HR7805-119

What This Bill Does

The Trade Adjustment Assistance Modernization Act restores the worker, firm, community, and agricultural adjustment-assistance statutes to their June 30, 2021 form, as modified by this bill, and generally applies the restored rules to petitions filed after enactment. It extends major program dates through 2033, broadens who can petition, expands eligibility, increases benefits, establishes new community grants, and creates transition rules for petitions filed during the program lapse.

For workers, a petition may be filed by one or more affected workers or by a workforce intermediary, including a labor-management organization providing reemployment or training services. Certification can rest on absolute reductions, a failure to increase, or a scheduled or imminent reduction in sales or production. It can also rest on decreased exports or decreased imports of production inputs, and the bill removes the requirement that import competition contribute "importantly." Staffed workers and teleworkers are expressly covered, workers of a successor firm inherit a predecessor's certification, and public-agency workers become eligible when foreign acquisition of services contributes to separation.

The Labor Department and participating States must provide notices in workers' native languages where feasible, issue another notice before unemployment benefits expire, and conduct sustained outreach through employers, unions, worker organizations, peer-support programs, social media, and other channels. State case-management services add apprenticeship, work-based learning, provider placement records, direct placement, employer commitments, and outreach to underserved workers. States must review layoffs affecting more than five workers, measure training completion and living-wage placement, coordinate with affected communities, maintain staffing strategies, and use State merit employees for core program functions.

Worker benefits expand materially. Training may include pre-apprenticeships and reimbursement of eligible costs incurred after separation but before certification. Workers in prerequisite or remedial education may receive up to 130 weeks of support, with 78 additional weeks available during a 91-week period and up to 26 more weeks to complete training. During heightened unemployment, up to 26 post-training weeks become available while an eligible worker remains unemployed and satisfies State job-search rules. Job-search and relocation allowances become mandatory, cover 100 percent of eligible costs, rise to a $2,000 maximum, and become inflation-indexed. A new dependent-care allowance pays up to $2,000 per minor dependent per year for care needed to train or search for work. Reemployment Trade Adjustment Assistance raises the salary ceiling from $50,000 to $70,000 and the maximum payment from $10,000 to $20,000, with inflation adjustments.

States receive subpoena authority to obtain worker identity, address, and eligibility information from firms, enforceable through State or Federal court. The Labor Secretary may tailor administrative and eligibility requirements for Guam, the U.S. Virgin Islands, American Samoa, and the Northern Mariana Islands. Training-waiver grounds expand to workers with a recall notice or within two years of Social Security or private-pension eligibility.

For firms, the Commerce Department must investigate petitions within 15 days. Eligibility expands to firms with absolute or threatened separations, reduced or non-increasing sales or production, qualifying changes in significant product or service lines, increased imports, decreased exports, or decreased imported production inputs. Oil and gas exploration is treated as production, and a firm is automatically certified if Commerce does not decide within 55 days. Adjustment proposals must assess employment outcomes, assistance may reach $300,000 subject to inflation, and firms must match Federal assistance dollar for dollar. Technical assistance may fund employee skills training. Commerce must maintain a sustained outreach plan for potentially eligible firms and report the plan and annual updates to Congress.

The bill creates a Trade Adjustment Assistance for Communities program administered by the Commerce Department through the Assistant Secretary for Economic Development. A community qualifies after a worker, firm, or agricultural-producer certification and a timely application if it has low per-capita income, elevated unemployment, significant job loss, or an economy transitioning because of trade. Commerce may fund strategic planning and implementation by local governments, economic-development districts, Tribes, colleges, consortia, and cooperating nonprofits. Total grants tied to one community are capped at $25 million for fiscal years 2027 through 2031, with higher funding for long-term distress and at least one award per Economic Development Administration region when qualified applications exist.

