Thirty Years of Changing Federal, State, and Local Relationships in Employment and Training Programs

There have been three major training programs in the UnitedStates in the past thirty years: the Manpower Development andTraining Act (MDTA)from 1962 to 1973, the Comprehensive Employmentand Training Act (CETA)from 1973 to 1982, and the Job TrainingPartnership Act (JTPA)from 1982 to the present. MDTA was a categoricalprogram, with service providers funded directly by the federalgovernment. CETA was a hybrid block grant program that gavelocal units of government substantial autonomy in administeringthe basic training component, but CETA also includedcategoricalprogramsfor specific target groups and for public service employment.Over time, CETA was increasingly regulated. JTPA is regulatedmore by the states and the private sector, and in 1992 amendmentstargeted the program more sharply and restricted activitiesthat could be undertaken. Federalism in employment and trainingprograms has followed a course similar to other areas, withcooperative federalism ending in 1978 being replaced by coercivefederalism. In recent years, stales have started a number ofinnovative programs.     

New Federalism Modified: Jobs and Highways in New York

The Job Training Partnership Act of 1982 (JTPA) and the SurfaceTransportation Assistance Act of 1983 (STAA) were intended inpart to stimulate the American economy out of recession. Eachlaw embodied a different approach to that goal and, hence, poseddifferent implementation challenges to the states. JTPA wasintended to decentralize decisionmakingand administration tothe states, and to in volve the private sector in state andlocal decisionmaking processes. Moreover,the level of federalaid was reduced below that available under its predecessor,the Comprehensive Employment and Training Act (CETA). STAA wasintended to inject increased federal funds for rebuilding roadsand highways. Its stipulation that states bring their standardsfor truck dimensions and routes into line with new nationalstandards was a centralizing feature of the legislation. Inexamining responses of the states in 1983 to these laws, particularlyNew York, decentralization appeared to be on track in the earlyimplementation of JTPA. The level of involvement of governorsand, to a lesser extent, legislatures was higher than underCETA. The implementation of STAA revealed both decentralizingand centralizing features at work. Participation of the NewYork legislature in deciding how the increased highway fundswere to be spent was much higher than before STAA, but conflictsbetween the national and state governments over the new nationalstandards were resolved in favor of the national government.     

Intergovernmental Relations in the Reagan Era

This article reviews federal Reagan-era policies that affected grant-in-aid programs to state and local governments. We find the most important developments in federal aid policies of the Reagan years are twofold—the relative decline in the national government's involvement in domestic affairs and the concomitant rise in the role of the states. The administration achieved these effects by devolving federal authority to states and by reducing grant spending. Reagan's biggest cuts in federal aid outlays came in 1981; in subsequent years, total grant outlays began to rebound, increasing in nominal dollars to levels above those in the Carter years, though still below the high-water mark reached in 1978 in real terms. Medicaid, the largest federal aid program, accounts for most of the overall growth, masking cuts in operating and capital grant programs. Reagan's devolutionary and retrenchment policies are one of several factors we see as contributing to the rising role of states in domestic affairs, a trend we think is likely to continue in the next administration.     

THE PRIVATE SECTOR IN PUBLIC EMPLOYMENT AND TRAINING PROGRAMS

Assimilating disadvantaged workers in labor markets has been the focus of national policy initiatives for at least two decades. In recent years, public policies have been formulated which will not only provide incentives for the private sector to employ the disadvantaged, but also afford the private sector a larger responsibility in formulating and implementing targeted employment programs. The Job Training Partnership Act (JTPA) and Target Jobs Tax Credit (TJTC) are two major examples. This paper initially reviews the public and private employment and training efforts between 1962 and 1982. Considerable attention is given to summarizing and evaluating the performance of these efforts, especially in light of recent program initiatives by the Reagan Administration.     

