pare them for work-not merely to teach them the skills of an occupation, but to prepare them for the complicated world of work, through a combination of Public general education, occupational education and prac- Welfare tical learning on the job at the going wage rate. To reach these young people in large cities, the federal government should make available to the states and local communities grants to encourage innovative vocational education programs. Experts have estimated that at least $1 billion will be necessary to make such innovative programs effective. In addition, year-round use of school buildings in the afternoon and evenings, as well as regular daytime sessions, is essential to meet the growing need for job training, remedial education and recreational facilities, for working youths and adults. Such use of school building is also needed to serve as community centers and to house a variety of activities related to the improvement of urban conditions. Recent federal legislation in the field of higher education has placed great emphasis on student aid, to meet the increasing tuition costs and fees at the nation's institutions of higher learning. Major reliance on the financial institutions of the nation, to make government-insured loans to meet this need, has proven, thus far, to be unworkable and unrealistic. The financial institutions have not responded adequately to this program. As matters now stand, Congress should return its attention to this problem to bring about a workable solution. Manpower Our federal-state public welfare programs were intended to provide assistance and services to deal directly with poverty and social deprivation. Public welfare is supposed to provide assistance on a dig nified basis and as a matter of right- to individuals and families in need of the basic essentials of living Today, our public welfare programs fall far short on these counts. Over 72 million people are today living on a precariously low level of existence, in many cases shut off from even the most basic necessi ties of life. It must be remembered that those on public nesist ance include about 2 million over 65 years of age. 700,000 are blind or permanently and totally disabled and about 5 million are in families with dependent children (of which about 3,750,000 are children) The entire public welfare program must be restru tured. A comprehensive program of public assistance should be established, based on the single criterion of need. A federal minimum standard for public asist ance payments, below which no state may fall, should be determined. Comprehensive social services should be readily accessible, as a right, to those who need them. The Administration of all welfare programs receiving federal funds should be in accordance with the principle of public welfare as a right The Ad visory Council on Public Welfare, in its report of June 1966, recommended these principles as a basis Manpower training programs must be strengthened and increased emphasis given to training for meaningful job opportunities. The government's training program provides for training, with the payment of allowances, up to two years. Unfortunately, the present emphasis is often on training programs for jobs which are dead-end, as well as low-wage. Moreover, as long as present training allowances remain as meager as they now are, few workers, especially heads of families, can afford to forego the opportunity for immediate employment, even at low wages-particularly if there is no assurance of a job at the end of the training period. The government's training programs should be linked with job-placement when training is completed. Also, it is essential that training allowances be increased to strengthen the staying-power of the trainees. for correcting the existing deficiencies of our public welfare system. The federal government should establish nationwide federal standards-with adequate federal funds-to provide a decent floor for the public welfare system. State work-incentive programs should be required by the federal government to permit welfare recipients to retain a substantial number of the dollars they earn without penalty, thus encouraging them to go into the job market and eventually move off the welfare rolls. Eligibility requirements for welfare applicants should be simplified, and demeaning investigations of applicants should be eliminated, to enable social workers to perform their professional services of guidance, counselling and assistance. Neither the federal government nor the states should seek to coerce welfare recipients to participate in work-or-training programs without providing adequate day-care protection for the children, or without prior determination of the skills and aptitudes of the welfare recipient for the work or training, and without offering some cash incentive for the welfare recipient to participate in such a program. Such work or training program should be part of the Labor Department's manpower and training structure. Rural Poverty In the long-run, the solution of the nation's urban and rural problems requires a population with adequate education and vocational training. The beginnings to achieve this objective in rural areas-under the Vocational Education Act of 1963 and the Education Act of 1965-should be continued and strengthened. The approach of the Appalachian Regional Development Program should be extended to other regions of rural poverty-federal aid for the establishment of adequate public facilities such as highways and roads, hospitals and health centers, schools, vocational and technical training institutions. The Agriculture Department's encouragement of recreational and tourist activities in rural areas should be extended, as well as such community improvement projects as the improvement of water and sewage facilities. Fair employment practices are as essential in rural areas as in metropolitan communities. Rural Negroes, Mexican-Americans and members of other minority groups must have full and fair employment opportunities to work in the industries of the