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Office of Policy and Strategic Planning

The Office of Policy and Strategic Planning develops strategic policy priorities and provides policy counsel to the leadership of the Department of Commerce. Specifically, we work with the department's leadership by:

Strategic Planning

  • Developing strategic policy priorities
  • Planning and coordinating the implementation of policy initiatives that support these priorities

Policy Counsel

  • Supplying timely and actionable policy advice to the Secretary and Deputy Secretary
  • Working with bureau leadership and experts regarding administration and department perspectives

Policy Coordination

  • Engaging bureaus within the department to coordinate and integrate policy initiatives with secretarial and administration objectives
  • Leading cross-bureau initiatives and supporting the implementation of bureau-led policy initiatives
  • Offering policy input into secretarial communications by coordinating bureau policy input

Policy Outreach

  • Synthesizing input and ideas from the administration, the private sector, non-profit organizations and the academic community to inform the department's policy formulation process

Related Content

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Historically, manufacturing jobs have offered relatively high pay. However, there is not a consensus on the size of the pay premium for manufacturing jobs relative to the economy as a whole or even whether a premium continues to exist. This report turns to evidence to answer those questions, using ten federal datasets – each of which allows us to calculate and compare the average pay of...

Taking the High Road: New Data Show Higher Wages May Increase Productivity, Among Other Benefits

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There is a wealth of evidence that manufacturing jobs are good jobs. But not all manufacturing jobs are created equal. Published data highlight the considerable variation in pay and productivity across manufacturing industries. For example, workers in the computer and electronic product manufacturing industry earn an average of $34 per hour (as of May 2015), while those in apparel manufacturing...

Temporary Help Workers in the U.S. Labor Market

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The number of jobs in the temporary help services industry reached an all-time high of 2.9 million in May 2015, accounting for 2.4 percent of all private sector jobs in the U.S. economy. This short report looks at the latest official U.S. government statistics on the temporary help services industry and its workforce to provide an overview of its role in the labor market and the U.S. economy. The...

The Value of the American Community Survey: Smart Government, Competitive Businesses, and Informed Citizens

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An Update on Temporary Help in Manufacturing

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The temporary help services industry has bounced back from the recession and continues to grow. Newly available data are enabling the Economics and Statistics Administration (ESA) to re-examine this important industry and update a report on the temp industry that we published last year. 1 Although we don't know exactly how many temporary workers actually work in the manufacturing sector, we...

Supply Chain Innovation: Strengthening America’s Small Manufacturers

Reports
Small firms play an increasingly important role in U.S. manufacturing and now account for almost half of America's manufacturing employment. Dense networks of these small manufacturers are vital to the process of taking a product from concept to market, and the exchange of manufacturing know-how across suppliers is essential for the diffusion of the new products and innovative processes that give...

The Importance of Data Occupations in the U.S. Economy

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The growing importance of data in the economy is hard to dispute. But what does this mean for workers and jobs? A lot, as it turns out: higher paying (over $40/hour), faster growing jobs. In this report we identify occupations where data analysis and processing are central to the work performed and measure the size of employment and earnings in these occupations, as well as in the industries that...

Competition Among U.S. Broadband Service Providers

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More than one-quarter of American homes have not adopted internet service, many citing cost as their primary reason. Since market competition can significantly affect consumer prices, we set out to ask: how many Internet service providers (ISPs) are available to consumers at different levels of download speeds?

The Economic Benefits of Reducing Supplier Working Capital Costs

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Large firms depend on suppliers for most of their value-added. Many suppliers are small and their viability is closely tied to their ability to access and manage working capital. The Obama Administration’s SupplierPay initiative was developed to bring companies together to address the working capital challenges facing small firms. This paper explores the potential economic benefits – throughout...

Temporary Help in Manufacturing

Reports
The temporary help services industry has bounced back from the recession and continues to grow. According to data from the Bureau of Labor Statistics’ Current Employment Statistics (CES) program, the temporary help industry only accounts for 2 percent of all employment in the U.S. economy (as of July 2014) but accounts for 11 percent of all the jobs created since the end of the recession. Growth...