what they do is not only help link

up our top researchers with our best business people,

but suddenly they become a focal point

of opportunity, and businesses around the

country and around the world start seeing, huh,

if I'm interested in digital technologies

that's the place I should locate.

If I'm interested in 3-D printing, let me go there.

And so you get a virtuous cycle that can take place.

And Congress I think has an opportunity

to really expand these in a significant way.

In the meantime, while Congress decides on what

it's going to do, we're going to go ahead and take

some action to launch more of these hubs this year.

And today, we're announcing

the next two advanced manufacturing hubs.

One is in the Detroit area, and the other

is in Chicago, Illinois.

(applause)

Now, let me describe a little more why

this is so important.

For generations of Americans, manufacturing

was the ticket to a good middle-class life.

We made stuff.

And the stuff we made -- like steel and cars

and planes -- made us the economic

leader of the world.

And the work was hard, but the jobs were good.

And if you got on an assembly plant in Detroit

or in a steel plant in Youngstown,

you could buy a home.

You could raise kids.

You could send them to college.

You could retire with some security.

And those jobs didn't just tell us how much we were

worth, they told us how we were contributing

to the society and how we were helping to build America,

and gave people a sense of dignity and purpose.

They saw a Boeing plane or one of the Big Three cars

rolling off the assembly line, and they said, you

know what, I made that.

And they were iconic.

And people understood that's what it meant for

something to be made in America.

Now, advances in technology have allowed

manufacturers to do more with less.

Global competition means a lot of good manufacturing

jobs went overseas.

There was just more competition.

Folks caught up to us, and they in some cases just

copied what we were doing with lower wages, so the

competition was fierce.

And in the 2000s alone, we lost about one-third of

all American manufacturing jobs -- and the middle

class suffered for it.

Now, the good news is, today, our manufacturers

have added more than 620,000 new manufacturing

jobs over the last four years.

That's the first sustained manufacturing growth

in over 20 years.

But the economy has changed.

So if we want to attract more good manufacturing

jobs to America, we've got to make sure we're

on the cutting edge of new manufacturing

techniques and technologies.

And I just have to emphasize here that --

because you'll hear some people say, well,

why are manufacturing jobs so special,

and this is a service economy.

Nobody believes that we're going to duplicate all the

manufacturing jobs that existed back

in the '40s and the '50s just because the economy has changed.

You go into an auto plant now,

it's different then it was.

Fewer people can make more cars.

But keep in mind that when we have manufacturing in

this country, what ends up happening is that,

first of all, there are a whole lot of suppliers to those

manufacturers, so that one plant may be deceptive.

It doesn't tell you all the companies all across

the country that are working on behalf

of those manufacturers.

The services that are provided to those

manufacturers, the advertising that's

connected to it, and the architects and the

designers and the software engineers -- all those

things may not be counted as manufacturing,

but by us having those hubs of manufacturing,

it has a ripple effect throughout the economy.

So we've got to focus on advanced manufacturing

to keep that manufacturing here in the United States.

That's what's going to help get the next Stark

Industries off the ground.

(laughter)

So today -- by the way, my Commerce

Secretary, Penny Pritzker, is not here because she's

in Silicon Valley meeting with business leaders and

talking about how together we can work together

to spur economic growth.

The point is, I don't want the next big job-creating

discovery to come from Germany or China or Japan.

I want it to be made here in America.

And this is one last point I'm going

to make about this.

Typically, a lot of research and development

wants to be co-located with where manufacturing

is taking place -- because if you design something,

you want to see how is it working and how is it

getting made, and then tinker with it and fix it,