Extending Trade Adjustment Assistance (TAA) to Service Workers: How Many Workers Could Potentially Be Covered? (CRS Report for Congress)
| Release Date |
Revised Jan. 30, 2008 |
| Report Number |
RS22761 |
| Report Type |
Report |
| Authors |
John J. Topoleski, Domestic Social Policy Division |
| Source Agency |
Congressional Research Service |
| Older Revisions |
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Summary:
Trade Adjustment Assistance (TAA) provides income support and trainingassistance to workers who become unemployed for certain trade-related reasons. Onlyworkers who make an article (i.e., manufacturing workers) are eligible for TAA. Undercurrent law, service workers who become unemployed for a trade-related reason (e.g.,outsourcing) are ineligible for TAA. Several bills in the 110th Congress (S. 1848, H.R.910, H.R. 3589, H.R. 3920) would expand TAA to include service workers and publicsector employees. The available data indicates that the number of displacedmanufacturing workers in offshorable occupations from 2003 to 2005 (489,000) roughlyequals the number of TAA-certified manufacturing workers over the same period(450,000). There were 840,000 workers displaced from offshorable nonmanufacturingoccupations from 2003 to 2005, suggesting that the pool of TAA-eligible workers couldhave increased by over 170% if service workers had been eligible for TAA. In January2006, nearly three times as many employed nonmanufacturing workers were inoffshorable occupations (20.7 million) than employed manufacturing workers inoffshorable occupations (7.7 million), suggesting a large increase in the pool ofpotentially eligible TAA workers.
