This week at the White House, we explained what "78 cents for every dollar" means, spoke about America’s response to Ebola, and cooked with students in the White House Kitchen. To find out more about other events this week, be sure to check out the rest of the White House blog.

Photo of the Week:

 

Another picturesque early evening on the South Lawn of the White House.

Een foto die is geplaatst door Pete Souza (@petesouza) op

Okt 10, 2014 at 3:19 PDT

Throughout our history, members of our military have put their lives on the line to defend our country and preserve our security. While this requires a tremendous personal sacrifice, it is also important to recognize the unyielding love and support that their families provide every step of the way to make this sacrifice possible. As a proud military mom myself, I know that when you have a family member who is in the military, the whole family serves too.

Last week, I visited the Center for the Intrepid at Brooke Army Medical Center in San Antonio, Texas, where I had the opportunity to see firsthand how state-of-the art rehabilitation equipment like the FlowRider and zero-gravity treadmills are being incorporated into an innovative rehabilitation process for our wounded soldiers — it is truly remarkable. I also met with service members and military spouses stationed in San Antonio to discuss the challenges that are an inherent part of military life, such as constant relocation and missing family milestones due to deployments.

We have asked a lot of service members and their families over the past decade. They have sacrificed so much on behalf of our country. I am proud to be part of an Administration that has supported our troops, veterans, and their families in historic ways. In April, First Lady Michelle Obama and I announced the unveiling of the Veterans Employment Center, an innovative tool to help veterans and spouses find career opportunities. As of this summer, all 50 states and the District of Columbia have adopted the Military Children’s Interstate Compact, which eases some of the burdens of transitions for military connected kids. And today, in honor of their service, President Obama signed a proclamation to establish November 2014 as Military Family Month.

Five years ago this month, President Obama signed his Executive Order on Federal Leadership in Environmental, Energy, and Economic Performance, setting new energy, climate, and environmental targets for federal agencies. The targets are aggressive, but under the President’s leadership, agencies have made significant progress in cutting carbon pollution, improving energy efficiency, and preparing for the impacts of climate change.

Through this initiative, federal agencies have already reduced their greenhouse gas emissions by 17 percent – that’s the equivalent of taking 1.8 million cars off the road. And today, more than 9 percent of our energy comes from renewable sources, on our way to meeting a goal of 20 percent by 2020. We’ve also cut our potable water use by 19 percent, enough water to fill nearly 49,000 Olympic swimming pools.

This progress means we’re on track to meet the President’s goals. But with more than 360,000 buildings, 650,000 fleet vehicles, and $460 billion in annual purchasing power, the federal government is the largest energy consumer in the U.S. economy, so we can’t rest here.

That’s why, today, to coincide with the fifth anniversary of the Executive Order, federal agencies released new plans for reducing their greenhouse gas emissions and preparing for climate change impacts such as flooding, sea level rise, severe weather, and temperature extremes.

This week, the President continued to address the ongoing federal response to Ebola, worked to spur the growth of manufacturing and boost preparedness for natural disasters, and invited some of our youngest scientists and oldest veterans to the White House.

Yesterday, Executive Director of Let’s Move! and White House Senior Advisor for Nutrition Policy Sam Kass joined DC Public Schools’ student Maurice Morris, and thousands of classrooms via livestream from around the country for a special inside look into the White House kitchen.

Economic growth in the third quarter was strong, consistent with a broad range of other indicators showing improvement in the labor market, rising consumer sentiment, increasing domestic energy security, and continued low health cost growth. Since the financial crisis, the U.S. economy has bounced back more strongly than most others around the world, and the recent data highlight that the United States is continuing to lead the global recovery. Nevertheless, more must still be done to boost growth both in the United States and around the world by investing in infrastructure, manufacturing, and innovation; and to ensure that workers are feeling the benefits of that growth, by pushing to raise the minimum wage and supporting equal pay.

