Number: RS22761
Title: Extending Trade Adjustment Assistance (TAA) to Service Workers: How Many Workers Could Potentially Be Covered?
Authors: John J. Topoleski, Domestic Social Policy Division 
Abstract: Trade Adjustment Assistance (TAA) provides income support and training assistance to workers who become unemployed for certain trade-related reasons. Only workers who make an article (i.e., manufacturing workers) are eligible for TAA. Under current law, service workers who become unemployed for a trade-related reason (e.g., outsourcing) are ineligible for TAA. Several bills in the 110th Congress (S. 1848, H.R. 910, H.R. 3589, H.R. 3920) would expand TAA to include service workers and public sector employees. The available data indicates that the number of displaced manufacturing workers in offshorable occupations from 2003 to 2005 (489,000) roughly equals the number of TAA-certified manufacturing workers over the same period (450,000). There were 840,000 workers displaced from offshorable nonmanufacturing occupations from 2003 to 2005, suggesting that the pool of TAA-eligible workers could have increased by over 170% if service workers had been eligible for TAA. In January 2006, nearly three times as many employed nonmanufacturing workers were in offshorable occupations (20.7 million) than employed manufacturing workers in offshorable occupations (7.7 million), suggesting a large increase in the pool of potentially eligible TAA workers.
Pages: 6
Date: January 30, 2008