Changes That Will Help More Americans Find Work

It seems premature for President Clinton to speak grandly of building “a bridge to the 21st Century” when one considers that his administration has yet to pave more modest paths, like the one from welfare to work.

For that task, the federal government relies on 163 job training programs administered by 15 separate agencies. But the long-term value of even the most widely hailed of these programs is far from clear.

Take, for example, California’s pioneering welfare-to-work program, GAIN, or Greater Avenues for Independence. A 1993 survey by the respected Manpower Demonstration Research Corp. showed that GAIN participants in two counties achieved earnings 15% to 18% greater than nonparticipants, while GAIN participants in one county--Riverside--had earnings 65% higher. Still, the average GAIN participant earned only $2,468 in the first year of the program and only 33% were employed during the first quarter of the second year.

Fortunately, Congress, awakening to the problem, has made job training reform an early priority. Last month, Democrats introduced the Working Americans Opportunity Act, and last week the chairman of the House Committee on Education and the Work Force, Rep. Howard P. “Buck” McKeon (R-Santa Clarita), convened a hearing to begin drafting a second bill.

Both parties agree on the need for several basic reforms, an advance from last year when they failed to find a common ground, killing two job-training bills amid partisan posturing. Now is the time to join together on a bill footed on these moderate reforms:

* Give states more jurisdiction over job-training dollars. Federal programs fail to cover many emerging groups of displaced workers because they are earmarked for specific types of training based on census data that is often obsolete. States, in contrast, can respond to local needs more quickly and can coordinate federal dollars with related welfare programs under their administration.

* Encourage business to invest more in worker retraining. In his first term, President Clinton, observing that “seven out of every 10 dollars American companies spend on employee training goes to those at the top of the corporate ladder,” sought to require businesses to spend 1.5% of payroll for continuing education and training of all workers, not just executives. The president withdrew his proposal when business leaders pointed out that training investments can be lost when workers change jobs once their skills have been upgraded. A more business-sensitive policy would give companies incentives to retrain workers, and also permit them to require trained employees to promise--as many professionals do--to stay on for a year or two after completing the course.

* Improve accountability. According to a 1995 report by the Government Accounting Office, nearly 40% of federal job training programs lack any way of determining whether their clients subsequently obtained employment, and nearly 75% of the programs gathered no information about the wages trainees earned. Washington must work with state governments to develop more precision in assessing skills, employment rates and job retention.

While a bill modeled on these lines stands a good chance of passage, partisan riders could kill it. Some Democrats, for instance, say they will insist on delivering job training dollars directly to workers through cash vouchers, an idea most Republicans oppose. That strategy may win the Democrats some short-term votes, but the cost could be long-term jobs.