rural areas and in the rapidly growing employment in state and local governments. Such efforts are needed to improve the economic and social balance between rural and urban areas and lift the standard of life of all Americans. Economic Planning N The American urban crisis is, in part, a reflection of the poverty and backwardness of many rural areas -particularly in the southern and southwestern states. The cities of the North and West are now paying for the delinquency of these rural areas. A meaningful attempt to solve urban problems must include efforts to lift the living conditions in the poor rural areas and to upgrade the education and skills of the rural population. Nearly 30 percent of the American population lives in rural areas. Only about one-fourth of these rural residents are farmers or farm workers. The others live in small towns or villages, strip settlements along old roads, Indian reservations, old mining settlements or in scattered isolated dwellings. Federal legislation should provide farm workers with the same protection afforded other workers— such as unemployment compensation and the right to organize unions and bargain collectively with employers. The federal program to assist low- and moderateincome rural families to buy or rehabilitate housing should be provided with adequate funds. We urge the federal government to develop, coordinate and maintain a national inventory of needs for housing, public facilities and services, by specific categories, based on present unmet backlogs and estimates of future population growth. We urge each state and metropolitan area to develop a similar inventory of needs within its geographical jurisdiction. Such inventories of present and projected requirements should serve as the foundation for programs in each category. They should also be used as yardsticks for the measurement of progress towards meeting the objectives of adequate housing, public facilities and services. A planned national effort, under federal leadership, is needed to apply as much of the nation's resources as possible to meet the requirements of a rapidly growing urban population, while providing a sound foundation for the continued advance of the private economy. ted THE URBAN CRISIS: A 10-Point Program America's urban crisis is rooted in the radical social and economic changes of the past quarter of a century, as well as in the tragic history of Negro slavery, segregation and discrimination. The population of America's metropolitan areas has skyrocketed, with an increased birth rate and the migration of millions of people from the farms and rural areas. While middle-income families have been moving to the suburbs, the cities are being left with a minority of wealthy people and large numbers of the poor, the deprived, the new migrants. At the same time, the spread of automation has reduced job opportunities for uneducated, unskilled workers and speeded up the shift of industrial location from cities to suburbs and outlying areas. The need for adequate housing, community facilities and services has soared, while the tax base of the cities has narrowed. And despite the long overdue adoption of federal civil rights legislation, discriminatory practices are still a widespread reality, although rapidly declining under the pressure of government, churches, trade unions and other private institutions. Instant adjustments and overnight solutions to this complex of problems are impossible. Gimmicks and slogans can achieve headlines, but hardly any positive results. Yet complacency can lead to disaster. Rapid forward strides are essential to the preservation of a free and democratic society. Immediate measures are needed to provide jobs, decent housing and adequate community facilities. Planned programs over the next decade or two are required to revitalize our metropolitan areas as centers of American civilization. The Economic Policy Committee of the AFL-CIO has given careful and thoughtful consideration to both immediate and long-term programs which will meet the needs of America's urban areas. The Committee's report to this Executive Council, which is hereby made part of this Council statement, contains solid recommendations which the AFL-CIO Executive Council now adopts as its program for meeting the urban crisis. Specifically, the AFL-CIO calls for: 1. THE AFL-CIO EXECUTIVE COUNCIL adopted this statement at its quarterly session. September 12, 1967, in New York City. themselves out of poverty and deprivation, Congress must immediately adopt a $4 billion program to fund federal, state and local government agencies and nonprofit organizations along the lines of the O'Hara bill. We also consider the Clark bill a step in the right direction. 2. Two and a half million new housing units each year, including: a. Public housing through new and rehabilitated low-rent homes for the 20 percent of city families whose incomes are below requirements for a minimum decent standard of living. New public housing construction, now at a 30,000-to-40,000 annual level, should be immediately increased to 200,000 to 300,000 for each of the next two years and 500,000 a year thereafter. Adequate appropriations for the rent supplement program are a necessity. b. Housing for lower middle-income families not eligible for public housing and unable to afford decent dwellings in the standard, privately-financed housing market. Federally-subsidized interest rate loans and a federal subsidy for the partial abatement of local taxes on such properties are needed to increase construction of such housing by cooperatives, non-profit and limited dividend corporations. In addition, federal legislation should make it possible for such groups to acquire existing properties, with government insurance of long-term and low-interest loans. c. Moderate-income housing, already operating with government-insured mortgages, stepped up through measures to increase involvement of pension funds, college endowment funds and private trusts. d. Open housing, in suburbs as well as in cities, an essential part of a meaningful effort to rebuild our metropolitan areas. e. Urban renewal no longer confined to commercial and expensive high-rise construction. The focus instead must be on homes in balanced neighborhoods, with families displaced by slum clearance given assistance in finding decent dwellings at rents they can afford. f. Model cities program, with adequate appropriations. 