Washington, D.C. - U.S. Congressman Kevin Brady, who helped steer the successful passage of the DR-CAFTA trade agreement through Congress, is drafting a 21^st century upgrade for Trade Adjustment Assistance (TAA) – the federal program to help American workers laid-off due to trade.  

The bill, dubbed “Trade Adjustment 3.0” as the third major update of the program, will offer reforms to make it more user-friendly and effective.

“The freedom to buy, sell and compete throughout the world is a strong economic driver for America,” said Congressman Brady.  “America’s competitors are signing trade agreements that place our companies and workers at a serious competitive disadvantage, so we need to stay engaged in finding new customers and moving our own trade agenda forward.  

“At the same time, we have to do a better job of helping those who lose their jobs due to the ever-changing world marketplace.  We need to give workers more training options and more flexibility to get back on their feet as soon as possible.  

“Our country has no shortage of jobs – we just have a major mismatch between the skills those jobs require, and the workers who are able to meet them.   As our economy grows and transitions, we need to ensure our workers can too.   That’s why one of the major changes I seek to TAA is a greater emphasis on education and effective training, and starting earlier with workers who know they are going to be laid-off.”

Brady’s modernization proposal will:

·        Allow workers to work and train at the same time.  Under the current TAA program, workers are forced to live on subsistence benefits and discouraged from quickly re-entering the workforce. 

·        Offer education debit cards so workers can quickly tailor their training.  Cut through the bureaucracy to become more worker-centered. 

·        Permit pre-layoff training so community colleges and trade schools can gear up quickly to offer timely job training.   Current law doesn’t allow workers to receive TAA benefits until after they are already out of a job.  If a company is planning to lay-off workers, it makes sense to start earlier with education and re-training to lessen the time workers are unemployed.

·        Streamline the delivery system.   TAA is administered through the States,  but some hardly use any of their TAA resources, while others rely heavily on the program.  We need a better system that targets those workers in need, no matter where they reside. 

·        Clarify the scope of beneficiaries to reflect modern day lay-off .

The measure will be drafted as revenue-neutral.

“We need to fix the program before we fix the price,” says Brady.

Brady, a Texas Republican in his sixth term in Congress, is a member of the Trade Subcommittee of the House Ways and Means Committee and the Joint Economic Committee.