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trade adjustment assistance

Free trade may or may not be good for America as a whole, but one thing's for sure - it hurts for some American workers whose jobs get shipped overseas.

The feds help out some of these workers by paying for job training and income insurance (for workers over 50 who find lower paying jobs, the feds will make up 50% of their paycut up to $10,000) when their factories close as a result of a free trade agreement.

The current trade adjustment assistance (TAA) law is running out (it just got extended to March) and Congress is likely to expand the law when it gets renewed. The House passed an updated bill, HR 3920, in November '07 and the Senate is working on its own. Some of the changes the House and Senate are considering include:

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issue guide: Global Warming

Links

Fairly nonpartisan sources

The US Environmental Protection Agency has been criticized by environmentalists as being too business-friendly, but recent statements from the agency on climate change suggest it's warming up to environmentalist views. The US Climate Change Science Program, a government agency, also seems to feel to speak its mind.

Pew is also as balanced as you'll get on global warming, although at the end of the day they lean more left than right.

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minimum wage

Issue in Brief

What's going on?

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jobs

college tuition

Issue in Brief

What's up

During the past five years average public college tuition has increased by a whopping 35% (beating out the 11% achieved by private schools) (NYT). This increase has outpaced inflation and drawn the attention of lawmakers intent on addressing students’ ability to pay for college and higher education’s ability to rein in costs.

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jobs

Facts

With the US economy humming, the living is easy – or is it? Although there has been a steady increase in employment and an increase in real wages, there are still some that worry about threats to employment – with outsourcing topping the list.

Workforce

How many Americans are working (Total) BLS
- June 2006: 143.2 million
- May 2005: 141.5 million
- May 2004: 139 million

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jobs

issue guide: Medicare Prescription Drug Act

Pro & Con

What the Supporters
are Saying

The Medicare Prescription Drug, Improvement, and Modernization Act is a necessary first step toward alleviating rising costs of health care and prescription drugs in particular, especially for the nation's seniors. By re-establishing prescription drug coverage and opening Medicare to competition from private health insurers, this act became the most extensive revision to the program since Medicare was enacted in 1965.

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trade adjustment assistance

issue guide: Global Warming