The Impact of Job Training Programs on the Reemployment Probability of Dislocated Workers

The Job Training Partnership Act (JTPA) of 1982 was enacted with the purpose of helping dislocated workers become reemployed through the provision of job training programs. Using data from the 1984 CPS Displaced Worker Survey, this study analyzes the impact of job training programs on the reemployment probability of dislocated workers. The results suggest that dislocated workers who received classroom training or on-the-job training were more likely to be reemployed. Dislocated workers who received only job search assistance, however, did not benefit from the assistance in terms of higher reemployment probability. In light of the legislative intent of JTPA Title 111 for increasing dislocated workers' human capital, the results suggest that state JTPA agencies should place more emphasis on the classroom training, which provides basic and job skills to dislocated workers.     

THE STATES AND DEREGULATION: THE CASE OF SURFACE MINING

The Surface Mining Control and Reclamation Act of 1977 (SMCRA), passed to correct the abuses of surface mining, assigned key implementation roles to the states. While the federal government originally enforced SMCRA, states could operate the program themselves. Once states decided to run their own program the federal government would oversee them to insure they properly enforce the Act. This research examines the enforcement behavior of states in the 1980s. The results indicate that early in the Reagan administration eastern states enforced the SMCRA less stringently than other states. Eastern states increased their level of enforcement later in the 1980s in response to pressures for increased federal oversight from Congress, interest groups and others.     

ECONOMIC MOTIVES FOR "SOCIAL" PROGRAMS: THE NEW FEDERAL DIRECTION

The Job Training Partnership Act (JTPA), passed by Congress in 1982, is significant federal employment and training legislation for a number of reasons. Most noticeably, it substantially enhanced private sector and state government roles in the administration of such programs. In order to understand both the programmatic impact of JTPA and its likely consequences on subsequent federal employment and training initiatives, it is necessary to look at the politics of the legislation-especially those interests that are strongly represented through its implementation and those that are not. By doing this, one obtains a better sense of the dimensions of conflict around future employment and training legislation. General guidelines within which Congress should act in subsequent legislative activity are laid out.     

The Life and Death of UDAG: An Assessment Based on Eight Projects in Five New Jersey Cities

The federal Urban Development Action Grant program, begun in1977, provided $5 billion over eleven years revitalizing severelydistressed urban places through the encouragement of privatesector investment. Designed to assist commercial, industrial,and housing projects that "but for" the federal grant wouldnot be built, the program was characterized by a streamlinedgrant-making process administered by finance and developmentexperts. Eight UDA G projects in five New Jersey cities, firststudied in the proposal stage in 1979 and revisited in 1987,show that the UDAGs succeeded in attracting development to thesehard-pressed cities. Although the projects succeeded, the programwas unable to arrest the more general distressed conditionsof the cities. During the Reagan years, the administration soughtto end the program. Congress supported it, but reduced the fundingeach year. In an effort to gain support for the program, eligibilityrequirements were broadened to include more localities. Theseefforts failed, and in 1988 Congress did not fund the program.Despite its demise, UDAG is recognized as having stimulatedurban revitalization and having created a new model for privatesector and public sector collaboration in economic development.     

The Substitution Approach To Intergovernmental Relations: The Case Of OSHA

Federal legislation of the last two decades has substantiallyreduced state autonomy in dealing with many regulatory issues.Participation in the implementation of these federal programsmay, however, enable states to exert some leverage over policyoutcomes. Variations in state leverage no doubt exist from oneintergovernmental grant program to the next. Substitution authoritymay be one variable accounting for this variation. Under a substitutionapproach, a federal agency cannot only sever the flow of fundsto a grantee; it can also step in and operate a program if statesfail to meet expectations or choose not to participate. Thisarticle generates more basic propositions about the substitutionapproach by analyzing its implementation under the OccupationalSafety and Health Act of 1970. The article examines the roleplayed by substitution authority in motivating the OccupationalSafety and Health Administration (OSHA) to adopt an aggressiveposture toward the states. The article then assesses whetherOSHA's aggressiveness prompted state grantees to exert considerableeffort on behalf of program goals. Finally, the implicationsof current reform proposals, which call for a sorting out offunctions between the states and the federal government, receiveattention.     