3. Mass transit, improved and expanded, is an urgent need in all metropolitan areas. Accelerated construction of public facilities, such as water supplies, sewage systems, mass transit, schools, hospitals, day-care centers, playgrounds, libraries, museums, clean air and water, are 4. essential to rebuild America's metropolitan areas. For this, we urge Congress to adopt at least a $2 billion a year grant-in-aid program to state and local governments in addition to categorical grants-in-aid. A substantially expanded Neighborhood Youth 5. Corps program to help youngsters remain in school and to provide work and training for those who have dropped out of school. 6. The opportunity for quality education can be met only by realizing the need to close the educational gap between the privileged and underprivileged schoolchildren of our nation, by special incentives to teachers in slum areas, federal subsidy of the More Effective School type program, full use of school buildings for job-training, adult education and community centers. In addition, vocational training must be realistically geared to the modern job market. 7. Manpower training must be linked with job placement and training allowances must be increased so that trainees can afford to remain in the program. 8. Public welfare assistance must be restructured, with the program based on need alone, a federal minimum standard of payments and adequate federal funds should be provided, state work-incentive programs should enable welfare recipients to retain a substantial amount of the dollars they earn without penalty, and demeaning investigations of applicants should be eliminated on the principle that comprehensive social services are a matter of right to those in need. Relief of rural poverty, concentrated in the 9. Southern and southwestern states primarily, by federal legislation to provide farm workers with unemployment compensation and according to them the same right other workers have under the National Labor Relations Act to organize unions and bargain collectively; by adequate federal funds to assist low and moderate-income rural families to buy or rehabilitate housing; continuation and strengthening of the Vocational Education Act of 1963 and the Education Act of 1965 in rural areas; federal aid in establishment of adequate public facilities, such as highways, hospitals, schools, vocational and technical training institutions; extension of the Agriculture Department recreational and tourist activities in rural areas, and provision of full and fair employment opportunities for Negroes, Mexican-Americans and other minorities to work in the industries of rural areas and in state and local governments. Economic planning, under federal leadership, 10. and including each state and metropolitan area, should include the development, coordination and maintenance of an inventory of needs for housing, public facilities and services to facilitate application of the nation's resources to meet the needs of a rapidly growing urban population, while also providing a sound foundation for a continually increasing private economy. America's urban crisis did not come upon this nation without warning. It has been coming for a long time and the government has not been alert to its responsibilities. The program we have offered will not achieve success overnight. By its very nature it is a step-by-step proposal for both immediate action and solid achieve ment. America cannot wait any longer to get started and the federal government must supply the leadership and resources to the great national effort that is mandatory. The AFL-CIO Executive Council discusses problems of the cities before adopting a ten-point program. EMPLOYMENT AND MANPOWER PROBLEMS IN THE CITIES: IMPLICATIONS OF THE REPORT OF THE NATIONAL ADVISORY COMMISSION ON CIVIL DISORDERS THURSDAY, JUNE 6, 1968 CONGRESS OF THE UNITED STATES, Washington, D.C. The Joint Economic Committee met, pursuant to recess, at 10 a.m., in room 1202, New Senate Office Building, Hon. Richard Bolling presiding in place of Committee Chairman Proxmire. Present: Representatives Bolling, Curtis, and Rumsfeld; and Senators Proxmire and Jordan. Also present: John R. Stark, executive director; and Douglas C. Frechtling, minority staff. Chairman PROXMIRE. Congressman Bolling, who has been chairing these hearings, will be along shortly. Today we have the last session in our current hearings on the manpower implications in the Kerner Commission Report. We have been fortunate in the quality of our witnesses. They have all been most informative and stimulating. Today we are equally fortunate in having a distinguished panel of experts. They are Bertram M. Beck, executive director of Mobilization for Youth, of New York City, accompanied by Russell A. Nixon, associate director at the Center for Study of the Unemployed, New York University; and Virgil L. Christian, Jr., professor in the department of economics at the University of Kentucky. Another scheduled witness, Dr. Carl H. Madden, will not be here today. Mr. Beck, we will be very happy to hear from you. STATEMENT OF BERTRAM M. BECK, EXECUTIVE DIRECTOR, MOBILIZATION FOR YOUTH, NEW YORK CITY Mr. BECK. Thank you, Senator. I very much appreciate the opportunity of testifying before you. My testimony is not that of a national expert on manpower, but of a man who runs a neighborhood program in one of the ghetto areas of the city of New York. We do have with us today-in addition to Mr. Nixon, who is going to speak of an aspect of our work—Mr. Gilbert Lewis, who has been working with a group of youngsters who are being trained for employment in the film industry, and they have made a 10-minute film of life in our particular |