By 2014, the new health care reform law will mean thousands of dollars in health insurance premium savings and out-of-pocket health care costs for working families and small businesses, finds a new report from the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services (HHS). Says HHS Secretary Kathleen Sebelius:

“For too long, skyrocketing health care costs have made it hard for businesses to provide coverage for employees and have made it difficult for families to afford coverage….The report shows that the health care law will bring major savings for families as it begins to take shape. Without the Affordable Care Act, consumers and businesses would face higher premiums, fewer insurance choices, and rapidly rising health care costs.”

In his State of the Union address, President Obama insisted on the need to protect Social Security and ensure that future generations can depend on it, and he urged bipartisanship in strengthening Social Security, “without slashing benefits” or privatization.

Here’s some news that gets buried in the normal the-sky-is-falling Social Security coverage. Although the weak economy is having a short-term impact on Social Security’s finances, Social Security is still projected to run an $868 billion surplus over the next decade, according to a new report from the Congressional Budget Office (CBO).

Generating clean energy by developing ways to make electricity using clean coal technologies could create more than 7 million new green jobs over the next 15 years, according to several studies.

Today, AFL-CIO President Richard Trumka and Chamber of Commerce President Thomas Donohue issued a rare joint statement supporting “Obama’s call to create jobs and grow the U.S. economy through investment in our nation’s infrastructure.” Trumka and Donohue said:

Whether it is building roads, bridges, high-speed broadband, energy systems and schools, these projects not only create jobs and demand for businesses, they are an investment in building the modern infrastructure our country needs to compete in a global economy.

In Minnesota, they want to end the jobs of 15 percent of the men and women in the state workforce. In Tennessee, they want to take away the right of teachers to join unions. In Ohio, they want to eliminate collective bargaining rights for home health care and child care workers and restrict the bargaining rights of police officers and firefighters.

AFL-CIO President Richard Trumka issued the following statement on President Obama’s State of the Union message tonight.

Tonight President Obama called on the nation to look forward and spoke to our nation’s prospects and vulnerabilities: we are faced with opportunities for progress, but paralyzed by weak job growth and an economy that is increasingly out of balance for middle class families.

On the same day the International Labor Organization warned that worldwide unemployment is still a crisis, the global union movement issued a statement calling on participants in the World Economic Forum to keep their focus on jobs.

Just what would it mean if the massive spending cuts the new House majority is clamoring for were actually made? It would mean a scary and dangerous future.

This is cross-post from the National Journal’s Transportation blog by AFL-CIO Transportation Trades Department (TTD) President Edward C. Wytkind.

It is ironic that the Republican Study Committee’s (RSC’s) proposal to slash vital transportation investments was unveiled on the very day that we learned that Americans spend as many as 70 hours—or nearly three solid days—a year stuck in traffic. The Texas Transportation Institute’s national study also revealed that congestion wastes 3.9 billion gallons of fuel and costs $115 billion nationwide on an annual basis. If passed, the RSC’s proposals will add to the woes of commuters and travelers and destroy good jobs.