My parents were very supportive.

I will carry with me always the deep sense of what it feels like to be an outsider and how tough it was, how hard it was to adapt to this country.

We have a lot of employers who are looking for skilled workers and not being able to find them. And we have workers who lack the requisite skills to access these good-paying jobs in high growth industries.

The majority of the new jobs being created require higher skills, more education.

I love working in the garden.

In normal times, laid-off workers are unemployed an average of eight weeks.

Washington policymakers have to understand the adverse implications of their actions on job creation, and they must reorder some of their priorities.

In the best of years, millions of jobs are lost.

401k savings accounts have become so important in the landscape of retirement planning that their security and expansion became a top priority in formulating and implementing the Pension Protection Act of 2006 that was enacted during my tenure as the U.S. Secretary of Labor.

Deep in the heart of Kentucky's rugged Eastern Mountain region, there lives a woman who has fascinated and inspired me for two decades. She is known locally these days as 'Mayor Nan' - the octogenarian chief executive of Hazard and advocate for its 5,467 residents.

Nan Gorman was born in Memphis, Tenn., on St. Patrick's Day. She moved to Hazard in 1929 when her father, James Hagan, a recent medical school graduate and aspiring surgeon, went to work there.

When Peace Corps was first proposed, some in Congress assumed that only men would be volunteers.

The work of these women doesn't end when they return home from overseas, as one goal of the Peace Corps' mission is to help promote a better understanding of other cultures here in the United States.

As we celebrate Women's History Month this March, it's important to remember the key role women have played in promoting a better understanding and relationships between our country and the rest of the world.

There are many reasons to worry; the evening news is full of them.

Perhaps the original layaway angel knew from experience, or simply deduced, that people resorting to the old-fashioned installment method of layaway may be struggling financially.

Because of these layaway angels, many children did not have to wonder why Santa skipped them in 2011.

Though the National Bureau of Economic Research deemed the recession to have ended in June 2009, to most Americans, that conclusion seems not to square with reality.

Three years after the four deepest previous recessions began - in 1953, 1957, 1973 and 1981 - employment was on average 4.7% higher than the pre-recession peak.

While there have been news reports of recent college graduates living with their parents because they have been unable to find a job paying a salary sufficient to move out, their near and long-term career prospects remain far brighter than for those without a college degree.

We Americans typically are more positive about our individual futures, which we have some control over, than we are the nation's or the world's, which we see largely through the media prism.

News-free existence is not a serious proposal, but it is worth noting that while today's 24/7 media environment is wonderful in many ways, it can also be like drinking out of a fire hose and intensify a downward reinforcing cycle of despair.

The greatest job creation is driven by entrepreneurs and young businesses, so they merit special attention.

Capital available for individuals to start and expand businesses would increase with regulatory and strategic tax reforms, like reducing marginal rates, repealing the alternative minimum tax, and making the U.S. the most welcoming place for employers to relocate and create jobs.

America needs a new approach to boost the economy - one that does not doom future generations to being saddled with paying off today's federal deficits.

Policymakers, elected and unelected, need to be ever-mindful that the U.S. economy does not exist in isolation.

There should be an immediate moratorium on federal regulations that endanger jobs.

To better deal with shortages of qualified applicants now and in the future, government policy makers need to acknowledge that government job training programs could stand improvement.

To maintain their own competitiveness, workers need to attain and stay current on the qualifications needed to advance in a constantly evolving economy.

America's private sector job creators need elected leaders to lead and get out of the way.

President Obama has been admirably pro-trade in public remarks, but there has been no progress in moving any new free trade agreements to expand exports abroad and create jobs at home.

Washington's parasitic approach to the private sector must change for there to be widespread, near-term and enduring prosperity and job creation.

To foster entrepreneurship, expansion and job creation, more leaders at all levels of government have to demonstrate some understanding of what it takes to build and grow businesses in the private sector.

As tough as it is for many college graduates to get their planned careers on track, it could be worse: They could be trying to find a job without a college degree.

Most private sector workers can only dream of getting the generous lifetime pension and health benefits typical of government service.

Where public pensions are concerned, many jurisdictions are running out of road.

Taxpayers should demand that their states honestly assess public pension plans, accurately measure the assets and liabilities, and take steps to provide fair benefits to public employees that limit taxpayers' liability.

Consider trade protectionism. It's been tried - and found wanting - since the Great Depression.

Rising energy costs kill jobs and hit America's poorest the hardest.

Left-wing shareholder activists seek to leverage the mass economic power of institutional investors such as pension funds, whose managers are supposed to focus strictly on their fiduciary responsibilities to retirees.

Activist shareholder resolutions do not have to pass to succeed. The process itself can be so injurious to a company that management will cave to demands.

The Obama administration likes to say that it is 'pro-worker.' But something is amiss when its labor priorities are forcing unionization and labor contracts on American workplaces, and denying union members information on how their dues money is spent.

The Democratic Party's governing elite has long believed there is no problem that European-style policies cannot cure.

European-style interventions to which the Obama administration is inclined will not make America more competitive in the world-wide economy. Such policies will not increase growth, will not decrease unemployment, and will not increase wages for workers.

When the Smoot-Hawley bill landed on President Herbert Hoover's desk, more than 1,000 economists urged him to veto it. Tragically, the president ignored their pleas.

Americans did not suffer alone. World trade overall fell two-thirds in the first few years of the Depression.