Four years ago, the Office of Education was spending only $700 million to support education. In the coming year, it will spend $4.2 billion-and that is seven times as much. The Public Health Service, the Office of Economic Opportunity, the National Science Foundation, the Labor Department, the Defense Department, the Veterans Administration, and the Department of Housing and Urban Development-all of these are giving top billing to education in this land. It looks easy now, but we spent more than 20 years in the Congress battling for this breakthrough. There were big roadblocks every step of the way: -the poor States were feuding with the rich States; -the public schools versus private and church schools; -the integrated schools versus the segregated schools. During those 20 long years, many Members of the Congress despaired of ever passing any kind of Federal aid to education. But finally, we worked out a program which avoided the roadblocks and, we thought, settled the feuds. At long last the Congress put the law on the books and put the money in the schools. Today, we are confronted with another feud. Some so-called "friends of education" want to go-and believe that we should go back to where we started. They claim that they know a better way to spend the money. They propose to discard the Elementary and Secondary Education Act of 1965 that we put on the books with such great difficulty after 20 long years to scrap it now before it is 2 years old— and to substitute in its place a different kind of legislation. No one can tell for sure just how they plan to change the law. Each day new proposals, new substitutes, and new versions are presented. But already they have accomplished a great deal. We see a revival of the suspicion of the poor States toward the wealthy States. We see a revival of the ancient and bitter feuds beginning all over again between the church and the public school leaders. We see the fears of the big city school superintendents being expressed. We see the same roadlocks which obstructed and halted Federal aid to education for 20 long years being built up again. I hope that all our people and all of their spokesmen in the Congress will stop, look, and listen before they march down a blind alley. This is a time of testing for American education. The gains that we have made so far are only the beginning. We must build on those gains. But we must not lose all we have gained by reckless effort, by rewriting our laws, or by playing for partisan political advantage. Thomas Jefferson said that "the most important bill in our whole code is that for the diffusion of knowledge . . . No other sure foundation can be devised for the preservation of freedom and happiness." I think that those words are even more true for the 20th century and the 36th President than they were for the 18th century and the 3rd President. I am glad to come here today, because I am glad of the work that we have done together. The citizens of the Nation were supported overwhelmingly in the final analysis by the Congress in establishing these programs. The young people presented proof that not only the citizens and the taxpayers, but also the Congress and the President were right in their hopes. We can see from those programs great results flowing to our economy and to the individuals who have benefited from this training. And there is nothing more important to freedom in the world, to liberty in the world, to the dignity of man than education. I am glad to come here today and to see the foundations that you in Maryland are building, the foundations that you have already laid, the predicates that you have planned for the preservation of freedom and of happiness. It is a stimulating experience for me to come here with your leading State officials and your wonderful congressional delegation and see that we are building for tomorrow on a solid foundation, because as a great leader of my country once said, "Education is the guardian genius of democracy. Education is the only dictator that free men will ever recognize and the only ruler that free men will accept." I think when the history of our time is written and the last 3 years of our work together with the Congress, the people, the country, and the Executive, the extra tenfold increase of $10 billion that we have spent in the field of education, and the extra $10 billion that we have spent in better health for our people, will pay the greatest returns of any investment that our country has ever made. At this moment we are carrying great loads of expenditures because of our efforts to preserve liberty and freedom in Southeast Asia-and to protect it. And in the fiscal year our expenditures for military increases over what they were 3 years ago when I became President will more than exceed $20 billion. But during the same time that we are carrying those burdens, we have not lost sight of the needs of the education and the health of our people. We have, accordingly, increased our domestic expenditures, primarily for health, education, and conservation, above those that we have increased for defense. We have increased them to some $25 billion to $30 billion. And a nation where most of its people are employed, earning the best wages they have ever earned before, enjoying the greatest prosperity with the highest gross national product Yes, these are burdens, but we can carry burdens to preserve liberty, to provide health and education for our people. And we will. We will persevere. We will prevail. And we will educate our citizens and provide for the health of our nation. Thank you very much. * MANPOWER REPORT OF THE PRESIDENT The President's Message to the Congress Transmitting the 1966 Report, With Recommendations for New Directions in Manpower Policy. May 1, 1967 To the Congress of the United States: In January 1966, fourteen young men-high school dropoutsenrolled in a Baltimore Neighborhood Youth Corps program. Eight months later, most of them had returned to school, helped by parttime work and wages received through job training. Last February in the same city, 29 women-all on the relief rollsgraduated from a federally-sponsored course to train nurses' aides. Today they are off welfare, working in hospitals. As they help themselves and their families, they are helping the nation meet its critical shortage of health workers. In Chicago last summer, six employment offices were set up for teenagers under the Manpower Development and Training Actand run by the young people themselves. Through these centers, 750 young men and women got jobs. What might have been empty summers became, for them a satisfying, productive time. These examples of progress are the result of programs begun only a few years ago programs which reflect the nation's commitment to a positive manpower policy. By bringing new skills to thousands of Americans, these programs are fueling the ambitions and fulfilling the hopes of many who might otherwise have been condemned to idleness-not by choice but by lack of opportunity. This Manpower Report to the Congress, submitted under the Manpower Development and Training Act, surveys the progress we have made in the last year. It also points up the troubling and persistent problems of unemployment in a prosperous economy-and the steps we must take to overcome those problems. 