Our research shows that when it comes to measuring the health of the economy, Americans tend to look at local indicators. Some local indicators are trending in the right direction. Gas prices are 20 cents lower per gallon when compared against last spring. The housing market is creeping back as well. Home prices are increasing at the highest rate in seven years. Foreclosures fell to a six year low last month.

However, the most tangible local indicator of economic health is the availability of jobs. Despite a five year low in new jobless claims and positive trends in the jobs market, our unemployment rate is stubbornly high at 7.5%. We’ve made great strides since the Great Recession high of 10% unemployment in October 2009, but we clearly have a long way to go to reach pre-recession levels.

Recent polling by Gallup shows that Americans overwhelmingly believe that Washington’s top priority should be job creation and economic growth. A quick scan of the chart below shows that all four of the top twelve concerns – the only four answers to top 80% – relate directly to jobs, economic growth, and skills.

With this in mind, the question becomes ‘What can Washington actually do about jobs?’

We believe that even in these times of limited budgets, catalytic spending from the federal government can help critical emerging sectors of the economy to grow and create jobs. That’s not just good for the economy, it’s smart government.

Our research shows that manufacturing is key to a strong middle class – and advanced manufacturing is positioned to be an engine that drives America into a 21st century economy.

Today, President Obama announced an important step regarding manufacturing and jobs. At the kickoff event of his ‘Middle Class Jobs and Opportunity Tour,’ President Obama formally announced an executive order to launch a competition for three Manufacturing Innovation Institutes. Modeled off of an existing pilot program in Youngstown, OH, the institutes are partnerships between private businesses, universities, community colleges and the government to help create technologies that can help US based manufacturers while creating jobs. Five federal agencies are combining to make an initial investment of $200 million to fund the initial three Institutes. The President called on Congress to provide $1 billion to fund an additional 15 regional centers.

As I’ve noted before, using the convening power of the federal government coupled with catalytic investment in important emerging sectors like advanced manufacturing in partnership with local institutions and leaders is a critical step in advancing job creation – and in the evolution of how we think about economic development. The executive orders announced by the President today are an important step forward in accelerating the recovery.

This budget invests in manufacturing, clean energy, and infrastructure – three critical sectors for job creation, as noted in Acceleration 2.0.

On clean energy, the President’s budget calls for boosting clean energy and energy efficiency research by about 50% along with a ‘Race to the Top’ style program for states that reduce their energy use.

On manufacturing, the President’s budget invests $113 million to create the Investing in Manufacturing Communities Partnership, a project designed to help municipalities attract manufacturers and the supply chain that supports them. The National Network for Manufacturing Innovation (NNMI) receives a proposed $1 billion in mandatory funding.

On infrastructure, the budget calls for $50 billion, $40 billion of which is allocated for the ‘Fix It First’ program. As expected, the budget also calls for new investment in infrastructure financing mechanisms including a national infrastructure bank, expanding the TIFIA program and $7 billion for the America Fast Forward program.

We’re going to hear a lot more about the budget in the coming days, with many people disagreeing about certain elements of the proposal. However, it’s worth remembering that 64% of voters want job creation to be Washington’s primary focus. With that in mind, the President’s budget represents great progress.

“There are few more important things we can do to create jobs right now and strengthen our economy over the long haul by rebuilding our infrastructure that powers our businesses and our economy,” Obama said, surrounded by blue shipping containers. “This should not be a partisan idea.”

We agree. Investing in 21st century infrastructure is good for entrepreneurs, good for cities and metro areas, and good for job creation. Moreover, modernizing the networks that drive the American economy will help our business and workers to compete in the global economy. Smart government can be used as a catalyst to convene stakeholders and leverage private investment in a time of constrained budgets.

Particularly notable in the President’s remarks is the announcement of the Rebuild America Partnership.

The main pillars of the Rebuild America Partnership are:

-funding a national infrastructure bank

-giving localities access to America Fast Forward bonds to help finance infrastructure

-building local infrastructure by enhancing private investment opportunities via an enhanced Transportation Infrastructure Finance and Innovation Act (TIFIA) program

The key element of this plan is partnership. Cities and states know that the federal government isn’t in position to swoop in and save the day on financing, but in exchange, localities are given a little more leeway with the money that they receive. The TIFIA program hasn’t been perfect to date (it tends to fund toll roads, not transit), but that doesn’t mean we should give up on a promising model for financing major infrastructure projects in the near future.

