On Thursday, President Obama, through the Department of Health and Human Services, quietly released an official policy directive. Utilizing an obscure legal device from the original Social Security Act, the administration claimed the right to waive the work requirements for able-bodied people that formed the backbone of a generation of welfare reform. This directive could very well allow the welf... Read more »
A federal judge has vacated several provisions of the controversial “gainful employment” rule, which the Department of Education issued last year in an effort to ensure that federal student-aid dollars flowing to vocational programs were good investments and helping prepare students for jobs that pay well. The decision, by Judge Rudolph Contreras of the U.S. District Court for the District of Col... Read more »
For the nearly 13 million unemployed Americans, finding work is a full time job with little reward – but it doesn’t have to be this way. Decades ago, the federal government put in place a job training system designed to provide valuable services and support to struggling workers. Unfortunately, the system has become inefficient after years of neglect. On behalf of the nation’s workers, House Repub... Read more »
Today the U.S. Supreme Court released its much awaited ruling on the 2010 health care law. Unfortunately, the court’s decision leaves in place a costly and unworkable health care scheme that continues to hurt families, workers, and job creators. Employers play a central role in the nation’s health care system. According to the Kaiser Family Foundation, 58 percent of workers have health insurance t... Read more »
The Bureau of Labor Statistics this week reported a significant drop in job openings, indicating America’s employers are hesitant to invest in and expand their businesses. Adding insult to injury, economists at Stanford University and the University of Chicago released a new chart on Tuesday showing economic uncertainty has shot up in recent months, a trend these economists have previously noted m... Read more »
Despite President Obama’s erroneous claim “the private sector is doing fine,” the American people aren’t buying it. Washington’s regulatory onslaught has forced many job-creators to sit on the sidelines, and as a result, the nation has experienced 40 straight months of unemployment above 8 percent and millions are searching for work. A notorious example of the regulatory hurdles facing employers i... Read more »
President Obama likes to say that everyone in America should "play by the same rules." Okay, so then why does the Administration's new student-loan rule apply to for-profit colleges, but not nonprofits? The regulations that go into effect in July cut off federal student aid to career and technical colleges whose former students don't meet the Education Department's definition of "gainful employme... Read more »
By Rep. John Kline (R-MN) Unless Congress takes action, student loan interest rates for millions of borrowers will double in just a few short weeks. The House has already done its part by approving the Interest Rate Reduction Act, bipartisan legislation that will prevent a scheduled interest rate increase on subsidized Stafford Loans without piling additional costs on taxpayers. In an effort to f... Read more »
The Department of Labor reports 3.7 million jobs remain unfilled, despite the fact that nearly 13 million unemployed Americans are searching for work. Employers largely attribute this discrepancy to a lack of skilled workers, and many workers report the nation’s federal workforce development system is failing to provide the training and education they need to succeed. On Thursday, the House Commit... Read more »
The House Education and the Workforce Committee is currently considering comprehensive reforms to the nation’s workforce development system. The Workforce Investment Improvement Act of 2012 (H.R. 4297) advances commonsense changes to federal job training assistance by eliminating dozens of ineffective and redundant programs, strengthening the role of employers, promoting new tools that will help c... Read more »
