To create more jobs now, President Obama is sending Congress the American Jobs Act – a proposal of bipartisan ideas that Congress should pass right now. The purpose of the American Jobs Act is simple: put more people back to work and put more money in the pockets of working people – without adding a dime to the deficit.

Below is the fact sheet on President Obama’s plan to create jobs now:

1. TAX CUTS TO HELP AMERICA’S SMALL BUSINESSES HIRE AND GROW

• Cuts the payroll tax in half for 98 percent of American businesses: The President’s plan will cut payroll taxes in half for the first $5 million in payroll, thus targeting the benefit to the 98 percent of businesses below this threshold.
• A complete payroll tax holiday for adding workers or increasing wages: The President’s plan will eliminate payroll taxes for firms that increase their payroll either by adding workers or increasing wages (the benefit is capped at $50 million in payroll increases)
• Extend 100% expensing into 2012: Continues an incentive for businesses to invest and grow.
• Reforms and streamlining regulations to help entrepreneurs and small businesses get more access to capital.

2. PUTTING WORKERS BACK ON THE JOBS WHILE REBUILDING AND MODERNIZING AMERICA

• A “Returning Heroes” tax credit for hiring veterans: Provides tax credits from $5,600 to $9,600 to encourage employers to hire unemployed veterans.
• Preventing 280,000 teachers from being laid off, while keeping cops and firefighters on the beat.
• Modernizing at least 35,000 public schools across the country, building new science labs, creating internet ready classrooms, and renovating schools across the country, in both rural and urban areas.
• Make immediate investments in infrastructure through a bipartisan National Infrastructure Bank that will modernize our roads, rails, airport, and waterways while getting hundreds of thousands of construction workers back on the job.
• A new “Project Rebuild” that will put people back to work rehabbing homes, businesses, and communities by leveraging private capital and scaling land banks and other public-private partnerships.
• Expanding access to hire speed wireless to free up the nation’s spectrum.

3. PATHWAYS BACK TO WORK FOR AMERICANS LOOKING FOR JOBS 

• Making the most innovative reforms to the unemployment insurance program in 40 years: Extending unemployment insurance will prevent 5 million Americans looking for work from losing their benefits. This plan also includes innovative work based reforms to keep people in the work force and gives states more flexibility to support job seekers by using the funds for:
  • Work Sharing: UI for workers whose employers choose work-sharing over layoffs.
  • A new “Bridge to Work” program: The plan builds on and improves innovative state programs where people who are displaced take temporary, voluntary work or puruse new on the job training.
  • Innovative entrepreneurship and wage insurance programs: Empowering states to implement wage insurance to help gets older Americans back into the workforce and creating programs that make it easier for unemployed workers to start their own business.
• A $4,000 tax credit for employers who hire long-term unemployed workers.
• Stops employers from discriminating against unemployed workers when hiring.
• Expanding job opportunities for low-income young people and adults through a fund that successfully approaches subsidized employment, innovative training programs, and summer/year round jobs for young people.

4. TAX RELIEF FOR EVERY AMERICAN WORKER AND FAMILY

• Cuts payroll taxes in half for 160 million workers next year. The President’s plan extends tax cuts that were enacted last year. These cuts provide the average American family with a $1,500 tax cut without negatively impacting the Social Security Trust Fund.
• Allows more Americans to refinance their mortgages at today’s historically low rates near 4 percent interest. This could put more than $2,000 a year back in the pockets of the average family.

5.  FULLY PAID FOR AS PART OF PRESIDENT’S LONG-TERM DEFICIT REDUCTION PLAN

The President will ensure the American Jobs Act is fully paid for by calling on the Joint Committee to come up with additional cuts to pay for the Act and still meet their deficit target. In the coming days, the President will release a detailed plan that lay out a plan for paying for the American Jobs Act while still meeting the President’s broader goal of stabilizing the debt as a share of the economy.