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Congress is again tackling employment-related legislation geared toward spurring job creation as millions of people nationally anticipate losing unemployment insurance benefits by the end of 2011.
This new string of bills, introduced since January, focuses on new and continued tax incentives for employers, job training for older workers and the unemployed, and grant monies intended to stimulate new jobs.
The various bills before Congress, such as the New Jobs for America Act of 2011 and The Older Worker Opportunity Act, strive to give America’s unemployed and part-time workers, respectively, more bite in terms of employment opportunities and job training. Others, including the Back to Work Extension Act and Build America Bonds to Create Jobs Now Act of 2011, plan to propel certain tax or grant provisions that recently expired under current legislation.
Ilyse Schuman, shareholder and leader of the Government Affairs Team at Littler Mendelson, P.C.’s Washington, D.C., office, urges job hunters to keep apprised of the latest legislation because it impacts some employers’ incentives to “start robustly hiring employees.”
“Job seekers should be paying attention to what’s going on in Congress and the (federal) regulatory agencies to understand what the likely outcome is in the action of job creation,” said Schuman, a former congressional policy advisor, who also worked as former legal counsel for Sen. Mike Enzi, R-Wyo., on the Subcommittee on Employment, Safety and Training.
“I am not an economist,” added Schuman, “but everyone would acknowledge that the unemployment rate is still too high” despite President Obama’s $787 billion two-year stimulus package, the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act of 2009, and the related Hiring Incentives to Restore Employment (HIRE) Act.
A Bureau of Labor Statistics report shows the national unemployment rate dropped 1% to 8.8% from November 2010 to March 2011, or the lowest unemployment rate since March 2009 when it hit 8.6%. This compares to 5.1% in March 2008.
The unemployment rate is compounded by the impending, sobering projection of the 7 million people due to lose their unemployment benefits, which the White House Council of Economic Advisors announced in December 2010.
Rep. Bruce Braley, D-Iowa, differs in his stance, having introduced earlier this year the Back to Work Extension Act based on its past successful job creation. The bill would extend the now-expired provision under the HIRE Act which exempts small businesses from paying their share of the Social Security tax though Dec. 31, 2011, if they hire the unemployed.
“During 2010 it was a tremendous success, putting hundreds of thousands of people back to work,” Braley said in a statement, noting that his home state alone saw 104,000 people put back to work under the provision last year. “But far too many Americans are still out of work and that’s why we must pass an extension of the Back to Work Act now.”
Many other job creation bills also exist. For example, the Bring Jobs Back to America Act would develop a national strategy to reinvigorate American-based manufacturing jobs. Also, the Coastal Jobs Creation Act promotes the creation of coastal jobs via a grant program. Further, the Older Workers Opportunities Act provides tax incentives for businesses that employ individuals ages 62 years and older in flexible work programs.
Yet some skeptics suggest the new jobs bills—should a deadlock-prone Congress even pass them—will barely whisper long-term job creation unless the federal government prioritizes national debt recovery.
This monumental task of “reining in federal spending,” as noted by U.S. Rep. John Kline, D-Minn., is seemingly not lost on Congressional members, including Kline, chairman of the House Committee on Education and the Workforce, which is considering New Jobs for America. This bill aims, in part, to stimulate job apprenticeships and internships, as well as compensated job training for emerging industries and markets, via U.S. Bureau of Labor grants.
“I believe the vast majority of the American people expect Washington to put fiscal responsibility and job creation at the top of its agenda,” said Kline, also in a statement. “The federal government can’t create private-sector jobs, but it can promote policies that foster the economic stability necessary to create jobs.”
Education and the Workforce Committee spokesman Brian Newell added: “However, he has concerns with proposals that call for more spending and more government intervention. The Government Accountability Office (for example) recently identified 47 federal job training programs spread across nine federal agencies that spend more than $18 billion every year.”
U.S. Rep. Robert Andrews, D-NJ, ranking member of the Education and the Workforce Committee’s Subcommittee on Health, Employment, Labor, & Pensions, also emphasized the need for Congress to pass quality jobs bills—even those out of his subcommittee’s purview, like the Build America Bonds bill. This is currently referred to the House Committee on Ways and Means and seeks to extend a federal investment program into infrastructure projects that, in turn, creates jobs.
“These kinds of bills create an environment for which the private sector can offer job growth,” Andrews said. Yet, he added, such bills can only stimulate ”strong job growth” if Congress engenders confidence in bank lenders and investors that the government can effectively drive down the national deficit.
“Then,” he said, “the government would not need as much tax incentive-based legislation to get businesses to hire people.”
