“As today’s jobs numbers show, America’s Main Street families are still struggling,” Congressman Bruce Braley said. “The outsourcing of American jobs is a clear factor in continued unemployment. It only makes sense to strengthen Buy America provisions to further ensure that the jobs created as a result of federal legislation stay within the United States. We have an obligation to create jobs in America and this legislation is essential to creating and retaining good-paying jobs for our middle class families.”

In light of today’s announcement of stagnating unemployment numbers, the Populist Caucus announced today it is endorsing Rep. Daniel Lipinski’s (IL-03) Buy American Improvement Act, H.R. 4351, to eliminate loopholes in existing domestic sourcing laws and ensure that taxpayer money is used to purchase American-made products and support American jobs whenever possible.

Bruce applied for his first job when he was in third grade and has been working ever since. He’s delivered newspapers, baled hay, detassled corn, worked at a grain elevator, and driven dump trucks. To help pay his way through college and law school, Bruce worked as a restaurant server and in highway maintenance, among other jobs.