Job Training Reform Enacted
Sarah Brookhart
Director of Government Relations
American Psychological Society
Calling it the "crowning jewel" of his Administration’s
lifetime learning agenda, President Clinton has signed into law a sweeping reform of
federal job training and related programs.
Job training reform has been an Administration goal since the beginning
of the first term and before that was part of the Clinton-Gore campaign platform. Efforts
to pass the original legislation, a wide-reaching package called the GI Bill for
America’s Workers, failed in Congress in 1994 and 1996. This time, a significantly
scaled-back version called the "Workforce Investment Act of 1998" passed with
strong bipartisan support from Capitol Hill, and both the Administration and Congress are
claiming credit for the bill.
Here are some of the highlights of the legislation:
- Dozens of training programs will be consolidated into three block grant programs to
states and local governments.
- Workers will be given "individual training accounts" that allow them to choose
their own training.
- All local areas will be required to have at least one "one-stop career center"
that combines training, job search and placement assistance, career counseling,
unemployment insurance, vocational rehabilitation adult education, and other core services
related to employment.
- Universal access to core labor market services will be provided, with no eligibility
requirement.
- States and local areas will be required to meet specific measures of performance,
including job placement rates, earnings, and retention in employment.
- Training providers will be required to be certified in order to receive federal
job-training funds.
The bill also provides $1.25 billion over 5 years in "youth
opportunity grants" to high-poverty areas, including empowerment zones and enterprise
communities, with the goal of "changing the culture of joblessness and high
unemployment" by providing employment and training services to all disadvantaged
youth in selected urban and rural high-poverty areas for an extended period. This funding
would provide approximately 15–20 grants.
"The vast majority of corporate managers say the number one
prerequisite for continued prosperity is finding a way to fill all our high-skill
jobs," said President Clinton at the signing ceremony for the bill.
"Even with the unemployment rate as low as it is," he said,
"there are hundreds of thousands of jobs which are going begging that are high-wage,
high-skill jobs, undermining the ability of our free enterprise economy to maximize its
benefits to all our people, to reach into all the urban neighborhoods and the rural
communities and the places it has not yet reached. Therefore, giving all Americans the
tools they need to learn for a lifetime is critical to our ability to continue to
grow."
"Today, we celebrate a big step forward in making sure that every
adult can keep on learning for a lifetime; where no disadvantaged child, no displaced
worker, no welfare parent, no one willing to learn and work is left behind," said the
President during the August 7th ceremony.
In Congress, passage of the legislation was led by Senators James
Jeffords (R-VT), Mike DeWine (R-OH), Edward Kennedy (D-MA), and Paul Wellstone (D-MN) and
by Representatives William Goodling (R-PA), Howard McKeon (R-CA), William Clay (D-MO) and
Dale Kildee (D-MI).
"This act will significantly enhance the ability of states and
local areas to effectively implement welfare reform and move welfare recipients from
welfare to work as well as greatly increase opportunities for training for the high
technology jobs that are in demand throughout the country," said Goodling, who is
chair of the House Committee on Education and the Workforce.
"This will be an important step forward for the country’s
economy, workers and businesses," said Wellstone, ranking minority member of the
Senate subcommittee that first cleared the legislation. "We need to ensure that our
workers have the skills they need to compete in the global economy. This bill simplifies
our worker training system, and at the same time puts decision-making power down at the
local level. It provides more say and more responsibility for private sector employers who
are expected to provide the jobs for trainees."
TIP
Vol. 36/No. 2 October, 1998
Return to Table of Contents