Clinton proposes $2.5 billion a year in job training

by Mark Silva

Sen. Hillary Clinton, casting her campaign forward to the primary election campaigns in early May, appeared in North Carolina today with a plan for a $2.5 billion a year workforce training program aimed at bolstering a sagging economy.

Clinton will carry her “Solutions For The American Economy” tour to Indiana and Pennsylvania as well. Pennsylvania, with its vote April 22, offers a critical test of the New York senator’s strength in a continuing contest with Sen. Barack Obama of Illinois. The North Carolina and Indiana primaries on May 6 will double-check that test.

On a day in which both Obama and Clinton addressed the nation’s economic woes, Clinton today outlined a plan to invest $2.5 billion per year – $12.5 billion over five years – to strengthen the nation’s workforce development efforts. This includes “universally available’’ job retraining – note the term, universal, a promise of her health care plans as well – for dislocated workers, new Pell Grants and on-the-job training .

“We are competing in a new global economy, but our policies to equip American worker for the twenty-first century are stuck back in the twentieth,’’ Clinton said in prepared remarks. “When it comes to retraining assistance, our government is more focused on how you lost your job than how you can find a new one.

“While we have been rightly focused on trying to help people who are out of work, there’s been too little thought and effort to help people gain new skills while they still have their existing jobs – so they can move up or move on to higher-wage positions.”

Clinton maintains that the federal commitment to workforce development has been lacking. “President Bush has dramatically undermined the capacity of our federal workforce training system, which is now training 30 percent fewer people than it did in 2000,’’ her campaign says, adding. “ Under President Bush, the number of long-term unemployed workers has nearly doubled.’’

Clinton delivered her plan at Wake Technical Community College. This is an outline of her plan, according to her campaign:

"Making Worker Adjustment Assistance Universally Available for All Dislocated Workers: In today’s economy, no industry or worker is immune from global competition or technological change. Yet current government efforts to support retraining too often focus on why a worker lost his or her job, rather than on how to best help that worker find a good new job going forward. Trade Adjustment Assistance provides generous assistance, training and income support but is limited to a narrow set of workers who lose a job because their plants relocate to a country with which we have not signed free trade or trade preferences agreements. The Dislocated Worker Program – which was tripled during the Clinton Administration – actually has been cut during the Bush Administration, even as we face our second potential recession in seven years. Senator Clinton has already joined Senator Max Baucus, Representative Charlie Rangel and other Democratic leaders in calling for expanding the existing TAA program to cover service workers affected by global competition.

Committing $10 billion over five years to move towards a universal system where every dislocated worker is eligible for a basic set of training, adjustment and job search benefits regardless of whether their job loss was due to trade, outsourcing, technological change, or economic downturn. Senator Clinton will work to ensure that this expansion is achieved without diluting current TAA benefits or the expansion to service workers.

Providing New Pell Grants for Workers: Hillary will provide a new Pell Grant benefit to displaced workers who enroll in training and education programs to upgrade their skills. Because eligibility for federal financial aid is based on one’s annual income, and not available to less than part-time students, many displaced workers do not qualify. Under this initiative, any worker who lost a job of three or more years because the plants where they were working closed or moved elsewhere will be eligible for the minimum Pell Grant benefit if they enroll in a training, certificate or degree-granting higher education program. Those who qualify for more generous financial aid awards will receive the full amount to which they are entitled. Hillary will also instruct the Department of Education to conduct a pilot program to relax certain requirements while maintaining the integrity of the federal financial aid system, so that it better meets the needs of workers. And her Administration will conduct aggressive outreach by partnering with state unemployment and labor offices to ensure that every eligible worker learns about the Pell Grants for Workers program, and is able to take full advantage of it.

Supporting New Preemptive and On-The-Job Training: Senator Clinton believes that we should not wait until workers lose their jobs to help them get new training and new skills. By strengthening opportunities for workers to get education and skills while still on the job, Senator Clinton’s plan will help increase workers wages and employment prospects, while aiming to decrease dislocation as well. Her plan includes:

o 401(k)s for Education and Training: Senator Clinton’s new American Retirement Accounts will give workers a new, easy and automatic way to save for education and training opportunities. These accounts will allow individuals to invest up to $5,000 per year on a tax-deferred basis, and offer up to $1000 in matching tax cuts to help workers save. To empower workers to equip themselves with the skills to find new jobs before they have suffered a dislocation, Senator Clinton has proposed that these funds can be withdrawn penalty-free for higher education and training while workers are on-the-job. In addition, workers will also be able to withdraw 10-15% of the savings from their accounts to help tide them through periods of extended unemployment.

o Preemptive Training Initiative for Vulnerable Communities: Senator Clinton would invest $200 million per year in a program to offer preemptive training assistance to workers and communities threatened by global competition. Under this program, communities, unions and companies could apply for assistance if they were concerned that their jobs were being threatened by global competition or technological change, and would receive competitive grants to support training and transition assistance for new jobs and new career opportunities, including those targeted to local circumstances.. The Strategic Early Warning Network (SEWN) in Western Pennsylvania involves community, business, and union leaders to identify and assist at-risk manufacturers; SEWN estimates that these preemptive efforts have saved or created more than 10,000 jobs since the program began in 1993.

The grants would also seek to support new partnerships between community colleges, workers and local businesses to tailor credit-bearing training programs to specific local employment demand. These programs could seek to provide new ways to help workers train on the job, by adapting college offerings to workers’ schedules and expanding worksite learning opportunities. One example is the Charlotte Regional Workforce Development Partnership, which brings together representatives from nine area community colleges to discuss the workforce trends, enrollment in training programs, and how the local training programs can be better tailored to address the needs of the local economy.

o More flexible employer tuition benefit programs: Senator Clinton believes Section 127 of the tax code should be amended to allow employers to use tuition benefit programs to pay for not just for college courses, but also for literacy and English as a Second Language (ESL) or other pre-undergraduate education. This would help new immigrants and low-skilled workers to develop the basic education and language skills required for more advanced work and learning opportunities.

A Commitment to Fiscal Discipline: The cost of Senator Clinton’s new training initiative is approximately $2.5 billion per year. This cost will be financed without increasing the deficit by allocating a portion of the savings from Senator Clinton’s Corporate Subsidy Commission. This commission will identify unnecessary and outdated corporate subsidies for elimination and present its recommendations in full to Congress for an up-or-down vote – without amendments. [American Dream Initiative, 2005]. This approach will ensure that special interests cannot interfere to protect their own subsidies.

Building on a Bold Agenda for Job Creation: Hillary’s plan to prepare our workers for the high-wage, high-skill jobs of the future builds on her bold agenda to create good, high-wage jobs in America. Hillary will restore a strong manufacturing sector in the U.S. by investing in processes and products that could lower costs, improve efficiencies, and create more U.S. manufacturing jobs. She will end tax breaks for companies that ship jobs overseas, and investing in innovation and job growth in the U.S. Her Rebuild America plan will invest in infrastructure to create good jobs, ensure our safety and enhance our economic competitiveness. And her $50 billion Strategic Energy Fund will invest in renewables and clean energy technologies that will help create at least 5 million green collar jobs. ''