1966 A YEAR OF PROGRESS An effective manpower policy depends on a healthy economy. In 1966, this Nation's unemployment rate dropped below 4 percentreaching a 13-year low. Seventy-four million people were working, nearly two million more than when the year began. The total production of goods and services in America increased to an historic $740 billion-$58 billion more than in 1965. On the whole, jobs were paying better than ever, and were more regular and secure than they had been in many years. More than 98 percent of men in the labor force with families to support were at work. The after-tax income of American families increased, after allowing for price increases, by 3.5 percent. This economic progress did not occur by chance. It was the achievement of business and labor. It was the result of gradually improving education. Much of it also came from careful efforts by Government to encourage and sustain economic growth-and to carry out humane and positive manpower programs. Those efforts-even the newest of thein-have been remarkably fruitful. Through the Economic Opportunity Act of 1964, the Elementary and Secondary Education Act of 1965, the Higher Education Act of 1965, the Manpower Development and Training Act of 1962, strengthened by the 1965 and 1966 amendments, and through other progressive measures, we have taken vital steps to assure opportunity to all our citizens. By the end of last year, for example, under the Manpower Development and Training Act programs: --About 600,000 unemployed and underemployed workers had been enrolled in training; Three out of four trainees who completed their classroom work had gone on to regular employment; -Nearly nine out of ten citizens who had completed on-the-job training were gainfully employed; -Thousands of citizens most in need of help-Negroes, Puerto Ricans, Mexican-Americans and other disadvantaged young Americans had received training; -Workers by the thousands were being trained to relieve acute manpower shortages in the health fields and in a variety of other occupations. By late 1966, under the Economic Opportunity Act: --More than 800,000 young people had received a new start through the Neighborhood Youth Corps. -Thousands of poor boys and girls, many who were at less than a fourth-grade literacy level, had gotten training and jobs through the Job Corps. -200,000 young men and women, who might have been forced to leave college because of financial difficulties, had continued their education through the College Work Study Program. -138,000 needy family breadwinners were given new skills through the Work Experience and Training Program. These programs are helping more than a million Americans each year to gain the knowledge and skills needed for steady productive employment. THE PARADOX OF PROSPERITY Our manpower programs have accomplished much. They must be continued and their momentum increased. For the year 1966 reminded us that expansion of the economy will not, by itself, eliminate all unemployment and underemployment. Last year the over-all unemployment rate dropped to 3.8 percent and the rate for married men to below 2 percent, an impressively low figure. But we have no reason to be complacent. The tragedy of joblessness is not only in the amount of unemployment-but in the kind of unemployment. Over twelve percent of our young people aged 16 to 19 were still looking for jobs at the year's end. -Among Negroes and other minority groups, the unemployment rate was almost double the over-all rate. -In slums and depressed rural areas, joblessness ran close to ten percent. And one out of every three people in those areas who are or ought to be working today faces some severe employment problem. Much of this unemployment occurred not because jobs were unavailable, but because people were unable to fill jobs or, for various reasons, unwilling to fill them. -Often the job is in one place-but the worker in another. Or the job calls for a special skill-a skill the unemployed person does not have. The employer insists on a high school diploma-but the job seeker quit school without this qualification. -An employer demands a "clean record"--but the applicant has a record marred by a juvenile arrest. -A job offers one day's work a week-but the worker needs. five days' pay to support his family. All these problems have long been with us. In the past, however, they were often obscured by general unemployment: when thousands of skilled experienced workers were searching for work, scant attention was paid to the jobless high school drop-out. Today, illuminated by prosperity, these problems stand out more clearly. At the end of 1966, about 2.9 million workers were unemployed. But it is estimated that during the course of the year, about 10.5 million workers suffered some unemployment. About three-quarters of the 10.5 million workers were only temporarily out of jobs-and soon found work. The young worker just entering the labor force belongs to this group; the bank teller who has left his job to seek a better one; the lathe operator who has been laid off while adjustments are made in the production schedule. We cannot eliminate all temporary unemployment. In a free and mobile society, people must be able to change jobs and get better ones; workers must be able to leave and enter the labor force at will; and the rate of production of particular firms and industries must be free to respond to market forces. We must seek, however, to minimize the hardships of temporary unemployment: -By making it unnecessary for young men and women to spend long weeks job hunting after they leave school; By providing greater year-round opportunities to seasonal workers; -By improving job referral services to bring jobs and workers closer together. Our manpower programs seek to do just those things-and to reduce the waste and frustration that result from even short spells of unemployment. But our manpower programs must do more. They must reach the workers who are unemployed for long periods and those who are frequently out of work. Preliminary estimates from our labor force survey show that during 1966 there were 2.5 million American workers who were jobless for 15 weeks or more during the year. Of those, about 700,000 were out of work during more than half of the year. Another 1⁄2 to 1 million. potential workers had abandoned the search for a job, at least temporarily, and were not even counted as unemployed. Still another 500,000 unemployed were probably missed by the labor force survey. Others were employed at part-time jobs when they needed full-time work. Some of these workers should not be in the labor force at all, including those too old or too ill to hold steady jobs. These people can be helped by improvements in our health, public assistance and social security programs. Others in this group have the skill and experience to find and hold good jobs. They can be helped by improvements in our employment services, and by actions to reduce seasonal unemployment. But there are many who need special manpower services before they can become fully adequate workers and earners. Precise measurement of the magnitude of the task ahead is difficult-indeed, impossible. But we can estimate that there are roughly two million potential workers who can be helped and are willing to help themselves. |