I have a very large city where I live and there are many, many problems and I have tried to stay as close to this as I can in the hope that the people who need the help are getting the help.

I have recited here some of the unfortunate political nonsense which has gone on. This is to be expected. I hope that is over and past.

My Mexican-Americans out there are not as pleased as they apparently are in New York. They feel that they have been neglected a little bit and there are many, many problems. I realize the size of this operation and I do not mean to be a nitpicker; it is not my purpose to try to embarrass the Director for the effort.

It is my purpose to try in every way that I can to see if we cannot get this program underway as quickly as possible and at a proper cost so that it is accomplishing the purposes for which we are all so enthusiastic.

Mr. SHRIVER. I might say on this that in my city, Chicago, the group that you mentioned, the YMCA, Boy Scouts, Community Chest, and so on, are participating very actively in the program and are almost universally in support of it. It proves that it can be done. Senator CLARK. This is true in Pittsburgh, too.

Mr. SHRIVER. That is correct.

Senator MURPHY. I think, if you will forgive an old Hebrew expression I learned many years ago, that fish smells from the head.

Very often it depends upon who the local head happens to be, as to how we organize it. As I recited, Chad McClellan, through his performance in community affairs, has been consistent throughout the years. He has done it again in Los Angeles with these jobs. So this is one of the areas that I think great progress can be made. You must look up a fellow with experience and background and put him to work and at the same time involve more actual representatives of the poor that we are trying to help.

Mr. SHRIVER. I think that has been corroborated by the fact he was approached to do exactly that in Los Angeles for this program. But he found it impossible.

Senator MURPHY. Are you coming out to visit?

Mr. SHRIVER. I am coming out to see Mr. McClellan, and maybe you can get him to go to work for us. He has been asked already. Senator CLARK. Gentlemen, perhaps you would continue the colloquy in your private capacity. That last bell indicates the Senate is voting on some rather important treaties.

Senator KENNEDY of Massachusetts. Mr. Chairman, I want to express my appreciation to Mr. Shriver coming up here once again to testify in support of the program. I think it would have defeated others who were not as determined as the wonderful group who has testified here today.

As a member of the committee I appreciate that.

Senator MURPHY. I associate myself with the Senator from Massachusetts.

Senator CLARK. I think we all want to say amen to that. This has been a useful morning and I want to thank you for the splendid cooperation you have given us. The hearing will recess until 10 a.m.

tomorrow.

(Whereupon, at 12:25 p.m. the hearing recessed, to reconvene at 10 a.m., Wednesday, June 22, 1966, in room 4221, New Senate Office Building.)

AMENDMENTS TO THE ECONOMIC OPPORTUNITY ACT

OF 1964

WEDNESDAY, JUNE 22, 1966

U.S. SENATE,

SUBCOMMITTEE ON EMPLOYMENT, MANPOWER AND POVERTY

OF THE COMMITTEE ON LABOR AND PUBLIC WELFARE,

Washington, D.C. The subcommittee met, pursuant to recess, at 10 a.m., in room 4221, New Senate Office Building, Senator Joseph S. Clark (chairman of the subcommittee) presiding.

Present: Senators Clark (presiding), Pell, Kennedy of Massachusetts, Javits, and Murphy.

Committee staff members present: Arnold Nemore, professional staff economist; and Stephen Kurzman, minority counsel.

Senator CLARK. The subcommittee will be in session.

Our first witness this morning is Secretary of Labor W. Willard Wirtz. We are very happy, indeed, Mr. Secretary, to welcome you here. I would like to commend you, as I commended Mr. Shriver yesterday, for getting your statement in on time.

I have had an opportunity to read it and to profit by it as a result. I will ask to have it printed in full in the record at this point and then ask you, if you will, sir, to summarize the statement.

