Date: 1983-05-03
Speaker: DE LA GARZA (democrat)
Chamber: H

Mr. Chairman. this amendment is offered for the purpose of trying to assist the people in rural America. We have recently passed what we call a jobs bill. This is an attempt. within Department of Agriculture programs. to assist the Secretary in establishing a selection system to determine which applicants for loans or borrowers under guarantees would receive financial assistance under the community facility and business and industrial loan programs. The criteria for selection. each to be weighted equally. would be low community or area family income. less than 80 percent of the statewide median family income. high unemployment. and underemployment. including individuals who work part time or at seasonal jobs. or individuals. discouraged workers. who no longer participate in the job market. exceed ing the national rate by at least 10 percent. and sudden economic dislocation causing significant job loss. in this case as part maybe from the payment in kind program in rural areas. The Secretary would be authorized to make grants up to $20 million annually to be used for training unemployed or underemployed persons. to enable them to fill jobs to be created by enterprises receiving financial assistance. The Secretary would be required to prepare and implement a comprehensive plan to use Farmers Home programs to assist rural Americans in reducing excessive levels of unemployment and underemployment. Basically. Mr. Chairman. this is to direct the Department to take a very close look at the gap which exists between urban and rural America and to help close this gap. My amendment would authorize grants of the $20 million as I have stated. I think there is an urgent need. for a general plan under which we might direct assistance toward that area in which it is badly needed. This is an innovative idea. I would attest. but it is a very. very modest step. We have found that under the jobs legislation. even as it was targeted. Mr. Chairman. the areas that have been covered for accelerated projects. or the areas that have been covered for development through the system that we passed here. we do not have many of these areas in rural America. Only in very few rural areas would we have the major public works. the buildings. or anything of that sort. So this is a very modest attempt at trying to aim a little bit of money to that area of rural America. We are painfully aware of the current financial crisis in agriculture. We are ordinarily less aware of the job crisis as it afflicts our nonurban areas. As I have indicated. the Farmers Home Administration operates programs of financial assistance for essential rural community facilities and for rural business and indastries. These programs. especially the socalled B&I (business and industrial) program. have been very effective in creating jobs. I believe it is time to target this assistance to areas suffering most acutely from lack of employment opportunities. To the extent that it is necessary for the agency to choose among applicants for assistance whose needs exceed available funds. my amendment would require the Secretary to develop and objective selection system. The system would be based on three factors affecting the rural communities and areas involved: First. low income. second. high unemployment and underemployment. and third. sudden economic dislocations adversely affecting employment. Let me briefly explain these selection factors. The first targets assistance to rural areas or communities with widespread povertythose having a median income below 80 percent of statewide median income. Experience has shown that there is a high correlation between rural poverty and high rural unemployment. For similar purposes. some proposals would use as a basic guideline a percentage of statewide nonmetropolitan income. However. this standard tends to limit aid to too few areas and it can result in sharp disparities in treatment among poorer areas of the various States. Other proposals would use a percentage of a national income guidelines. But it has a charactr!stic of spreading aid too broadly In. lowerincome States. My proposul uses a moderate or middlegroundthat is. a percentage of the statewide median income. The second factor used by my amendment is the areas rate of unemployment and underemploymentthose baving a rate which is at least 10 percent above the national nonmetropolitan ratefor example. a local rate of 11 percent or more if the national rate is 10 percent. I want to emphasize underemployment. According to the U.S. Department of Agricultures recent report to Congress entitled "Better Country: A Strategy for Rural Development in the 1980s. " the lack of job opportunities remains the greates single problem in rural America. I quote: Many rural regions suffer unemployment rates substantially higher than the national average. Since 1978. the disparity between rural and urban unemployment has been growingand not in rural Americas favor. Mr. Chairman. the report goes on to say that the official rate of unemployment is not designed to represent true levels of distress. underemployment. and underutilization of rural Americas workers. nor do the official unemployment figures adequately take into account chronic rutral poverty. Therefore. my second measure or criterion is a departure from the pore traditional unemployment measure we so often seethat is. the socalled rate of unemployment. It is my considered judgment that the commonly used standard of measuring unemployment in rural areas grossly underestimates employment problems. My second criterion is designed to address this problem. It is drawn from a number of propos als discussed in various committees during their consideration of legislative proposals to address rural economic problems. Since it is not the familiar standard. it will require a degree of ingenuity and resourcefulness on the part of the Secretaries of Labor and Agriculture working cooperativelyperhaps along with State and local governmental unitsto devise effective measurement techniques. It is. however. a challenge they should boldly accept to address so pressing a problem. We must begin to get a handle on the true dimensions of the underuse of our human resources in rural areas. Let me illustrate more specifically the thrust of these provisions. Throughout rural Americabut to a greater degree in some areas than otherslarge numbers of people work at parttime. sporadic. or seasonal jobs. They do so not by choice. but because regular. stable. fulltime jobs are not available. Many rural workers live on farms. if their jobs in town are lost. they continue to farm part time. Further. years of obvious futility in seeking work results in large pools of discouraged workers who are not even considered to be. in the job market. The people I have described are not included as unemployed by the traditional measurements. The measurements I propose would take account of them and would. perhaps for the first time on any meaningful basis. recognize their plight and make some movement to address it. The third factor or criterion I propose provides a degree of flexibility in meeting new threats to Jobs as they arise. It emphasizes the effect on workers of sudden shifts in local economic conditions. and permits early action to deal with those conditions before their impact becomes devastating.. For example. it would allow appropriate consideration for prospective plant closing which can have terrible effects on employment in small rural areas. And it also would accommodate conditions suddenly - arising from policy shifts like the paymentinkind program that may well have substantial adverse consequences on smalltown businesses in farming areas. In addition. with respect to the B&I program. the amendment provides that. from among the applicants selected under the criteria that I have described. the Secretary will give preference to those which will most effectively assist in the creation of longterm employment opportunities in their rural areas. Even if my amendment achieves the objectives that I expect of it. it will not be fully successful unless the rural businesses and industries which are created have a trained work force available. As I have said. the chronic underemployment in many areas creates a need for upgrading the skills of those the job market has passed by. To help close this gap. my amendment authorizes grants of $20 million in any fiscal year for the purpose of training unemployed or underemployed individuals to enable them to fill the jobs that are created. In addition to the specific activities that I have referred to. I think there is an urgent need for a general plan under which the various financial assistance activities operated by the Farmers Home Administration will be carried out in a manner designed to help reduce unacceptably high rates of unemployment and underemployment. The amendment would direct the Secretary to prepare such a plan and implement it after having given prior notice to the committees of jurisdiction of the Congress. I ask your support for what I believe is a modest but badly needed first step in targeting certain Farmers Home rural development programs to those areas suffering most acutely from a lack of jobs. It is an innovative step. in that it would be one of the first efforts to reach what has been. for all too long. a large but largely unrecognized group in our rural areasthose who do not appear in the unemployment statistics but who. in the most real sense. suffer greatly from the absence of job opportunities.