Senator NELSON. Thank you very much, Mr. Lockhart. We appreciate your taking the time to come to testify today. The hearings will resume tomorrow morning at 9:30 in room 6226. [Whereupon, at 11:25 a.m., the subcommittee adjourned to reconvene at 9:30 a.m., March 13, 1980.] YOUTH EMPLOYMENT AND WELFARE REFORM JOBS, 1980 THURSDAY, MARCH 13, 1980 U.S. SENATE, SUBCOMMITTEE ON EMPLOYMENT, POVERTY, Washington, D.C. The Subcommittee met, pursuant to notice, in room 6226, Dirksen Senate Office Building, at 9:45 a.m., Senator Gaylord Nelson [chairman of the subcommittee] presiding. Present: Senator Nelson, Schweiker, and Javits. Senator NELSON. The Senate Subcommittee on Employment, Poverty, and Migratory Labor will begin its fourth day of hearings on legislative proposals concerning youth employment initiatives and the administration's welfare reform proposal. The subcommittee will receive testimony today from several witnesses representing the private sector, community-based organizations, and educators. We are pleased to welcome you here today. At this time, I will ask the first panel of witnesses to testify: Mr. Frank Schiff, vice president and chief economist, the Committee for Economic Development; William Kolberg, president, National Alliance of Businessmen; and Lloyd Hand, senior vice president of TRW, Inc. We are very pleased to have you here this morning. If you would identify yourselves for the reporter so that the record will be kept accurate, starting over on my left here. STATEMENT OF FRANK W. SCHIFF, VICE PRESIDENT AND CHIEF ECONOMIST, COMMITTEE FOR ECONOMIC DEVELOPMENT; WILLIAM KOLBERG, PRESIDENT, NATIONAL ALLIANCE OF BUSINESS; AND LLOYD HAND, SENIOR VICE PRESIDENT, TRW, INC. Mr. KOLBERG. William Kolberg, National Alliance of Business men. Mr. HAND. I am Lloyd Hand, senior vice president of TRW. Mr. SCHIFF. I am Frank Schiff, vice president and chief economist for the Committee for Economic Development. Senator NELSON. Your statements will all be printed in full in the record. You may present them how ever you desire. Who is to go first? Mr. SCHIFF. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I appreciate the opportunity to appear here today to testify on the proposals for new youth employment legislation now being considered by your committee. My comments draw to a major extent on the conclusions of the policy statement "Jobs for the Hard-to-Employ: New Directions for a Public-Private Partnership" that CED issued in January 1978 after several years of intensive study. It is very encouraging that the basic approaches CED recommended in that statement are also central features of the administration's new youth employment initiative program and of other major legislative proposals before your committee. A key question facing your committee today is the relative priority that such proposals ought to be given in the overall legislative program. In this connection, I want to place special emphasis on a major premise that underlay CED's recommendations: namely, that efforts to provide structurally unemployed youth with the skill training and other assistance needed to move them into productive private jobs are a form of investment in human capital that needs to be a key part of any effective long-run anti-inflation strategy. As stated last month by Mr. Franklin Lindsay, Chairman of CED's Research and Policy Committee, before the Joint Economic Committee: We strongly believe that such efforts are not merely desirable to aid the less fortunate in our society but are vitally needed to make our economy more productive and to alleviate potential future inflationary problems arising from skill shortages and labor supply bottlenecks. In time, moreover, the proposed programs should also lead to cutting budget costs-by helping to move young peole from welfare and unemployment rolls to tax-generating private jobs, and also by inducing much greater private sector involvement in the overall effort to increase the job readiness and productivity of these youth. I have stressed these points to underscore my belief that national investment in improved approaches for dealing with the urgent problem of structural youth unemployment deserves high priority, even in the face of today's special needs for budgetary stringency. At the same time, there should be very careful scrutiny of the administration's proposals to determine, first, whether the desired objectives could be adequately pursued with less than the full amount of the funds requested and, second, to what extent the needed additional budget resources for this purpose might be financed by savings elsewhere in the budget. Regardless of the precise amount of funding that may be provided, it seems to me highly desirable to move expeditiously toward the adoption of many of the new approaches contained in the legislative proposals before you. By the same token, new programs, and especially those involving the schools, would not be justified unless they involve genuine changes in approach. The approaches in the proposed new legislation that seem to be particularly worthwhile include the following: First, an increased emphasis on basic education and employability development of disadvantaged youth, with special targeting on the functional and geographic areas of greatest need; that is, remedial education and job counselling for high school students; programs for high school dropouts; and an emphasis on inner city areas with especially high youth unemployment. This approach should help concentrate Federal tax dollars in areas where they are likely to be most productive and needed in the long run. |