Congress

The Biggest Differences Between the House Republican and Democratic WIA Bills

/ The Old Crank

(Updated Below)

This April 4th story from The Hill highlights the critical issues that stand in the way of a bipartisan Workforce Investment Act (WIA) reauthorization bill in the House. Both Democrats and Republicans on the House Education and Workforce Committee recently offered their own bills, (H.R. 4227 and H.R. 4297, respectively), and it’s unclear right now whether Democrats will attempt to offer amendments to the Republican bill, or how this will play out. (According to The Hill, The Senate will not take up the Republican bill as it now stands.)

The key issues? The Republican bill would consolidate all of the different WIA funding streams and convert them into a block grant program for states, and would not increase overall funding. Democrats are against block granting, and they would boost WIA funding by $8 billion. The third big issue has to do with the makeup of job training boards:

Aside from the fight over funding levels, the two parties are expected to differ over language dealing with business representation in local boards that distribute WIA funds.

Appointed by governors, state and local workforce investment boards allocate funds to various education and training programs within a state. Under current law, 50 percent of the board has to be business representatives.

Republicans want to increase business representation to two-thirds on these boards and leave the remaining one-third of the board up to the discretion of governors. Under this change, Republican governors could potentially decide to stack the whole board with business leaders.

In contrast, Democrats want to ensure the presence of labor organizations and community college representatives on these boards. The Service Employees International Union (SEIU) has also lobbied against this Republican provision.

There are plenty of other differences between the two bills, but I think you can make a good case that these are the three most significant areas of disagreement.

For adult literacy advocates, it’s worth noting that the Democrats’ bill increases funding for Title II (Adult Education and Literacy) to $1.1 billion, almost double the current appropriation (which hovers around $600 million). (See page 243 of H.R. 4227.)

UPDATE 4/11/12: Thanks to the person who alerted me to a similar post based on The Hill’s coverage of WIA on another blog, posted about two hours after this post. For the record, I don’t see much similarities between the two posts, and the author did not lift anything from this blog without crediting me. If anyone should be concerned, it’s the editors at The Hill, because several passages from The Hill’s story were copied pretty much verbatim for that post without attribution. (A link to The Hill’s coverage is provided at the end of the post, but the story is never quoted, nor is the The Hill credited as a source for their information.)

But thanks for the heads-up, and the words of support—that was a nice surprise.

House Republicans Introduce Their Workforce Investment Act Reauthorization Bill

/ The Old Crank

Yesterday House Republicans introduced their Workforce Investment Act (WIA) reauthorization bill, H.R. 4297, The Workforce Investment Improvement Act of 2012. This bill more or less pulls together the three separate WIA bills introduced earlier this year by Reps. Virginia Foxx (NC), Rep. Buck McKeon (CA), and Rep. Joe Heck (NV). I learned this morning at a meeting that there is one significant change in this bill from Rep. Foxx’s earlier bill, the Streamlining Workforce Development Programs Act. In the older bill, the provision that allowed states to consolidate different job training programs into one unified plan included Perkins grant funds as one of the programs that could be consolidated. In the new bill, language was added that removes Perkins as a candidate for consolidation. (h/t NASDCTEc)

Rep. Reed Continues to Characterize Restrictions in House UI Proposal As Giving People “Tools”

/ The Old Crank

(edited slightly at 5:33 PM for for clarity)

In yesterday’s Christian Science Monitor story on the payroll tax cut and unemployment insurance (UI) extension negotiations, Rep. Reed (R-NY) is again quoted making the claim that the House’s proposal to deny unemployment benefits to those without a GED or high school diploma until they obtain one (or are at least enrolled in a class and making certain undefined progress toward such a credential) is actually providing “tools” to assist these individuals.

“Democrats are not willing to allow states the flexibility they need to give people tools to be reemployed,” says freshman Rep. Tom Reed (R) of New York. A strong advocate for these provisions, Congressman Reed says he’s now prepared to send unemployment benefits back to a 26-week level.

Again, as noted previously, there is nothing in this restriction that provides “tools” of any kind that will help people become reemployed. All the House proposal does is cut off benefits to those who are otherwise eligible but who lack a GED or High School diploma—unless they they can satisfy the vaguely-worded requirement that they are enrolled in a “class” and making “satisfactory progress” toward one of those two credentials (and only those two credentials). It doesn’t provide new funding for those classes, or any other “tools.”

Moreover the only “flexibility” provided for states in this proposal is the flexibility to opt out of the new restrictions the House wants to impose.

If you think the idea of providing more education and training opportunities to the unemployed sounds good, then the House UI proposal is not for you, because it does not actually do that. Instead, I suggest contacting your member of Congress and urging them to reauthorize the Workforce Investment Act, and to include an additional increase in funding for Title II of that act. That would result in putting actual adult education tools and resources in the hands of the unemployed—and others—seeking adult education opportunities.

Congressional UI Debate: Four Themes to Watch For

/ The Old Crank

(updated below)

As the House-Senate Conference Committee renews their discussion this week on the payroll tax cut and unemployment insurance extension, here are four things I’ll be watching for regarding the proposal to ban unemployed workers without a high school diploma or GED from collecting unemployment benefits:

We Are Providing Help, Not Taking Away Benefits

As I noted yesterday, proponents have routinely suggested that their proposal is designed to provide “resources” or “tools” of some kind to help those without diplomas or GEDs attain those credentials and get back to work. However, there is no additional education or training funding in the House proposal, just a restriction that would prevent those without such credentials from receiving the benefits they have earned.

