Trade Adjustment Assistance

By Christian Losche, Research Associate for GLOBAL ID, LLC

The Trade Adjustment Assistance program is for workers affected by an increase in international trade. With the numerous benefits of foreign trade, it is difficult to not pursue that avenue from an economic standpoint. When employees are either laid off, or hours are severely cut due to trade, the Trade Adjustment Assistance program helps these workers in different ways. The program provides for training to acquire a new job, if the reason for the lay-off can be linked to increased trade. The program also provides income support and job search and relocation allowances, among other benefits. Although this program is a step in the right direction for trade-affected workers, it still is being criticized for inaccurate methods of allocating funds and inaccurate data. The focus must remain on the fact that the program, although not perfect, is in place to help trade affected workers find re-employment in a short period of time, which is an extremely positive program.

Trade Adjustment Assistance

There is much debate about the benefits and disadvantages of globalization. The main issue of concern is that many low-skilled workers in developed countries lose their jobs due to cheaper imports from low-wage countries. What alternatives do the displaced workers in the developed countries have when they are terminated?

In the United States there is one potential solution called the Trade Adjustment Assistance (TAA) Program. According to the US Department of Labor "The TAA Program provides aid to workers who lose their jobs or whose hours of work and wages are reduced as a result of increased imports. Workers whose employment is adversely affected by increased imports may apply for TAA. TAA offers a variety of benefits and reemployment services to assist unemployed workers prepare for and obtain suitable employment. Workers may be eligible for training, job search and relocation allowances, income support and other reemployment services."

When the Democrats recently took control of congress, they proposed an amendment to the TAA Program to assist both manufacturing workers as well as service workers whose jobs have been off shored. The amendment would also offer assistance to whole industries instead of just individual factories.

At GLOBAL ID, we believe that it is the ethical responsibility of companies that transfer production abroad to assist their displaced, domestic employees. Programs such as TAA allow companies to receive free assistance for the retraining of their displaced employees. We will continue to provide additional information about this topic in future articles. In the meantime, additional information can be found on the TAA Program at the following sites:
http://www.whitehouse.gov/infocus/internationaltrade/taapager.html
http://www.doleta.gov/programs/factsht/taa.htm

Written by Kelly Kasic, President of GLOBAL ID, LLC
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