With the 1960s, along came rising levels of unemployment. President John F. Kennedy explained to Congress, “Large scale unemployment during a recession is bad enough, but large scale unemployment during a period of prosperity would be intolerable” (John F. Kennedy as cited in Kremen, 1974). Just days later, the Manpower Development and Training Act (MDTA) was created as an effort to provide training to unemployed and underemployed Americans in response to vast technological and automation changes. The creation of the MDTA marked the first major legislative action since the Employment Act of 1946. The MDTA was originally run under the Department of Health, Education, and Welfare and the Department of Labor; the Department of Labor was in charge of identifying the need for training, determining eligibility for payment and for job placement once training was completed; the Department of Education, Health, and Welfare provided the actual training.
In 1964, President Lyndon B. Johnson declared a national War on Poverty, and announced the goals to combat poverty in the newly considered Economic Opportunity Act of 1964. The Economic Opportunity act was inspired by the MDTA and sought to allocate federal funds for vocational training and provide almost half a million underprivileged Americans the opportunity to continue their education, learn useful skills, and find employment. President Johnson envisioned a program that would
…increase the employability of young men and young women aged sixteen through twenty-one by providing them in rural and urban residential centers with education, vocational training, useful work experience, including work directed toward the conservation of natural resources, and other appropriate activities (The Economic Opportunity Act, 1964).
President Johnson divided up his solutions for unemployment into three categories: the Job Corps, a Work-Training Program, and a Work Study Program. The Job Corps was set to recruit 100,000 men whose background, education, and health make them least likely to attain a job. The Job Corps was originally under the Office of Economic Opportunity but moved to the Department of Labor in 1969 under the command of President Nixon. Half of the men in the Job Corps were to be assigned to work on special projects that would provide them with job experience, education, and the knowledge to protect the natural resources of the United States; for example, in 1985, a Job Corps center in Pennsylvania offered the following courses: phone installation, auto repair, healthcare, clerical service, welding, maintenance, and food service (Reagan budget, 1985). The other half of the men were to receive a combination of training techniques centering on basic education and work experience in the job training centers. Similar to the Job Corps, the Work-Training Program was born into the Department of Labor and initially set to recruit 200,000 men and women. The Work-Training Program was run through state and local governments. The Work-Study Program, alternatively, was run under the Department of Health, Education, and Welfare and provided federal funds for 140,000 young Americans who could not attend college due to lack of finances.
Despite the seemingly positive goals envisioned by President Johnson, the Job Corps was surrounded with controversy and skepticism. While originally 100,000 American youth were supposed to be in the program, in 1965 Congress limited it to 45,000. The objectives were described as being too broad and poorly defined and the creation and implementation of it was too rapid, (Olsen, 1999: 250). It was also extremely costly to pay for these young Americans to join the Job Corps. The Nixon administration described it as a “country club for juvenile delinquents” (Sealander, 2003: 168). The camps were filled with racial segregation and the communities in which the Job Corps was located often complained of “unruliness” of the youth (Olsen, 1999: 250). In 1969, President Nixon reduced the Job Corps substantially in order to save the government $100 million dollars (Warsaw, 1991: 342). In inflation-adjusted dollars, the funding in the mid 60’s for the Job Corps was over $1 billion dollars, while it dropped to around $300 million in the 70’s (Rist, 1989: 805).
The Economic Opportunity Act influenced legislature for years to come. After Title V of the Economic Opportunity Act expired in 1969, legislators created the Comprehensive Employment and Training Act (CETA) of 1973 which aimed to, similarly, train workers and provide them with public service jobs. Unlike the Economic Opportunity Act however, the control of funding for the job-training programs became less centralized and gave more power to the individual states. The move from federal the state and local government was due to the fact that
local governments, which are closer to the people requiring manpower services and are accountable to them, can best plan programs and set priorities which will maximize the placement of persons in subsidized employment in response to the needs of the local labor market (Comprehensive Employment and Training Act, 1975).
In the 1980s, President Reagan had a particularly puzzling roundabout regarding the Job Corps during his presidency. President Reagan made a statement saying that the Job Corps was a “vital” program that provided thousands of American youth with educational and vocational training (Rist, 1989: 806) but just months later tried to abolish it. Reagan’s change of view stemmed from the fact that he didn’t believe the program was helping the people it intended to help (Reagan budget, 1985) and was extremely costly. He went as far as comparing it to Harvard; the average cost per year during his presidency for the Job Corps was $18,831 and $23,161 for Harvard University (Gross, 1992: 1A). The proposed elimination of the Job Corps never went through however, and in 1982, CETA was amended and became the Job Training Partnership Act. The Job Training Partnership Act outlined the main programs that required federal funding: Adult and Youth Programs, Federally Administered Programs, Summer Youth Employment and Training Programs and Employment and Training Assistance for Dislocated Workers.
