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II SUMMARY OF FINDINGS AND TRENDS

Several significant trends in the administration of the ublic Employment Program emerged clearly from the National

ban Coalition's study:

The Labor Department ruled that otherwise eligible applicants with populations of less than 75,000 were ineligible to receive funds directly from the Labor Department as Program Agents, although Congress had set no population limits.

The Labor Department's decision to alter Congress' formula for the allocation of EEA money resulted in a distribution of Section 5 funds that provided different allocations to different states and cities with the same numbers of people unemployed.

In cases where entire counties or cities had unemployment rates above 6 percent, no effort seems to have been made to define sub-areas with particularly high rates of unemployment and extraordinary special needs.

The Labor Department distributed Section 6 funds among cities and counties in a manner that eliminated many eligible "areas" with over 6 percent unemployment.

Characteristics of the enrollees do not seem to match characteristics of the unemployed. While 52 percent of

6.

7.

8.

9.

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poor people had an eighth grade education or less, only
7 percent of the PEP enrollees had an eighth grade edu-
cation or less. Concentrated efforts to place experienced
and educated applicants in jobs in the private sector
could have been made before they were placed in federally
supported jobs.

Retired army officers with pensions were included under the veteran preference status. (Although technically they qualified, this certainly was not within the legislative intent.)

Congress did not provide adequate funds to cover the cost
of training and supportive services under Section 5.

Open Civil Service jobs have not been allocated on a priority
basis to PEP enrollees, nor have cities provided new
budget allocations for their permanent employment.

Most of the cities, counties and states surveyed had not even started to implement the objective of modernizing outdated Civil Services practices, to bring the sponsor into compliance with U. S. Civil Service Commission Guidelines specifically developed for PEP.

10. Although Program Agents were required to identify "unmet public service needs," most did not. Jobs were often filled primarily on the basis of the needs of a City

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Administrator or Department rather than the needs of the people in the community served.

Program Agents did not employ many of the specified target groups--youth, older workers or those having particular difficulty finding jobs in the high unemployment market.

Most of the jurisdictions in the study sample did not undertake the task of identifying and/or creating employment within expanding occupations likely to provide the best opportunity for continued employment and career building.

There is an apparent wage differential between those employed under Section 5 and Section 6 that warrants further investigation by the Labor Department.

On July 28, 1971, representatives of the Labor Department

testified on the initial appropriation for the EEA in hearings

before the House Appropriations Subcommittee that handles

funds for the Department.

The Department, both in prepared

testimony and in response to Committee questioning, stated that it intended to depart in several respects from the specific requirements of the legislation.

It is important to note that the Appropriations Committees do not deal with the substantive features of legislation; their responsibility is to determine how much of the money authorized under a law will be appropriated. Congress expressed its intentions in the Act, which had already passed. The substantive issues had already been decided. The Labor Department's report to the Appropriations Committee announcing administrative changes in the legislative provisions cannot be interpreted as Congressional sanction or approval of those changes.

Under Section 5 of the legislation, eligible applicants could be federal, state and general local government or public agencies and institutions which are subdivisions of state or general local government, and Indian tribes.1

Section 6 takes

a similar approach; it specifically states that "any unit or combination of units" of general local government is an eligible applicant.

2

1. Section 4 (1) (2) (3).

2. Section 6 (c) (2)

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In response to a request by Rep. Daniel J. Flood, D-Pa., chairman of the Subcommittee, for a definition of "area," the epartment replied: "The Act does not specify; just an area. Co we have chosen to regard areas as cities and counties with "3 populations of 75,000 or more. What the Department proposed

In its testimony--and later established--was:

"The heads of local units of government (cities,
counties, states) will be the principal agents of
the Secretary of Labor....These agents will, on our
behalf, deal with the sub-units within their juris-
diction, thus precluding a complex overburdening
federal involvement at the local level. Units of
government of 75,000 or more will be eligible to
participate individually. Smaller units will be
covered under the 'balance of state' and the

governor or eligible county will act as our agent."4

Sponsorship, thereby, became a matter of who could initiate the grant process rather than who was legally entitled to sponsor a program. The Labor Department invited governmental units of 75,000 and above to submit applications, as they stated in their testimony to the Appropriations Committee. applications that were considered were those from governmental

The only

units of the size designated, who received an invitation to bid.

3. EEA Appropriation, Fiscal Year 1972.

Hearings before a

Subcommittee of the Committee on Appropriations, House of Representatives, 92nd Congress, First Session, p. 6.

4. Section 5 IIIA, Eligible Applicants.