Policy proposal would benefit low-wage workers

WASHINGTON, D.C. – A policy proposal from the Financial Services Forum has been cited by the Senate Democratic Policy Committee as one of the 2009 Fresh 50: Fifty New Policy Ideas for Senate Democrats.

The Forum commends the DPC for its commitment to furthering and promoting new policy ideas that could benefits American workers and communities. Below is the excerpt from the DPC’s Fresh 50 Report.

45. Give a tax credit to companies that open internal education and training facilities to workers outside the firm or students in local community colleges.

Issue: Many Americans are stuck in low-wage work, lacking the educational credentials or skills to advance in the labor market. At the same time, employers in many sectors and regions face shortages of workers with the specific skills necessary to succeed in their positions. While improving our educational system will help, an estimated two-thirds of America’s workforce in 2020 is already beyond the reach of K-12 education. We need to improve the skills of those already in the workforce, not just focus on education reform, to ensure the continued prosperity of the American economy. Companies make efforts to train their own employees and may offer the best facilities for improving the skills of workers but these resources are usually unavailable to the community as a whole.

Proposal: We should give a tax credit to companies that open internal education and training facilities to workers outside the firm or to students in local community colleges. This would help foster local partnerships to improve the skills of the regional workforce, improving prospects for successfully competing in the global economy. This would improve the industry-specific talents of a community, bolstering the ability of American regions to excel in a particular field, much as Silicon Valley has led the world in high technology.

More Information: Based upon ideas in "Succeeding in the Global Economy: A New Policy Agenda for the American Worker" from the Financial Services Forum, found online here.

The Financial Services Forum is a non-partisan financial and economic policy organization comprised of the CEOs of 17 of the largest and most diversified financial services institutions doing business in the United States.

The purpose of the Forum is to pursue policies that encourage savings and investment, promote an open and competitive global marketplace, and ensure the opportunity of people everywhere to participate fully and productively in the 21st-century global economy.