Unlike Reagan, President Clinton in the 1990s was an open fan of the Job Corps, calling it a “very necessary program that has benefited many of our young people” (What our leaders say, n.d). In 1993, President Clinton proposed the “50/50 plan” which would expand the Corps by 50% and bring it up to the original proposed population of over 100,000 disadvantaged Americans (Sealander, 2003: 168). Congress denied this proposition and the expansion of the Job Corps was put to a halt. In 1995, a bill was proposed to completely turn over the Job Corps from the federal government to state and local agencies in order to consolidate “ineffective” programs and to better monitor their progress, but the bill was never passed.
During Clinton’s second presidency, CETA was replaced with the Workforce Investment Act (WIA) of 1998. The goal of the WIA was to “consolidate, coordinate, and improve employment, training, literacy, and vocational rehabilitation programs in the United States and for other purposes” (Workforce Investment Act, 1998). Unlike its predecessors, the WIA sought to not only give Americans jobs, but take into consideration the needs of local businesses. A “one stop” approach was implemented, where individuals could find information about job training, services and education at a single location. The WIA puts accountability into the individuals’ hands and allows them the freedom to pick and choose which areas and classes would be best for them. A state incentive program was implemented to monetarily reward states when they exceed certain levels of performance. The Job Corps was still seen as a separate national program, but there were attempts to link the state workforce programs with the Job Corps.
In 2002, President George W. Bush proclaimed the Job Corps as a “program that works” (Schell, 2002) and asked for a budget increase of $73 million. The 2007 proposed fiscal budget included over $1.5 billion for the Job Corps (Muhlhausen, 2007). More recently, the newly appointed President of the United States, Barack Obama, has proposed a Green Job Corps initiative that will provide disadvantaged youth with the educational and vocational skills needed to “improve energy conservation and efficiency of homes and buildings in their communities” (Obama, 2008: 158).
During the 1970s, the Job Corps was seen as one of the least successful “War on Poverty” programs. Although employment rates did not skyrocket after the implementation, there were some benefits. First, criminal activity was reduced. This, in turn, meant there was a reduction in criminal justice system costs, personal property damage, personal injury damage, and stolen property costs (Glazer, 1988: 82). The Job Corps and work training programs cost significantly less than the up to $30,000 a year it costs for a teenager to be in a juvenile detention center (Gross, 1992: 1A). The lower crime and arrest rates also contributed to higher employability among youth. Program evaluators have also found that youth who participated in the program had improved educational attainment and increased annual earnings of 28% (Blau and Abramovitz, 2004: 334). In 2002, an investigation showed that for every dollar invested in a youth attending the program, the Job Corps returns $2.02 through students working more hours, taxes, engaging in fewer crimes, and relying less on public assistance (Schell, 2002). The program has also been found to help graduated kids stay away from associated gangs; only 10% of youth have been found to keep gang-related ties after completing the program (Spergel, 1995: 275). In 2007, the Job Corps was found to increase children’s basic reading and math skills by 60%, and sixty percent of disadvantaged students found employment, went on for further education, or gained more occupational skills upon graduation from the program. Graduates of the Job Corps have an average hourly wage of $1.50 more than they were receiving before and are staying employed for longer periods of time (Performance and accountability report, 2007).
It’s been 45 years since the introduction of the War on Poverty by President Johnson. It has undergone many modifications, created hope and skepticism, and given the opportunity for employment and empowerment to many disadvantaged Americans. There are 122 Job Corps centers located around the United States and throughout Puerto Rico that have attempted to help over almost 2 million Americans. Since the introduction of the Manpower Development and Training Act in 1962, unemployment has risen from 5.5% to as high as 9.6% in 1983, and back to 5.8% in 2008 (Labor Force statistics, n.d). There are many factors that contribute to the success, or lack thereof, of any given program. The job-training programs and the Job Corps may not be the sole reason for the increase or decrease of employment rates, but the mere fact that our nation’s leaders acknowledge the need for large scale employment programs should be seen as a step in the right direction.
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