Labor Topics

• Measuring Program Performance
• Finding Out What Works
• Using Vouchers to Deliver Services
• Helping Service Members
• Self-Employment as an Alternative Strategy
• Moving Young People into Productive Careers
• Encouraging Employment for Ex-Offenders
• Addressing Unique Problems of Experienced Workers
• Assisting DOL and Grantees
• Clients

Trade Adjustment Assistance Program: Helping Workers Affected by Globalization

Globalization has intensified competition throughout the U.S. economy. While the net benefits of foreign trade are large—everyone benefits from the availability of lower-priced goods—there is a downside. Some U.S. workers experience unemployment and earnings losses resulting from plant closings and jobs being sent overseas.

The Trade Adjustment Assistance (TAA) program provides aid to workers who lose their jobs or whose hours of work and wages are reduced as a result of increased imports. Workers may be eligible for training, job search and relocation allowances, income support, and other reemployment services.

Social Policy Research and Mathematica evaluated the TAA program for the U.S. Department of Labor, Employment and Training Administration. This nine-year study addressed a full range of questions regarding the operation and impacts of the program after the passage of the Trade Act of 2002 and included the following components:

• Initial implementation analysis to provide quick feedback, based on site visits to 13 states and local areas
• Process study examining how the program operated (based on five rounds of site visits to states and local areas as well as a survey of all local areas)
• Impact study on participants’ employment-related outcomes, overall and for key worker subgroups
• Benefit-cost analysis 

The impact study was based on a comparison group design, in which samples of TAA participants were matched to unemployment insurance claimants not eligible for TAA (but otherwise similar) using propensity scoring methods. The samples were selected using administrative records data from 26 randomly selected states. The administrative records sample contained 36,000 workers in the TAA group and 72,000 workers in the comparison group. Telephone surveys with a random subset of the sample occurred at baseline and 25 months.

Final study results were published in a series of occasional papers.

Publications

"Understanding the Employment Outcomes of Trainees in the Trade Adjustment Assistance (TAA) Program Under the 2002 Amendments" (December 2012)
"The Benefits and Costs of the Trade Adjustment Assistance (TAA) Program Under the 2002 Amendments" (December 2012)
"The Evaluation of the Trade Adjustment Assistance Program: A Synthesis of Major Findings" (December 2012)
"Characteristics of Trainees and Training Programs in the Trade Adjustment Assistance (TAA) Program Under the 2002 Amendments" (August 2012)
"Methodological Notes Regarding the Impact Analysis" (August 2012)
"Impact Estimates Regarding Nonparticipants in the Trade Adjustment Assistance (TAA) Program Under the 2002 Amendments" (August 2012)
"Estimated Impacts for Participants in the Trade Adjustment Assistance (TAA) Program Under the 2002 Amendments" (August 2012)
"National Evaluation of the Trade Adjustment Assistance Program: Methodological Appendices Regarding the Baseline Survey (Covering Workers Eligible Under the 2002 Program)" (May 2010)
"National Evaluation of the Trade Adjustment Assistance Program: Characteristics of Workers Eligible Under the 2002 TAA Program and Their Early Program Experiences" (April 2010)