Q.

A.

The Work and Training Opportunities Act provides for
disqualification of a participant when a "bona fide"
job offer is refused without good cause. I am concerned,
however, about the possibility of administrative coercion,
particularly of women with children who might be unduly
pressed to take a lowly job under threat of losing their
public assistance payments.

The Work and Training Opportunities Act provides for the
disqualification of a participant, when a "bona fide" job
offer is refused without good cause. However, this is
not different from the current law in which a welfare
recipient is disqualified from cash benefits when the
designated work incentive agent has determined that a
"bona fide" job offer is refused without good cause.

All women who are single parents will receive a reduced
AFDC benefit when they are in either a private sector
or PSE job which pays less than $8,500. In Wisconsin
single parents will receive a reduced AFDC benefit until
their income exceeds $11,000. A single parent in
Wisconsin receiving the minimum wage will have a total
income of $10,100 from earnings, AFDC, Food Stamps and
the Earned Income Tax Credit. Women with child care
expenses will have an even higher income.

Q.

A.

Do you think a job that is only 4 weeks in duration is
"bona fide," or should that period be longer? What would
you think about taking into account the tenure of other
employees of an employer as an indicator of prospects
for the job being permanent and for advancement?

The local work incentive agent which will be part of the
job search component should be allowed to determine what
is a "bona fide" job. Individuals are allowed to enter
the Work and Training Opportunities Program when they
meet the income eligibility guidelines for cash assistance
and provided they have not left a job without good cause.
When individuals who are laid off from a job no matter
how long its duration meet the eligibility criteria, they
can re-enter the Work and Training Opportunities Program
immediately. Those who have completed job search within
the last 18 months will not be required to complete a
second job search period. Others who have partially
completed job search will be given credit for weeks
completed. Thus individuals who take a private sector
job will not be penalized if their private sector job
ends, regardless if they have been in it for one week
or one year.

We feel that this procedure is better than designing
administrative features which attempt to screen out
jobs of short duration. Many jobs which are expected
to continue for a long time unexpectedly end after just
a few weeks. Other jobs which are expected to last a
short time continue for a much longer period or lead
to other long term jobs. Taking account the tenure of
other employees can be similarly misleading. These
problems lead us to believe that it is best to have a
program in which participants are able to return to the
program provided that they have not left a suitable job
without just cause to insure that participants will be
able to earn a steady income regardless of the unsteadi-
ness of the job market.

Q.

A.

The bill implies that disqualification occurs when a participant turns down the first job offer. What would be the implications of providing for two or three turndowns before disqualification?

Disqualification occurs when a participant turns down
the first suitable job offer as currently determined
by the work incentive program. If we allowed participants
to turn down one or two suitable jobs without disqualifica-
tion, the demand for subsidized activities and thus the
cost of the program could increase substantially.

Q.

A.

The bill allows a participant to turn down. a job when
"the conditions of work or training are unreasonable...
because of the hours of work, geographical location,
health or safety conditions, or similar factors." The
emphasis here is on the conditions of work. Would it
be appropriate to also protect the participant when his
or her personal characteristics, such as personal health,
physical capability, and level of skill and experience,
make the job unreasonable?

The bill allows a participant to turn down a job when
"the conditions of work or training are unreasonable
for such individual because of the hours of work,
geographic location, health or safety conditions or
similar factors;" This includes conditions of work
or training which are unsuitable due to characteristics
of the person such as personal health and physical
capability.

Senator NELSON. Next we will have a panel of witnesses, Dr. Eli Ginzberg, chairman, National Commission for Employment Policy; Sar Levitan, director of the Center for Manpower Policy Studies, the George Washington University; and Mr. Willard Wirtz, chairman, National Manpower Institute.

Now, if you gentlemen would identify yourselves for the reporter, so the record will be accurate when you speak.

