[Congressional Record Volume 148, Number 56 (Tuesday, May 7, 2002)]
[Senate]
[Pages S3959-S3961]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]
By Ms. CANTWELL:
S. 2469. A bill to amend section 171(b)(1)(D) the Workforce
Investment Act of 1998 to provide for training service and delivery
innovation grants; to
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the Committee on Health, Education, Labor, and Pensions.
Ms. CANTWELL. Madam President, I come to the floor today to address a
topic that I believe is key to the future competitiveness of our
Nation, and that is the training of our workforce.
These have been tough times for the economy of my State, and
certainly the economy of the Nation at large. The most recent
employment data available from the Bureau of Labor Statistics have
offered little comfort in Washington, which along with the other
Pacific Northwest States of Oregon and Alaska, continue to have among
the highest unemployment rates in the Nation.
This body moved quickly to provide immediate relief to the workers
most impacted by the devastating economic impacts of the September 11th
incidents, and I am proud that this Senate under the leadership of our
Majority Leader was able to deliver some temporary assistance to
workers who have exhausted unemployment benefits.
Nonetheless, our efforts should not stop with an unemployment
insurance extension. We must continue pursuing long-term strategies for
a sustained recovery. The fundamental strength of our economy lies in
the working men and women of this Nation whose innovation and hard work
propelled the massive economic expansion of the past decade.
The edge that will keep our workers ahead in this changing global
economy is their skills. Our economy is global, linked by international
markets and communications networks. The sustained success of U.S.
companies depends on adaptability and innovation to survive, which
means that workers themselves need to remain flexible and continually
update job skills.
Even in this time of relatively high unemployment, businesses
throughout the country are having hard times finding skilled workers.
Last year, for example, 46 percent of American businesses had trouble
finding qualified workers. Next year, 29 percent of American businesses
expect that they will continue to have trouble hiring qualified
workers, even in this slugish economy.
At the same time, over 3 million workers are laid off each year, but
well under 500,000 receive any sort of training in response to meet the
skills demands of those hiring businesses.
But meeting those skills demands, and bridging the skills gaps that
persist between will not widely occur without a strong financial
commitment to ensuring access to skills training programs, and ongoing
efforts to maximize the effectiveness of those funds that we already
invest.
The decision we make today to invest in our workers will pay off many
times over in the form of a stronger economy, healthier communities,
and improved quality of life.
But the persistent truth is that we are delivering a trickle of
funding while faced with a tidal wave of need.
During the Easter recess, I traveled across my State, from Olympia to
Kelso, Vancouver to Bellingham, the Tri-cites to Mt. Vernon, and
received a great deal of feedback from Washingtonians who are seeking
training, are providing it, or are serving as employers who need to
hire skilled workers. And I heard similar concerns repeated in each of
these areas: first, as our economy continues to change, the demand for
new skills has grown; second, that the State has experienced an
enormous increase in demand for skills training by individual workers,
a trend that appears to be widespread throughout the Nation; but third,
that far too many of those workers seeking to access training cannot
get the training they need due to limited availability of slots at
training institutions and the limited availability of tuition
assistance.
Last month my office released an informal study of this apparent
shortfall in the capacity of training systems in my state to meet
emerging demand, and the results of that study were staggering to me.
Tens of thousands of workers who want to upgrade their skills have only
a limited ability to do so because of budgetary limitations that
prevent institutions from adequately adding capacity to deliver
training, and because only limited numbers of training vouchers are
available through the federal job training system.
I might add that our governor has truly been a leader in expanding
access to training. In response to the recent wave of layoffs in our
State, he managed to add more than 1,300 additional adult worker-
training slots to the state's community and technical college system.
Even in the face of our state's terrible revenue crunch, Governor Locke
has made that commitment, and he deserves tremendous credit for it.
But it is clear that states need additional help from the Federal
Government. Workforce investment must be a national priority.
As my colleagues know, the programs authorized by the Workforce
Investment Act are only in their second year of implementation.
Although we still have several job-training programs offered through
the Federal Government, the WIA system is clearly the centerpiece. It
is the only Federal system designed to meet a broad range of worker
needs, and it emerged from years of bipartisan work by Congress to
consolidate at least 17 Federal programs into one system for delivering
employment and training services.
Continuing our financial commitment to WIA programs at this critical
stage in their development is essential to effective implementation of
these system-wide reforms.