Community strategic plans may cover infrastructure, public services, job creation, business development, revolving loan funds, training, demolition, brownfields, land banks, energy conservation, and historic preservation. Communities must consult local governments, firms, workforce boards, labor organizations, educators, civil-rights groups, and community organizations where practicable. Commerce coordinates other Federal assistance, may transfer eligible non-appropriations-act funds, provides technical assistance, and issues implementing regulations after consulting the congressional tax-writing committees. The authorization is $1 billion annually for fiscal years 2027 through 2031, but this is an authorization for future appropriations, not a direct appropriation.

Community College and Career Training grants expand from individual institutions to consortia. The ordinary institution cap rises from $1 million to $2.5 million, while a consortium may receive up to $15 million. Grants must establish or scale career-training programs and pathways. At least 15 percent must support students through childcare, transportation, mental-health or substance-use treatment, health-coverage enrollment, housing, emergency aid, coaching, supplies, or technology. Labor must plan, update, and report to Congress on service to underserved communities and preserve geographic diversity. The bill authorizes $1.3 billion annually for fiscal years 2027 through 2033, contingent on later appropriations.

Agricultural-producer eligibility no longer uses the prior 85 percent threshold or the "importantly" causation standard and can be based on export declines. The application period grows from 90 to 120 days. Producer payment limits triple from $4,000 to $12,000, from $8,000 to $24,000, and from $12,000 to $36,000, then adjust for inflation. Agriculture must conduct sustained outreach to producers in underserved communities.

Transition rules apply current worker and firm standards to unresolved petitions filed on or after January 1, 2021, require reconsideration of certain denials, allow qualifying firms a 90-day filing window, preserve already received benefits when calculating maximums, and permit short-term benefit adjustments to ensure parity. The bill removes superseded transition provisions. Finally, it makes the Health Coverage Tax Credit permanent, raises it from 72.5 percent to 80 percent of eligible premiums, restarts advance-payment administration within 90 days, and permits amended-return elections for eligible coverage months after 2021.

Who Benefits and How

Trade-displaced workers, teleworkers, staffed workers, successor-firm employees, public employees, older workers, workers needing longer training, and workers with dependent-care costs receive broader eligibility or larger benefits. Trade-affected firms gain broader certification and larger technical assistance. Distressed local governments, Tribes, economic-development districts, community colleges, nonprofits, agricultural producers, and underserved communities gain new or expanded grant and service opportunities. Eligible health-credit recipients receive a permanent 80 percent credit.

Who Bears the Burden and How

The Labor, Commerce, Agriculture, Treasury, and State workforce agencies must review more petitions, administer larger and more varied benefits, conduct outreach, collect performance information, coordinate programs, issue rules, and report to Congress. Firms may face subpoenas, matching requirements, and requests for worker information. Community and college grantees must prepare plans, coordinate locally, reserve student-support funds, and satisfy grant conditions. Federal taxpayers bear costs only to the extent Congress provides the authorized appropriations and finances the expanded mandatory or tax benefits.

Key Provisions

• Restores and extends Trade Adjustment Assistance through 2033.
• Expands worker certification to export losses, failed growth, staffed workers, teleworkers, successors, and public employees.
• Requires multilingual notice and sustained worker outreach.
• Adds up to 26 weeks of heightened-unemployment support.
• Increases training, job-search, relocation, dependent-care, and wage-insurance benefits.
• Requires State review of layoffs affecting more than five workers.
• Gives States subpoena authority for worker and eligibility information.
• Broadens firm certification and creates a 55-day automatic-certification rule.
• Raises firm assistance to $300,000 with a dollar-for-dollar match.
• Establishes trade-adjustment grants for distressed communities.
• Caps community grants at $25 million per community through 2031.
• Expands community-college grants and requires a 15 percent student-support reserve.
• Broadens agricultural eligibility and triples producer-payment limits.
• Reconsiders qualifying worker and firm petitions filed during the program lapse.
• Makes the Health Coverage Tax Credit permanent at 80 percent.