WASHINGTON, Nov 10 — US Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen said on Tuesday that the bipartisan infrastructure package approved by Congress and President Joe Biden’s proposed social and climate spending plan would increase US productivity and the size of its labour force.

Yellen said in prepared remarks to a University of Nevada-Las Vegas economic conference that together, the two bills would increase long-term US economic output without increasing the national debt, and their revenue-raising measures would reduce deficits over time.

“I do believe that the passage of these pieces of legislation will lead not only to higher rates of productivity but to positive changes across a wide array of metrics. They will increase the size of our labour force and expand the productive capacity of our economy,” Yellen said.

The “Build Back Better” bill’s investments in child care would allow many American mothers to return to the work force, she said, citing studies showing that from 2018 to 2019 some 2 million parents of young children had to quit a job, forego a job or greatly change their job to deal with child care issues.

Universal pre-school as proposed in the bill will also help parents stay in the workforce and pay dividends in future decades by improving graduation rates and the income-earning prospects of future workers, Yellen said.

She said the tax provisions in the proposal would make the US tax code “substantially more progressive by imposing higher taxes on the wealthy and improving compliance by wealthy taxpayers.

“Our compliance efforts to ensure wealthy people pay what they owe will raise an estimated US$400 billion (RM1.6 trillion) – and that’s probably a conservative projection,” Yellen said, echoing comments to Reuters by her deputy, Wally Adeyemo.

“Another US$400 billion will come from closing loopholes utilized by wealthy taxpayers; and another US$200 billion through a surtax on the country’s highest earners, people making more than US$10 million a year,” Yellen said.

In comments to Gray Television on Monday, US Representative Kevin Brady, the top Republican on the tax-writing House Ways and Means Committee, on Monday disputed Democrats’ claims that the spending bill would expand the US workforce because of higher taxes on wealthy business owners and an expanded Child Tax Credit.

“They’re going to make the labour shortage worse because they’re removing the requirement to work from the child tax credit, basically chasing a million-and-a-half workers out of the workforce,” he said. — Reuters