FIVE KEY POINTS IN TODAY’S REPORT FROM THE BUREAU OF ECONOMIC ANALYSIS

1. Real gross domestic product (GDP) grew 3.5 percent at an annual rate in the third quarter of 2014, according to the advance estimate from the Bureau of Economic Analysis. The strong growth recorded in each of the last two quarters suggests that the economy has bounced back strongly from the first-quarter decline in GDP, which largely reflected transitory factors like unusually severe winter weather and a sharp slowdown in inventory investment. In the third quarter, net exports made a large positive contribution to growth, while consumer spending and business investment grew at a somewhat slower pace than the previous quarter.

On Monday, we had the privilege of participating alongside the President in a meeting with his American Manufacturing Partnership (AMP) Steering Committee.

AMP -- led by its co-chairs, Dow’s Andrew Liveris and MIT’s Rafael Reif -- presented its final report with a set of new recommendations, and we discussed additional policy steps we’re taking to respond to them.

The President created AMP -- a working group of 19 leaders in industry, academia, and labor -- in June 2011 as part of his continuing effort to maintain the competitive edge on emerging technologies and invest in the future of our manufacturing sector. We’ve come a long way since then, and the policies fueled by AMP’s recommendations have been a big contributor to that progress.

When the President first launched AMP, unemployment was at 9.1 percent. We were just starting to see some fragile signs of life in the manufacturing sector after more than a decade of erosion. But not many shared our view that together we could build a foundation to revitalize American manufacturing or that manufacturing could continue to play a central role in our economy and our ability to innovate.

Contrast that picture to today. Growth has steadily strengthened and recently accelerated, with GDP rising 2.6 percent over the past year, faster than the 2.0 percent annualized pace of the preceding two years. Job growth is accelerating too. Unemployment is now down to 5.9 percent, falling 1.3 percentage points in the last year.

USAID Administrator Raj Shah and U.S. Ambassador Deborah R. Malac meet with Doland Willis and Gabriel Frank of the U.S. Army JFC Operation United Assistance Liberia at the Ebola Emergency Operations Center in Monrovia. October 14, 2014. (by Morgana Wingard)

Ed. note: Below are excepts of an op-ed by USAID Administrator Raj Shah for USA Today. Read his op-ed in its entirety here. 

In the heart of the Ebola epidemic, there is a clear sense of hope. I've just returned from Liberia, Sierra Leone and Guinea, where I met dozens of health workers, humanitarians and community leaders who are making a difference in this fight.

There is no question that the pace, ingenuity, and scale of our global response must continue to grow quickly. But at a time when fear and misinformation spread panic faster than a virus, let's not miss the opportunity to scale up what's working, fix what isn't and bring the best of science, technology and innovation to bear on this devastating disease.

I spoke with Ebola survivors who now care for sick patients in the very same Ebola Treatment Unit (ETU) that saved their lives. I met local workers on burial teams who enter communities threatened by Ebola and endure the stigma of the virus to bury loved ones. At a training session for health care workers, I met a young doctor from Germany who gave up her holiday to put on a personal protective suit in the stifling heat and train others to work in the hot zone. We need hundreds more just like her. And we must ensure that when these brave individuals do volunteer to serve, we not prevent or unduly discourage them from undertaking this indispensable and selfless work.

Ed. Note: This factsheet is cross-posted from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC). Read the original factsheet in its entirety here. 

Yesterday, based on the best medical science, the CDC updated its guidance to provide new information for public health officials on monitoring people who may have been exposed to Ebola; overseeing their care; and -- when warranted to protect the public health or our communities -- limiting their movement or activities. 

These guidelines are crafted to keep the American public safe while not unnecessarily discouraging these workers from serving on the frontlines against this disease. They are heroes whose courage is worthy of our praise. Through these changes, we will help ensure that their symptoms are monitored and a system is in place to quickly recognize when they need to be routed to care. These actions will better protect potentially exposed individuals and the American public as a whole.