IMPLEMENTING PRIVATE SECTOR STRATEGIES IN EMPLOYMENT AND TRAINING PROGRAMS

This paper examines efforts to increase the role of the private sector in employment and job training programs mandated by the Private Sector Initiative Program (PSIP) and the Job Training Partnership Act (JTPA). In particular it will examine whether the emphasis on the private sector participation has led to a greater development of and reliance upon private sector strategies for training and placing the unemployed, as well as an exploration o f the relationship between public and private sector officials involved in program implementation.     

When a Policy's Time Has Come: Cases of Rapid Policy Diffusion 1983-1984

Most students of policy diffusion have noted that new policieshave tended to be adopted by most American states in ever shortertime spans in the twentieth century. Historically, rapid policydiffusion has usually occurred only when the federal governmenthas served as a central propagating agency, especially whenit has used the incentive of grant funds. In the past decade,however, a number of policies have diffused rapidly (i.e., thirtyor more states adopting in one to five years, with little orno central propagation). During 1983–1984, two such policieswere laws mandating child passenger restraints and lemon-aidlaws. Two broad agenda items, education reform and driving whileintoxicated, also received much attention in 1984. A varietyof specific policies were enacted in a majority of the states.It would appear that some problems become so widespread todaythat proffered solutions are readily snapped up by state governmentsas though the policies were ones whose "time has come." Therapidity of their diffusion seems limited primarily by their"fragility," that is, the degree of perceived organized resistanceto their adoption.     

Federal Preemption Under Reagan's New Federalism

Ronald Reagan defined his federalism program in terms of returningpolitical power to state and local governments. In practice,he was Janus-faced with respect to his views on domestic policyissues. His "public" face emphasized initiatives promoting areturn of political power to the states and local governments.His "silent" face encouraged additional centralization of politicalpower in several functional areas, and he signed bills prohibitingstate economic regulation of certain industries. Most of Reagan'sinitiatives were administrative, and increased to a limitedextent the discretionary authority of states. In general, thepresident favored a smaller federal regulatory role but notnecessarily a larger state and local government role. He signedtotal preemption bills granting greater freedom of action tothe banking, communications, and transportation industries,and tax sanction and crossover sanction bills. At the closeof his administration, intergovernmental relations were morecoercive than they had been in 1980.     

THE EXTENT OF SOCIAL REGULATION: HAZARDOUS WASTE CLEANUP AND THE REAGAN IDEOLOGY

Social regulation resolves the conflict over who will bear the costs of production-related harm to public health, safety, and the environment. The extent of social regulation reflects the political power of affected interests, the economic consequences of control, and the prevailing regulatory ideol- ogy. In this paper, I analyze the impact of the Reagan deregulatory ideology on implementation of the Superfund program to cleanup hazardous waste sites. Itesolution of the conflict over enabling legislation is examined to gauge the relative political power of Superfund Act supporters. Resolution of the ronflict over implementation is examined to determine the extent to which these same political forces limited the success of the Reagan ideology in promoting regulatory inaction.     

Congressional allocation of federal funds: The Job Training Partnership Act of 1982

This paper examines the allocation of federal funds to the fifty states through the Job Training Partnership Act of 1982. Targeted at the economically disadvantaged, its allocation formula nevertheless places heavy weights on unemployment measures unrelated to the target group. Evidence is presented that supports the premise that JTPA formula allocations across states reflect political influence. This is the first study to find evidence of a relationship between state representative legislative tenure and federal fund allocations. The importance of a state's political power in influencing federal fund allocations is also revealed.     

Should the housing voucher program become a state‐administered block grant?

Abstract

The Bush administration has proposed that the current national Housing Choice Voucher Program, which has an essentially uniform program design and is administered largely by local public housing authorities, become a block grant administered by the states. This article examines the potential benefits and hazards of such a change.

While this article does not support or analyze directly the administration's proposal, it concludes that state administration is fundamentally a good idea. However, the choice‐based nature of the voucher program should be preserved, and the early stages of implementation should permit changes to the program's subsidy structure and housing quality inspection only in selected states and with careful evaluation. The law enacting the new program should include clearly articulated goals and mandated reporting requirements. Also, the program should be funded and monitored to maintain the national commitment to meeting the housing needs of low‐income renters.     

