THE WHITE HOUSE
Office of the Vice President
VICE PRESIDENT GORE ANNOUNCES
NEW EFFORTS TO PREPARE AMERICA'S WORKERS
AND EMPLOYERS FOR THE 21ST CENTURY
Gore Convenes Summit, Announces New Initiatives,
to Help Meet Challenge
Washington DC --Vice President Gore convened a Summit on "21st Century Skills for 21st Century Jobs " -- a national forum organized to help working Americans get the skills they need to succeed and to ensure employers get the skilled workers they need to stay competitive.
"America's competitiveness and the prosperity of our people in a changing economy depend increasingly on high-skill, high-wage jobs," said Vice President Gore, who, along with Labor Secretary Alexis Herman, Commerce Secretary Bill Daley, and Small Business Administrator Aida Alvarez, invited business and education leaders, federal, state and local officials, labor unions, and communities across the nation to Washington to discuss strategies for addressing this challenge.
"Realizing our potential will require investing in education and learning for all of our people throughout their lifetimes."
At the Summit, which involved tens of thousands of people satellite in more than 800 communities across the nation, the Vice President announced several steps to address this challenge. These steps include:
An Estimated $60 Million Plan to Help Train American Workers for
High-skill Jobs in Industries Facing Skill Shortages: The Vice
President announced a new $60 million plan to help regional
partnerships identify skill needs in shortage areas, design
training curricula to upgrade the skills of incumbent and
dislocated workers, provide training for workers to prepare them
for these jobs, and support the planning and policy efforts of
local business-led boards established under the recently enacted
Workforce Investment Act. These partnerships would be led by
businesses working with other partners, including institutions of
higher education, labor unions, and workforce investment boards.
The plans call for financing these efforts through existing
funding and funds generated by the $500 fee on employers for
petitions filed under the H-1B program.
More Worker Scholarships for the 21st century. Citing a new
Administration report describing the benefit of education and
training for employees and employers, the Vice President called
for more employers to cover the costs of their employees'
education and proposed an expansion and extension of Section 127
of the tax code to help make this possible. This proposal will
assure that employees can receive educational benefits from their
employers tax-free -- whether the employee is taking
undergraduate or graduate courses.
A new tax credit to encourage literacy programs at the workplace.
The Vice President proposed a new tax credit to encourage
employers to provide literacy, English-as-a-Second Language, and
basic education programs for their employees. Under this
proposal, businesses could get a 10% income tax credit for these
kinds of programs with a maximum credit of up to $525 per
participating employee. An alarming number of American adults --
44 million according to the National Adult Literacy study --
struggle with a job application, cannot read to their children,
or are left on welfare rolls because they lack basic skills.
Some are immigrants who face long waiting lists in many cities
for English-as-a-Second Language courses. This new tax credit
will help deploy the resources of businesses to make sure those in
greatest need don't get left behind.
A challenge to help every adult American finance postsecondary
education and training throughout their lifetime and a new advisory
committee of outside experts and leaders to develop options for
meeting this challenge. Saying that the nation was crossing into a
new economic frontier -- where knowledge has become our strategic
resource and learning our strategic skill -- the Vice President
said that every American should have a mechanism to finance their
postsecondary education and training throughout their lifetime.
To this end, President Clinton and he will create an advisory
committee of outside leaders and experts that will analyze such
options as low-income loans, grants, tax incentives, or other ways
to pay for adults to continue their education. The Vice President
suggested exploring new ways to encourage Americans to pool their
own savings, contributions from their employers, and possibly
federal funds to pay for lifetime learning. Among other ideas
the Vice President wants to be considered to accomplish this goal
is the creation of a lifetime learning account.
Helping more working Americans and dislocated workers get access
to college aid. To help more working Americans and dislocated
workers benefit from federal aid to college, the Vice President
announced that is calling on the Secretary of Education to remind
every institution of higher education of the flexibility to allow
dislocated workers to receive Pell Grants (even if their income
the previous year would otherwise make them ineligible) and to
encourage them to use this discretion to help dislocated workers
go back to school and obtain the retraining they need. The Vice
President also called on the Secretary of Education to encourage
each institution of higher education to help make adults aware
that Pell Grants may be used by working adults in part-time
programs leading toward degrees.
Prestigious New Award from the President and Vice President for
High Skills Communities that invest effectively in raising the
skills of adults across the community. Up to ten communities
each year would receive a national award from the President and
Vice President for achieving concrete results in improving the
skills of their adult workforce and will receive financial support
to help other communities learn from their efforts. Modeled after
the Baldrige Award, this award will require applicants to go
through a rigorous self-assessment to identify needs in their
community and develop additional strategies for improving adult
literacy and workforce skills.
Bringing together a new leadership group of top CEOs, college
presidents, labor union leaders, cabinet members, and other public officials to help working Americans develop the skills they need for career success and economic security. This leadership group will develop recommendations for how employers, institutions of higher education, labor unions, local and state governments, and entire communities can invest -- individually and working together -- in workforce skills and learning. The group will also develop principles to help identify exceptional programs and partnerships to upgrade the skills of adults and publicize them in ways that can help others learn and build on their successes. Finally, the group will develop plans for informational and marketing campaigns that could be used by the private sector and State and local governments to encourage adults to pursue ongoing education and training.
Launching new Internet services --America's Learning eXchange
(ALX) -- to provide easy access to information about available
education and training opportunities and resources. Individual
Americans will be able to use this new Internet service like an
electronic "yellow pages" to search for courses, seminars,
workshops, or training programs and providers that best meet
their needs. They will also be able to access consumer
information about jobs, skills required, employment trends and
institutions to help them make informed choices about the training
and education they need. Employers will be able to locate
training packages and providers that can meet training
specifications. Finally, it will be able to provide personalized
information on the different kinds and likely amounts of public
and private financial assistance available to support an
individuals' lifelong learning.
New Executive Order to help the federal government become a model
user of technology for training. Later today, the President will
sign an Executive Order that encourages innovative use of
technology for training in federal agencies, creates a Task Force
to provide leadership within the Federal government on the
effective use of training technology, and ensures that all federal
agencies include training technology as a fundamental part of
their planning. OPM Director Janice Lachance will oversee this
effort.
Releasing a new Administration report showing the pay-off of
investing in education and training. This new report finds that
eight of the ten fastest growing jobs in the next decade require
college education or moderate to long-term training. The report
also linked education to job security, finding that adults with
higher levels of education are less likely to be unemployed and
are more likely to find reemployment quickly if they are
displaced. Moreover, dislocated workers with an associate's
degree or higher found new jobs at a higher average pay than the
jobs they lost. Finally, the report highlighted data showing that
increased education and training is linked to higher employee
wages and employer productivity, with college graduates earning on
average 77% more than individuals with only a high school degree
(up from 58% in 1975). But the report suggested that not enough
adult Americans benefit from these investments, especially those
in greatest need -- including younger adults, the elderly, and the
less educated, and outlined several key challenges that need to be
addressed. The report is from the Departments of Commerce, Labor,
Education - as well as the Small Business Administration and
National Institute for Literacy.