STATEMENT OF ELI GINZBERG, CHAIRMAN, NATIONAL COMMISSION FOR EMPLOYMENT POLICY, AND DIRECTOR, CONSERVATION OF HUMAN RESOURCES, COLUMBIA UNIVERSITY; SAR LEVITAN, DIRECTOR, CENTER FOR SOCIAL POLICY STUDIES, THE GEORGE WASHINGTON UNIVERSITY; AND WILLARD WIRTZ, CHAIRMAN, NATIONAL MANPOWER INSTITUTE Mr. WIRTZ. Willard Wirtz, chairman of the board of the National Manpower Institute in Washington.

Dr. GINZBERG. Eli Ginzberg, chairman of the National Commission for Employment Policy, and director, Conservation of Human Resources, Columbia University.

Mr. LEVITAN. Sar Levitan, George Washington University. I am director for the Center for Social Policy Studies.

Senator NELSON. Thank you.

Do each of you have a prepared statement? All right. Your statements will be printed in full in the record.

All right, who will start?

Dr. GINZBERG. Well, I always take orders from Bill Wirtz. He said I start, so I'll start.

I will remind you, Senator Nelson, that Senator Williams, you and I, were at Camp David together and there was that discussion up on the mountain last summer about how to take a position with respect to youth unemployment within what was then an inflationarily dangerous situation. I pressed the belief very strongly on the President at that time that inflation should not be the excuse for forgetting about the youth problems. Of course, I thought the youth problem was going to be, if we didn't attend to it now, an increasingly and cumulatively dangerous problem that would really gnaw at the vitals of our society. I asked him to please find a little additional money for youth, no matter what he did and how cautiously he proceeded on the rest of the budget.

I still believe that is a correct position. I listened very attentively this morning, and if I had to choose, I would surely hope that Senator Javits' approach, which is to cut across the board a certain amount of money from all programs, which would first include the new youth initiative in, and then maybe reduce the amount of money for all projects, rather than leaving the new youth initiative out, would be a preferred way to go.

Senator Javits, I just said I voted with you in terms of the desirability of not leaving the new youth initiative out, but if everybody got cut a little bit that would be best.

I do believe that it is very important to try to link this education and employability problem and job securing for disadvantaged youth much more closely together. We have some opportunity now with the PICS finally getting operational, and I would say that the

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Federal dollars, to the extent that they could stimulate and encourage local coordination, are absolutely critical.

I have been out to the field three times this year in the last few months, once on the west coast, once at Tuscon, and once in Puerto Rico. I believe that the efficiency of the Federal dollars have been very adversely affected up till now because of the slippage among these three parties-employers, education, and the primes. So that anything you can do to use old and new dollars, which would encourage a more effective cooperation at the local level, would be highly desirable.

Third, I would say that when the National Commission presented its outline of the report to the President on November 1, and Secretary Marshall was there with the President, we stressed very strongly that it was better to give more services to a relatively smaller number of people than to keep spreading the Federal dollars among so many that it would not effectively change the circumstances of the people participating. So that we have been impressed-we spent 11⁄2 years in the Commission looking at the Job Corps and all the other programs. We have been impressed with the Job Corps. I would like to stress another group that really has not been paid attention to enough, although Secretary Marshall mentioned them this morning, and that is the young teenage mother who falls out of school and who goes on to welfare. Unless one does something early to make it possible for a young woman to go back and get her educational credentials and give her some help into the labor market, you buy 40 years, I think, of cost to the Federal Government. So I would be very much in favor of trying to prevent these young girls, young women, from just being pushed out of society because they happen to have an out-of-wedlock child. It looks to me that the option that the Congress faces in a very difficult inflationary period is simply to ask the question: "Where will we be if we don't do something special for youth?" I would say I think we would be worse off.

The last discussion that was had about investment in youth I think is a correct approach, and nobody will convince me that the dollars that are being spent, the few additional dollars that the President is asking for, which come to $100 million of outlay in 1981, will have any significant effect upon our inflation. I think it's very important not to lose this opportunity to get this new legislation on to the books, and it won't have any effect in terms of outlays until 1982, and I would say at that time I hope we will be able to absorb it.

Thank you, sir.

[The prepared statement of Dr. Ginzberg follows:]