Trade Adjustment Assistance for Workers (TAA) provides federally-funded benefits to dislocated workers who are adversely affected by foreign trade. Benefits under TAA include training subsidies and income support for workers who have exhausted their unemployment insurance (UI). TAA-eligible workers who are age 50 and over and obtain reemployment at a lower wage may be eligible for a wage insurance program. To be eligible for TAA benefits, separated workers must petition the Department of Labor (DOL) to establish that foreign trade contributed importantly to their job loss. TAA benefits are funded through federal appropriations and administered through state workforce systems and state unemployment insurance agencies. TAA for Workers is authorized under Title II of the Trade Act of 1974, as amended. It was last reauthorized by the Trade Adjustment Assistance Extension Act of 2011 (TAAEA; Title II of P.L. 112-40 ). TAAEA specified that TAA would operate under one set of eligibility and benefit provisions through December 31, 2013, and then revert to more restrictive eligibility and benefit provisions beginning January 1, 2014. This report will refer to the expired expanded provisions as "the 2011 provisions" and the current reduced provisions as " the 2014 provisions." Changes in TAA eligibility and benefits are not retroactive. For example, workers who are covered under a petition filed under the 2011 provisions may continue to receive benefits under those provisions, even after the provisions have changed for new beneficiaries. This means that state grantee agencies operate multiple versions of the TAA program simultaneously, providing benefits based on the timing of the petition under which each participant is covered. Under TAAEA, the TAA for workers program was set to be phased out after December 31, 2014. However, the Consolidated and Further Continuing Appropriations Act, 2015 ( P.L. 113-235 ) appropriated funds for the program with the intent of continuing full operation of the TAA for Workers program through FY2015, including the certification of new workers. In FY2015, the program will continue to operate under the 2014 provisions. Division G of the Consolidated and Further Continuing Appropriations Act, 2015 ( P.L. 113-235 ) appropriated $710.6 million for the TAA for workers program. The appropriations bill's explanatory note specified that the funding level would "allow for the full operation of the program throughout fiscal year 2015, including the provision of benefits to groups of workers certified after December 31, 2014." In FY2015, TAA will continue to operate under the 2014 provisions of the law. TAA is a direct spending (also referred to as "mandatory") program and subject to sequestration under the Budget Control Act of 2011, as amended. For FY2015, the Office of Management and Budget (OMB) has announced that the reduction for non-exempt, nondefense spending will be 7.3%. As such, TAA funding will be reduced to approximately $659 million. Obtaining TAA benefits is a two-stage process. First, a group of workers must petition DOL to establish that foreign trade "contributed importantly" to their job losses and become TAA certified. Once a group has been certified, individual workers covered by the group's petition apply for state-administered benefits at local American Job Centers (also known as One-Stop Career Centers). TAA is available to workers in the 50 states, the District of Columbia, and Puerto Rico. This section describes TAA eligibility criteria under the current law 2014 provisions. Table 1 compares the current 2014 provisions to the now-expired 2011 provisions. To be eligible for TAA group certification, a group of workers from a firm (or a subdivision of a firm) must have become totally or partially separated from their employment or have been threatened with becoming totally or partially separated. Under current law, only production workers (i.e., workers that produce an "article") are eligible to be certified. Workers who produce a service are not eligible to be certified under the current provisions. The petitioning workers must establish that foreign trade contributed importantly to their separation. The role of foreign trade can be established in one of several ways: An increase in competitive imports . The sales or production of the petitioning firm have decreased and imports of articles like or directly competitive with those produced by the petitioning firm have increased. A shift in production to an eligible country . The workers' firm has moved production of the goods that the petitioning workers produced to a foreign county with which the United States has a free trade agreement (FTA). Adversely affected secondary workers . The petitioning firm is a supplier or a downstream producer to a TAA-certified firm and either (1) the sales or production for the TAA-certified firm accounted for at least 20% of the sales or production of the petitioning firm or (2) a loss of business with a TAA-certified firm contributed importantly to the workers' job losses. As noted previously, the certification criteria under the current 2014 provisions are narrower