Senators Kennedy, DeWine, Wellstone, and our other colleagues took an
enouous step in passing WIA in 1998. And despite bumps in the road, the
system is already showing great promise. Nonetheless, as we move toward
reauthorization of WIA and TANF, there are a number of issues that many
of us will want to address in seeking to take the system to the next
level.
We must, first and foremost, put an even higher priority on training.
In developing human capital that maximizes the power of our economic
engine, we must not get caught in the short-sighted quicksand of a
work-first mentality. We will do ourselves a grave disservice if we
simply force more people without the skills to obtain and hold a job in
this dynamic economy, to work faster, in whatever job is available,
often low paying jobs, rather than getting them the tools that they
need to truly be self-sufficient.
Second, we must further enhance the seamlessness of our training
systems. As GAO has documented in recent months, we still have partners
in the WIA system that do not fully participate, and we still have
numerous Federal training programs operating independently of one
another, often duplicating effort and resources. We need to keep our
eye on ball in this case, that the goal is to provide the highest
possible service at the lowest unit cost on behalf of the customers of
the system, its employment and training recipients, and we need to
maximize the return on our Federal investment.
Third, in meeting these objectives, we need to maintain the
flexibility of the systems while encouraging the types of activities
and use of funds that will help us match skilled workers with available
jobs. We need to take a serious look at whether the systems effectively
balance the need for accountability with the flexibility for local
boards in the use of federal dollars that is will allow them to most
effectively target resources at the problems that most plague their
communities.
Finally, in the short term, we must tailor all of our Federal
training systems and programs to ensure the greatest possible access
for workers who want to obtain training. That means that it is
incumbent on us to keep the door open as wide as possible for adult
students to access programs like Pell. And we must try to utilize the
most current and powerful technologies to enhance the delivery of
training.
Today, I am introducing three bills that are designed to build upon
the existing workforce structure to expand access to training and
improve its effectiveness.
The first piece of legislation would change the Pell Grant program to
make certain that student financial aid is available to recently laid
off workers.
A standard practice in the determination of Pell Grant eligibility
for student aid is to base grant awards upon the applicant's income
during the previous year. The use of tax forms for this purpose, in
many cases, is the appropriate and easiest administrative method of
obtaining a clear and official
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statement of need. But as a result, many recently laid-off workers are
often not eligible for critical financial assistance at a time when the
worker's family is experiencing a dramatic decrease in income.
The legislation would explicitly provide the authority for
educational institutions, after taking sufficient precautions to
prevent fraud, to consider current-year income levels for applicants
seeking training through Pell-eligible programs. It does this in a very
narrow way, by ensuring that institutions in states with high
unemployment rates consider current year financial circumstances rather
than previous year, income.
The second bill also addresses issues of access and delivery of
training. While many distance-learning technologies have been developed
in recent years, those technologies have not necessarily reached many
of those most in need of training. Many workers in need of training may
not be aware of opportunities available online to engage in distance-
learning training coursework and may not have sufficient access to
technologies that provide the means to access such distance-learning
technologies.
It may not be enough to create a distance-learning curriculum and
passively provide it through an educational institution website.
Rather, comprehensive solutions need to be developed that integrate
curriculum innovations, technological access, and the promotion and
linkage of workers in need of training with such opportunities.
Additionally, sources of funding to obtain online coursework may not be
available to many workers seeking to engage in such training.
The third bill that I am introducing is designed to help WIA Boards
access more, high-quality information to better understand regional
labor market dynamics and improve system performance with goal of
identifying emerging sectors and targeting employment and training
resources appropriately.
While workforce areas may be conducting research now on the
employment landscape in those areas and states, those assessments and
statistical labor market data collected by the Bureau of Labor
Statistics is not be sufficient to provide a level of detail for
identifying actual job opportunities in regional labor markets and
matching available workers to those business demands. As a result,
local systems may not have the information needed to most efficiently
target the use of available resources and training providers may not
always build curricula and programs that most effectively address local
workforce needs.
This legislation is designed to make resources available to maximize
employment and training resources toward meeting emerging area skills
needs. I want to make clear that this is not intended to simply
reinvent the wheel for areas that are already developing sectoral
approaches within existing workforce development systems. But it should
in fact, allow those areas to take the next step by providing funds to
enhance the capacity of systems to meet area employer needs.
This is a first step on a long journey as we work to improve Federal
job training systems, and it is in no way independent of the need for
additional resources to grow those systems.
Each of these bills is an important component of that broader
strategy and I look forward to working with my colleagues as we begin
to look at the reauthorization of TANF, of WIA, and of the Higher
Education Act this year and next.
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