The National Minimum Drinking-Age Law

The National Minimum Drinking-Age Act of 1984 was hailed bysome observers as a welcome and appropriate exercise of federalpower. However, the act also constituted an invasion of states'rights. The act stipulates a minimum legal age of 21 for thepurchase or public possession of any alcoholic beverage, andincorporates sanctions against states whose laws are not incompliance. This article evaluates the constitutional basesfor federal intergovernmental regulation in a policy area dominatedby states since the repeal of prohibition in 1933 by the Twenty-FirstAmendment. It also considers the effectiveness of policies designedto prevent alcohol-related highway deaths, and the relativemerits of federal incentives or penalties to induce desiredbehavior by the states. The article concludes that the states,for which the Reagan administration's early theme of decentralizationwas so promising, may continue to find both their federal fundsand individual autonomy seriously compromised in the foreseeablefuture.     

Market forces and private sector processes in government policy: The job training partnership act

This article examines those provisions of the Job Training Partnership Act designed to introduce the presumed efficiency of marketlike forces and incentives into federal employment and training programs. First, the JTPA replaced the administrative system used in earlier training programs (which emphasized detailed federal control and monitoring of the programs at the local level) with a system that, in effect, set a price for a prescribed level of performance and reduced oversight of the training process. Second, the Act gave people in private business some control over programs at the local level. According to available data, JTPA program performance is no different in local areas with a strong private-sector involvement than in areas where that involvement is weak and passive. The performance standards have had an effect, although the relationship between the standards and the goals of the JTPA is ambiguous at best. The article outlines the limitations of a market-oriented system for the administration of public policy.     

The Reagan Deficit

This paper analyzes the U.S. federal budget deficit during the Reagan administration and its short- and longer-term consequences for the aggregate economy. While budget policies of the Reagan administration do not account for all of the increases in annual deficits or in outstanding federal debt during the Reagan era, an analysis indicates that the administration's program of tax reduction and defense spending build-up were the major sources of deficit growth after the recovery from the recession of 1981-82. For the near-term future, the legacy of the Reagan deficits includes (1) the failure of domestically owned capital formation to expand at rates comparable to our major trading partners, (2) the necessity of diverting U.S. products and income to servicing foreign creditors, and (3) the need for rates of interest and profits to be high enough to induce foreigners to retain their holdings of U.S. assets lest divestiture cause a virtual collapse in the exchange rate. The final evaluation of the impact of the Reagan deficit hinges on whether the Reagan era of high consumption prosperity proves a good trade-off with the consequences of attenuated macropolicy responses to recession, lower levels of U.S. owned capital stock, and remittances to foreign creditors.     

New Federalism and Midwestern Cities: 1981-1985

President Ronald Reagan introduced a major new domestic initiativeduring his first term. The intent was to reduce the size andscope of the federal government and to increase the fiscal responsibilityof local governments. Mail questionnaires were sent to mayors,city managers, and finance officers in cities over 25,000 populationin Illinois, Indiana, Michigan, and Wisconsin asking the respondentsto indicate their perception of the impact the Reagan programhad had on their cities in the previous year and their perceptionof its anticipated impact. Response rates were nearly 50 percentfor each survey. The respondents consistently overestimatedthe impact the Reagan program would have on their cities. Thefollowing analysis explores the relationship between perceivedeffects and city and respondent characteristics, such as size,partisan identification, and state. While the Reagan policieshave had a substantial impact on these cities, the impact isnot as negative as the respondents originally thought.     

GRESHAM'S LAW: THE REGULATORY ANALOGY

The authors argue that delegation of discretion over environmental regulation to the states may trigger a process analogous to Gresham's Law in which lax regulation in one state drives out stringent regulation in neighboring states. This devolution to regulatory laxity is illustrated by the lax pesticide regulations in five Midwestern "agricultural" states. Questions are raised about the effects of the Reagan Administration's commitment to reduce the stringency of federal environmental regulations and delegate more regulatory discretion to the states.