(The prepared statement of Secretary Wirtz follows:)

PREPARED STATEMENT OF HON. W. WILLARD WIRTZ, SECRETARY OF LABOR Mr. Chairman, and members of the subcommittee: I welcome this opportunity to testify on the proposed amendments to the Economic Opportunity Act of 1964. You have indicated, Mr. Chairman, in your letter of June 13, 1966, that you desire this testimony to include comment on S. 3164, S. 2908, S. 3139 and H.R. 15111, with "principal focus . . . on the substantive merits" of these bills, and "with particular emphasis on the House-reported bill."

Mr. Shriver will have testified, as Director of the Office of Economic Opportunity, on the over-all aspects of the "war on poverty" now being carried out under the Economic Opportunity Act, and on the Administration's proposals regarding this program-as reflected in S. 3164.

My testimony will be directed principally at two points:

1. The administration of the Neighborhood Youth Corps program, established under Title I of the Economic Opportunity Act under authority delegated to the Secretary of Labor by the Director of the Office of Economic Opportunity.

2. The relationship of the anti-poverty program to the manpower program, with respect to which the Secretary of Labor exercises other statutory authority.

Insofar as my testimony relates to H.R. 15111, it should be made clear that it reflects my own views as Secretary of Labor.

123

I. THE NEIGHBORHOOD YOUTH CORPS

My general view regarding this program is that it has proved eminently successful, that some lessons for improving it have emerged from experience, and that the deliberations of the House Committee reflected in H.R. 15111, which I will discuss below-warrant favorable consideration.

We can be clearer now than was possible earlier regarding the "target area" of the NYC and other youth programs.

There are about 10 million boys and girls in the 16-to-18-year-old group. All of them ought to be in school. About 72 million of them are mostly in high

school, some in college.

Of those in high school today, one in about every six-for a national total of abut 1.1 million-faces an economic problem that may mean the difference between motivation and frustration, or between decency and delinquency.

There is another much smaller group of boys and girls (our estimate is 100,000 in the country as a whole) who have dropped out of school, but who will return if part-time work can be arranged for them.

This, then, is the target area for the Neighborhood Youth Corps in-school programs: the one in six-about 1.2 million in the country as a whole-who need part-time work opportunity to stay in school or to return to school.

The Neighborhood Youth Corps "out-of-school" program area is harder to define. We know that there are at least 500,000 boys and girls, 16 to 21 years old, who are out of school and not at work, and who need work. Most of them are boys and girls who didn't finish high school, who come from poor-often brokenfamilies, who are frequently not very good private employment investments yet. Many of them have to be met more than half way.

There can only be one standard by which to measure the success of the Neighborhood Youth Corps; how well it is drawing young men and women, who otherwise would almost surely have failed, into full education and full employment.

The arithmetic of success can be simply stated:

More than 550,000 young men and women have been, or are now in local Neighborhood Youth Corps projects.

More than 220,000 youth were on NYC payrolls during the month of April this year.

Almost 1,000 local projects are in operation today in every State, in Puerto Rico, and the Virgin Islands.

Over $350 million of Federal funds have been obligated to carry out these projects.

The youth unemployment rate has been reduced substantially since the Neighborhood Youth Corps program was started less than 18 months ago. It was 13.9 percent in January 1965. In April 1966, it had dropped to 11.0 percent. (These figures are for the group that is included in the NYC program, 16 through 21. They are not the same as those usually given out as teenage unemployment which is 14-19.)

Almost 75,000 young men and women have secured permanent employment upon leaving the Corps.

The most important figure, so far as these young people and the nation are concerned, is the rather sharp decrease in the school leaving rate where NYC projects are in operation.

In Providence, the rate dropped 30 percent.

In Detroit, the rate for those in the program was half the rate for those without.

A principal in Tennessee has written that "the success of the program in holding students has been beyond our hopes."