than the criteria under the 2011 provisions. A comparison of these two sets of provisions is in Table 1 . The change in eligibility criteria is not retroactive. As such, workers certified under the expanded 2011 provisions may continue to receive benefits after the enactment of the 2014 provisions. To establish TAA eligibility, a group of workers (or its union, firm, or state) must complete a two-page petition and submit it, along with any supporting documentation, to DOL. An additional copy of the TAA petition must also be filed with the governor of the state in which the affected firm is located. After receiving the petition, DOL investigates to determine if the petition meets any of the criteria outlined in the previous subsection of this report. Determinations of TAA petitions are published in the Federal Register and on the DOL website. If a petition is certified, DOL will also determine an impact date on which trade-related layoffs began or threatened to begin. This date can be as early as one year prior to the petition. A certified petition will cover all workers laid off between the impact date and two years after the certification of the petition. For example, if a petition was certified on June 1, 2010, and the impact date was found to be March 1, 2010, all members of the certified group laid off between March 1, 2010, and June 1, 2012, would be eligible for TAA benefits. If a petition is denied, the group who was denied certification may request administrative reconsideration by DOL. Reconsideration requests must be mailed within 30 days of the publication of the initial denial in the Federal Register . Workers who are denied certification may seek judicial review of DOL's initial petition denial or denial following administrative reconsideration. Appeals for judicial review must be filed with the U.S. Court of International Trade within 60 days of Federal Register publication of the initial denial or the administrative reconsideration denial. After DOL certifies a group of workers as eligible, the individual workers then apply to their local American Job Centers (also known as One Stop Career Centers) for individual benefits. To be covered under a certified petition, a worker must meet all of the following conditions: (1) separation from the firm on or after the impact date specified in the certification but within two years of DOL certification, (2) employment with the affected firm in at least 26 of the 52 weeks preceding layoff, (3) entitlement to state UI benefits, and (4) no disqualification for extended unemployment benefits. Additionally, to receive the Trade Readjustment Allowance (TRA) benefit, workers must also be enrolled in an approved training program or have received a waiver from training. Group-certified workers who are denied individual benefits can appeal the decision. The determination notice that individual workers receive after filing their applications for each benefit explains their appeal rights and time limits for filing appeals. Alternative Trade Adjustment Assistance (ATAA) is a wage insurance program that provides a cash payment to qualified TAA-certified workers age 50 and over who obtain new employment at a lower wage. ATAA is authorized by the 2014 provisions. A similar program called Reemployment Trade Adjustment Assistance (RTAA) was authorized by the 2011 provisions. ATAA is designed as a program for older trade-affected workers who likely have limited time remaining in the labor force and for whom comprehensive retraining may not be a cost-effective option. To be eligible for ATAA wage supplements, the worker's new annual wage must be lower than his or her certified job and less than $50,000. Under the 2014 provisions, a group of workers must request consideration for ATAA in addition to eligibility for regular TAA benefits. The age requirements are the same under the 2011 RTAA and 2014 ATAA provisions. Several other eligibility criteria are different. Under ATAA, a worker must secure reemployment within 26 weeks of separation from the worker's TAA-certified job. Under RTAA, there was no time limit for securing reemployment. To be eligible for ATAA benefits, a worker must be reemployed on a full-time basis and may not receive TAA-funded training. Under RTAA, an eligible worker had the additional option of receiving wage insurance benefits while being reemployed on a part-time basis and being enrolled in a TAA-approved training program. TAA benefits include training subsidies and income support for workers who have exhausted their UI benefits and are enrolled in training. Workers age 50 and over may participate in a wage insurance program. As noted previously, changes in TAA provisions are not typically retroactive. Therefore, workers are entitled to a set of benefits and services based on the effective provisions under which the petition that covers them was certified. For example, a worker who is covered by a petition that was certified under the 2011 provisions would still be able to receive the benefits specified in the 2011 provisions even if the worker did not receive benefits until after the 2014 provisions had taken effect.