HERNDON, Va.—Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen said on Friday that domestic investments in semiconductors and research would help reverse a longstanding innovation deficit and increase the productive capacity of the U.S. economy.
Yellen, speaking at a business incubator in the Washington area’s Dulles technology corridor, said that the U.S. lead in technology innovation has increasingly come under threat from China and other competitors.
“We had failed to make adequate investments in science and technology. Federal R&D as a percent of GDP had dropped to a third of 1960s levels,” she said in the latest of a series of campaign-style speeches touting President Joe Biden’s economic initiatives….