Washington, D.C. - House Ways and Means Committee Chairman Charles B. Rangel (D-N.Y.) and U.S. Rep. Adam Smith (D-WA) today announced the release of a Government Accountability Office (GAO) report detailing shortcomings in the Trade Adjustment Assistance (TAA) program. TAA is designed to help workers displaced by trade to better compete in the global economy:
The GAO report confirmed several concerns highlighted by Smith and Rangel last Congress in H.R. 4156 - The Trade Adjustment Assistance Improvement Act (TAAIA):
* American service sector workers find themselves increasingly impacted by global trade and competition, but they are not yet eligible for the TAA program because they do not produce tangible items;
* The Health Care Tax Credit (HCTC) for affected workers is complex and obscure, and high up-front out-of-pocket expenses exclude workers from the program.
Additionally, GAO found that the Labor Department’s training allocation funding formula to States is seriously flawed, resulting in some States having a surplus while others suffer a shortage of training funds.
“Overhauling the current TAA is another critical step toward implementing a new trade policy for America," said Chairman Rangel “We need to do more to ensure that workers and communities negatively affected by trade and globalization have all of the resources and training necessary to compete and win in the global economy."
“This report validates concerns Chairman Rangel and I raised last year. Service sector workers face challenges similar to workers in the manufacturing sector and the Health Care Tax Credit is not being fully utilized. The Democratic Congress is committed to making sure our trade policies result in broad-based prosperity, and we will introduce a bill in the near future to improve the TAA program," Smith said.
In the coming months, House Democrats will hold hearings on TAA in the Ways and Means Committee. Smith and Rangel also plan to introduce a bill to address these and other shortcomings in the TAA program highlighted in the GAO’s report.
The GAO report can be found online at: https://www.gao.gov/cgi-bin/getrpt?gao-07-702