General Agreement That a GED or High School Diploma is the Only Option

During the conference committee discussion last week, both sides in the argument seemed to more-or-less agree that for those out of work and without a high school diploma, obtaining that diploma or a GED was bascially the only option available to them. But as the National Coalition for Literacy pointed out in their letter to conference committee members:

[T]he new restriction mistakenly assumes that attainment of a high-school diploma or GED is the most efficient and effective strategy towards reemployment. In fact, industry-recognized credentials and certificates may be a better pathway to a good job. Attainment of such credentials does not necessarily require a GED.

In other words, for many unemployed workers, enrollment in an industry credential program may be the most efficient and logical way to obtain the education and training they need to re-enter the workforce. Some unemployed workers without a high school diploma might, in fact, struggle with the range of academic skills needed to obtain a GED, but have sufficient skills and experience on the job to obtain such a credential. It just doesn’t make any sense to shoehorn people into just one education option.

This is actually just one example of an even more fundamental problem with what the House has proposed: it reflects a simplistic and fundamentally mistaken understanding of the range of adult education needs in this country, as well as the range of options that are required to to address each individual’s needs. As noted above, an unemployed worker may find themselves in a situation where pursuing an industry-recognized credential may be a quicker path to re-employment than obtaining a GED. Others may view the GED as their best option, but due to the lack of decent quality, available classes nearby, they choose to study on their own—not in a class. Others may have literacy skills at such a low level that they sign up for a one-on-one tutoring at a library literacy program—again, not a class, and also not direct preparation for a diploma or a GED.

The drafters of the House proposal, however, appear to be completely unaware of the range of adult education needs, credentials avaialble, and types of instruction practiced in the field. The House proposal is, instead, quite restrictive: you can only remain eligible for benefits if you are enrolled and making satisfactory progress in a class, and only a class that will lead you to the acquisition of a high school diploma or a GED, (or another high-school equivalency credential recognized by the state).

The Impact on Older Workers

From the beginning, opponents to this proposal have used the example of older workers to illustrate the unfairness of this proposal.

Robert Greenstein of the Center for Budget and Policy Priorities (CBPP) made this point in a blog article last month:

The proposal would deny UI benefits to hundreds of thousands of workers — many of them middle-aged — who have worked hard, played by the rules, and effectively paid UI taxes for years and who then were laid off due to no fault of their own. (my emphasis)

At last week’s conference commitee meeting (thanks to the National Coalition for Literacy for the excerpts from the transcript), the older worker issue was a major part of Sen. Jack Reed’s  (D-RI) argument against the proposal:

This provision would disproportionately affect older workers. It’s been estimated that 35 percent of the UI beneficiaries without a high school education are over the age of 50. So you would have a significant number of people who have worked literally for 30 years, who might have more skills, even technical certificates and company training awards than anyone else, and then to ask them to get a GED before they can collect on their unemployment I think is a huge burden.

While I understand the argument that throwing this new requirement at older workers is particularly unfair, the proposal is really unfair to anyone at any age who has been working and effectively paying into their state’s unemployment insurance fund (employers make the contributions on their behalf)—whether it’s been 30 years or just a few. While I don’t think this is being considered, carving out an exception for older workers as a compromise would be arbitrary (how do we define older worker?) and unfair. As Timothy Noah as pointed out, “it’s unfair to impose conditions on drawing from an unemployment insurance fund that don’t exist when you’re paying into it.”

Well, OK… But There’s a Waiver!

When proponents exhaust their other arguments, I’ve noticed that they then turn to a provision in the House bill that would allow the new requirement to be waived for an individual “to the extent that the State agency charged with the administration of the State law deems such requirements to be unduly burdensome.” However, as CBPP and others have pointed out, the waiver language is extremely weak. There is no standard for determining whether such a burden exists. It is not clear from the language whether the burden being referred to is the burden on the individual applying for benefits or on the state in administrating the provision for that individual. Most importantly, it is only an option to waive the requirement; nothing in that paragraph would require a state to make a determination of whether such a burden exists, or actually waive the requirement if it finds one.

It still seems likely to me from what I’m reading and hearing that the Senate will prevail and this provision will be tossed from the final bill, but I do think it’s worth paying attention to the waiver argument, in particular, and whether any opponents to the House proposal find this language sufficient enough to let the provision through.

UPDATE (10:40 AM): Politico and the Washington Post have both published updates this morning on the state of House-Senate conference committee negotiations. Both of which are worth reading for those interested in a big picture take on these negotiations (more is at stake than the GED/high school diploma requirement, obviously). Both articles claim that the House proposal would require recipients of unemployment benefits simply “to pursue a GED,” which is not what the House proposal actually proposes. This might seem like a picky, technical point, but it’s important in light of the second point I make above. The House proposal requires those without a high school diploma or GED to enroll themselves in a class in pursuit of one of these credentials, not merely to “pursue it.” If pursuit of a GED was sufficient, then self-studiers would presumably still qualify.

Also, the New York Times published an editorial yesterday in which they characterize the high school diploma/GED requirement as a “punitive measure designed to stigmatize the desperate.”