Congressmen Adam Smith (D-Wash.) and Sander Levin (D-Mich.), as well as 30 other House Democrats, sent a letter on Tuesday to House Speaker John Boehner and Democratic Leader Nancy Pelosi urging the reauthorization of the Trade Adjustment Assistance program, which is set to expire Dec. 31.
Reps. Smith and Levin introduced the Trade Adjustment Assistance Act earlier this Congress, which would fully reauthorize the program.
“[Trade Adjustment Assistance] is a critical part of our nation’s competitiveness strategy in the face of a rapidly evolving world economy and its reauthorization enjoys bipartisan support,” the members wrote. “Congressional leadership and action to reauthorize [the program] is needed to stop the termination of an effective program that helps American workers and firms compete, innovate, strengthen and diversify America’s economy. We must do all we can to save jobs by helping firms readjust and workers regain their edge and competitiveness in the global marketplace.”
Congress created the Trade Adjustment Assistance program in 1962 in response to the loss of jobs among hard-working Americans as a result of increasing global competition, as well as to promote American competitiveness.
Its benefits have several components: training assistance, income support while in training, and job search and relocation assistance. The program assists workers dislocated by the elimination of tariffs and other barriers to trade.
Additional programs assist farmers, fishermen, and firms with the development and implementation of business plans to enable them to regain a competitive foothold.
Trade Adjustment Assistance by the numbers:
• 2,192,910: The number of workers served by Trade Adjustment Assistance since it was created in 1974
• 104,158: The number of workers eligible to apply for Trade Adjustment Assistance in 2013
• 50: The number of states with workers eligible for Trade Adjustment Assistance benefits in 2013
• 75 percent: The percentage of Trade Adjustment Assistance workers who got a job within six months of finishing the program
• 90 percent: The percentage of those Trade Adjustment Assistance workers who remained employed at the end of the year