More voices are joining the call for investment in infrastructure (and energy and job skills). We can’t wait any longer. It’s time for action on infrastructure.

As illustrated below, overwhelming majorities of Americans – regardless of partisan affiliation – believe we need to place more emphasis on solar and wind power.

These findings are deeply consistent with our own research (along with just about everyone else that looks at the energy sector.)

With over two thirds of Americans in strong support of cleaner, less carbon intense energy sources, our leaders – in Washington and in the private sector – need to do more to accelerate clean energy. Investing in domestic clean energy manufacturing is a great place to start. Strong federal clean energy legislation would be even better, but Congress has shown little willingness to tackle this issue in recent years.

States, cities and metro areas have shown great leadership in accelerating clean energy, but taking clean energy to scale will require a national effort on policy, financing, technology development and building out our domestic manufacturing ecosystem.

According to Pew, global investment in clean energy is growing explosively, from $54 billion in 2004 to $269 billion in 2012. The coming years will see investment in clean energy that dwarfs these numbers. This begs the question: will the United States be a leader or a follower in this important global market?

Initiatives like CEMI are important steps in the right direction to maintain competitiveness in this important emerging sector, but investing in clean energy manufacturing isn’t exclusively about clean energy. Supporting clean energy manufacturing also supports the overall manufacturing ecosystem in the U.S. – which in turn supports middle class jobs for Americans of all educational backgrounds.

Stay tuned for more developments on clean energy manufacturing.

Following in the footsteps of our sister organization that provided the ‘most important chart in American politics,’ we believe our Next Economy research has established a clear path forward for an important policy agenda that can create new jobs in the sectors of the economy that matter in the 21st Century.

The best way to kickstart our economy is investing in education, clean energy, advanced manufacturing and innovation infrastructure.

The slide below is taken from one of our presentations on investing in 21st Century Jobs from early 2012.

After years of circulating this short agenda in and around Washington, it is time for these ideas to become reality in 2013.

Adding 146,000 jobs to the economy is good for any number of obvious reasons.

Unemployment is now at 7.7%, down from the recent high of 10.1% in October of 2009.

There’s no question that the overall direction of the economy is inching in the right direction, but the pace of growth isn’t what anyone would like to see.

Interestingly, the recovery might be accelerated by demographic changes. Ken Baer has an interesting take on the importance of demographics in the national unemployment equation here.

In an interview to be aired on NBC tonight, Apple CEO Tim Cook will announce that a new line of Mac computers will be built entirely in the United States in 2013. You can watch a preview clip here.

This is notable not only because another major American company is insourcing jobs. Cook’s statement below cuts to the heart of a major challenge in the advanced manufacturing field:

“It’s not so much about price, it’s about the skills, et cetera. Over time, there are skills that are associated with manufacturing that have left the U.S. Not necessarily people, but the education system stopped producing them.”

The ‘ecosystem’ around manufacturing needs to be rebuilt. Backfilling the skills gap with greater investment in adult education and vocational skills is an important step in reinvigorating our economy.

This isn’t just a political talking point – it’s about the bottom line.

Writing in Harvard Business Reviewin March, (GE CEO Jeff Immelt) declared that outsourcing is “quickly becoming mostly outdated as a business model for GE Appliances.” Just four years after he tried to sell Appliance Park, believing it to be a relic of an era GE had transcended, he’s spending some $800 million to bring the place back to life. “I don’t do that because I run a charity,” he said at a public event in September. “I do that because I think we can do it here and make more money.”

Emphasis on the last line is added, but the message is clear. Advanced manufacturing is critical to the future of America’s economy.

Moreover, our opinion research shows that Americans want major investments in infrastructure to help reinvigorate local economies.

As part of the ongoing fiscal cliff negotiations, the Obama Administration recently proposed a $50 billion investment in infrastructure to keep the recovery moving forward.

Recent studies indicate that every dollar spent on infrastructure increases a state’s GSP (like GDP but for a state) by at least TWO dollars.

The states and metropolitan areas that are driving our economic recovery are begging for investment in infrastructure.

Naturally, Congressional Republicans are opposed to infrastructure investment, actually laughing at the President’s proposal.

Rebuilding local economies by rebuilding infrastructure is no laughing matter.

The Obama Administration’s infrastructure plan deserves serious consideration to keep our recovery’s inertia moving in the right direction.