[Congressional Record Volume 142, Number 123 (Tuesday, September 10, 1996)]
[House]
[Page H10168]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




                  JOB CREATION AND JOB LOSS IN AMERICA

  The SPEAKER pro tempore (Mr. Miller of Florida). Under a previous 
order of the House, the gentleman from Florida [Mr. Mica] is recognized 
for 5 minutes.
  Mr. MICA. Mr. Speaker, I come before the House tonight to talk about 
issues that I think are important to me, not only as a Member of 
Congress but also as a father and a parent and someone who is concerned 
about the future for my children and the future for all children in 
America. It is good to get away from Congress and to go out and talk to 
people in the district, and it has been great to have a congressional 
work period where I have had a chance to talk to folks and hear their 
concerns.
  I come from central Florida. It is basically a pretty prosperous 
area. We do not have some of the problems of the urban areas, but one 
of the concerns that I hear repeated and that I personally have been 
concerned about is job creation.
  Now, we have heard the President lauding some of the economic figures 
and unemployment figures, and we have heard touted the creation in this 
administration of 10 million jobs. So I thought I would look into these 
10 million jobs and see what has been created, what has been done and 
what the future is for our children.
  One of the interesting statistics, although 10 million jobs have been 
created in this administration, the bulk of those jobs are part-time 
jobs, they are low-paying jobs, they are contract jobs, and they are 
service jobs. In fact, I was startled to find that during just a 2-year 
period, from 1993 to 1995, that in fact a startling 8.4 million 
Americans lost their jobs, and that is the concern that I heard out 
there, is people fear losing their jobs.
  What is interesting about 8.4 million people, Americans, losing their 
jobs during this 2-year period of the 4-year job expansion is the 
majority of those 8.4 million people who lost their jobs lost a good 
paying job, a high-technology job, or a job that was in a sophisticated 
area, and the majority of that 8.4 million had to take a job in a lower 
paying, a lower level, a less sophisticated job. And, really, that is 
the question that I heard asked of me and the question that I asked 
myself: What about the future? What about jobs for our children, when 
half of those jobs that are lost, that 8.4 million, we relegate our 
citizens to lower paying jobs?
  Now, in 1989 there were 1 million more jobs in manufacturing than 
there were in Government. This is an alarming figure in what has 
happened since 1989. And listen to this: Last year there were 1.5 
million jobs more in Government than there were in manufacturing in 
this country. So we are employing more people on the Government rolls.
  And this story about ending big Government as we know it and the era 
the big Government is over, it just does not hold water because we have 
more people on public payrolls and less in manufacturing than we have 
ever had.
  I had a conversation with a mother whose daughter was one of the few 
students in advanced physics, during the past weekend, and some time 
ago she told me about her daughter at the University of Florida, one of 
the few students in advanced physics. The next area after nuclear 
physics is the area she is in, advanced physics studies. Now she has 
transferred to Northwestern University and she is the only American 
student in her class in advanced physics. This is scary for the future. 
Her choices are going to be to work probably in Tokyo and Geneva when 
she finishes. What kinds of jobs are we creating?
  And then we look at the job and education programs and they are a 
total failure. In my State we spent $1 billion on job training in the 
State of Florida, and a State report recently released said that less 
than 20 percent of those students who entered the job training program 
completed the program. Of that, only 19 percent, 19 percent of the 20 
percent, ever got a job. So we are paying much more and we are getting 
less. We are not giving good opportunity for the future. We are 
replacing good paying jobs with jobs that do not pay much.
  And the debate in this chamber has been about whether we pay people 
$5.15. That is not acceptable to me. That is not acceptable to the 
future. We can and we must do much better.

                          ____________________