Restricting Trade Act Benefits to Import-Affected Workers Who Cannot Find a Job Can Save Millons

摘要

The worker adjustment assistance program provides weekly cash payments, training, and employment services to workers whose employment is affected by import competition. GAO found that (1) weekly cash payments helped few adjust to changes in their economic conditions; (2) few workers used employment services for readjusting to new jobs even when laid off a long time; and (3) most workers did not receive benefits until long after they were laid off, in many cases after they had returned to work. The Congress should amend the Trade Act of 1974 to require that import-affected workers exhaust unemployment insurance benefits before receiving Trade Act cash benefits. This would lengthen the period of income protection for those who cannot find a job and could save millions of dollars now paid to the majority who return to work before exhausting unemployment insurance benefits.