The Evaluation of the Trade Adjustment Assistance Program: A Synthesis of Major Findings

"This paper presents a synthesis of findings described in detail in more than a dozen separate reports prepared as part of the Evaluation of the Trade Adjustment Assistance (TAA) Program. The evaluation focused on providing answers to two broad questions: (1) Is TAA effective in helping workers rebound from their job losses?, and (2) What services are delivered to participants? To answer these questions we collected and analyzed data of a variety of types, including administrative data, data from surveys of TAA participants and a statistically matched comparison group of Unemployment Insurance (UI) claimants not eligible for TAA, and data from site visits conducted from 2004 to 2011 to 34 states and more than 100 local offices." (p. 3) (Abstractor: Author)

• TAA participants were much more likely than those in the comparison group to receive career planning and job search assistance, as well as to participate in occupational skills training and other forms of training and education. • By the end of the four-year observation period, TAA participants had almost entirely closed the gap in employment and earnings, and, by one measure, they had pulled slightly ahead….Participants fourth-year earnings were either $3,300 less than, or about the same as, those of comparison-group members. • Projecting into the future, for the program to provide positive benefits for them the 2002 TAA participants would have to earn at least $2,124 per year more than the full comparison group from year five until retirement, or $757 per year more than the UI-exhaustee comparison group. • Furthermore, TAA trainees completed their training and re-entered the labor market when the nation’s economy was mired in severe economic recession, whereas the comparison group ”who spent considerably less time in training” were more likely to have returned to the labor market before economic conditions deteriorated. • In examining the implementation of TAA services, we found that: Most of the provisions of the Trade Act of 2002 were well received by state TAA administrators, but there were some implementation challenges. • The Acts wage insurance program for older workers and the tax credit it allowed to cover health insurance costs were viewed as providing helpful benefits to workers, but they were challenging to implement at first, and take-up for these new benefits was low. • Rapid Response was helpful in spreading the word about the TAA program to employers and affected workers. • Those eligible for TAA tended to be full-time workers with long tenures who were displaced from relatively high-paying positions. • About 50 percent of those eligible for TAA received a significant TAA service, defined as including TAA-funded training, TRA, Alternative Trade Adjustment Assistance (ATAA), the Health Coverage Tax Credit (HCTC), or allowances other than TRA. More than 90 percent of participants received TRA and about half received TAA-funded training. • Females who trained in healthcare practitioner or technical fields or in office and administrative support fared better, as did the 37 percent of TAA-funded trainees who found employment in their training fields. “(p. 3-5) (Abstractor: Author and Website Staff)

• Last Updated:
• Created:
• Resource Publication Date: 2012
• Author(s): D’Amico, Ronald; Schochet, Peter Z.
• Organizational Author(s): Social Policy Research Associates and Mathematica Policy Research
• Funding Source: U.S. Department of Labor, Employment and Training Administration
• Resource Availability: Publicly available
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• Posted in: Workforce System Strategies