While juvenile crime and delinquency rates for the country as a whole have been rising, in one city after another where Neighborhood Youth Corps programs have been developed, those rates have dropped. The effect has been so immediate and sharp that local law enforcement officials have credited these programs with the change. This was true in East St. Louis, where the juvenile crime rate dropped 18 percent after the Neighborhood Youth Corps program got started; in Kinloch, Missouri, where the Mayor reported an 80 percent reduction in juvenile crime and vandalism; in Covington, Kentucky-down 14 percent; Newark, New Jersey-down 10 percent; Oakland, California-down 19 percent; Cincinnati-down 42 percent. In Detroit, during a period when the juvenile crime rate was rising by 12.6 percent in most of the city, it decreased as much

as 20 percent in the precincts where there were Neighborhood Youth Corps projects in operation.

There are, however, changes that can be made that will improve these results. The need for supplementary services

The retention rate in Neighborhood Youth Corps projects, particularly for out-of-school youth, has been directly related to the furnishing of important supplementary services. The Corps presents a valuable opportunity to attack long-standing deficiencies-and both the sponsors and the enrollees realize this. It does little good to give young men or women six months' work if at the end of that time they are still unable to get a job because they cannot read or fill out a job application. It is dangerous to raise the hopes and aspirations of the most seriously disadvantaged young people and then let them go away no closer to self-sufficiency than when they came-and it mocks the high purpose of the Economic Opportunity Act.

When supportive services have been added, enrollment and retention has mounted considerably. For out-of-school youth, a detailed study of projects in thirty metropolitan areas during May shows a participation rate of 84 percent. That means that during May, 84 percent of the authorized number of young men and women were working on Neighborhood Youth projects. This is a higher rate than was shown last Fall. The increase in participation has been most marked where supporting services have been provided. The major difference from Fall to Spring was that four times as many youngsters received remedial education training.

The success of the NYC program will depend, in large measure, on provisions to meet the special educational and employment training needs of its members. The provisions of H.R. 15111, permitting the Corps to provide payments during work, training or education, add a constructive flexibility in this connection. The transition to employment

Part of the Neighborhood Youth Corps responsibility is to see that it leads to something else. There is no good-more probably there is harm—in bringing boys and girls out of the cold into a warm room of promise for a few minutes of their lives if the only exit from that room is a trapdoor back down to nothing. Insofar as the purpose of the Neighborhood Youth Corps is to channel its enrollees into private employment, that purpose will be immeasurably aided by the amendments in H.R. 15111 specifically authorizing increased vocational and on-the-job training. Where a private employer wishes to teach skills to a young man, it is a mistake to disqualify him from the remaining services available through the NYC. Under this amendment, the private employer will pay the wages, but the Neighborhood Youth Corps will pay the legitimate training costs. This excellent measure will assist in the orderly transition into the mainstream of employment.

We are developing a program for following up each individual enrollee after he leaves an out-of-school Neighborhood Youth Corps project to try to assure that he, or she, either finds employment or receives the range of services that may be needed. Project sponsors will be asked to notify the local Youth Opportunity Center for Employment Service office as each boy or girl leaves a Neighborhood Youth Corps project. We will pick up their records at that point, and stay with them in one way or another as long as is necessary or worthwhile. Reaching youth at a critical age

The proposal in H.R. 15111 to identify the age coverage for NYC programs to those "who are in the ninth through twelfth grades of school (or of an age equivalent to that of students in such grades)" recognizes that sixteen is the normal school-leaving age, and that most plans to drop out germinate in the two previous years. School officials and teachers have indicated that the amended age limitation would be preferable.

We do not, however, feel it either necessary or advisable to include the amendment covering eligibility of students from families receiving cash welfare payments.

II. INTEGRATION OF THE ANTI-POVERTY, EDUCATION AND MANPOWER PROGRAMS The enactment of three sets of legislative programs-involving, centrally, the Manpower Development and Training Act of 1962, the Education Acts of 1964 and 1965, and the Economic Opportunity Act of 1964-marks the most magnificent advance in the history of this country toward the full use of its human resources.