provide a more effective, less expensive way of receiving immediate training. a few ways to achieve this would be for congress to eliminate the mandatory sequence of services that very often hurts individuals seeking job training, thereby slowing down the process by which people access the services they need most. in the majority of cases, strong worker train walk the answer. aba -- an increased emphasis on training must be coupled with direct support for additional training on community colleges. a second way to improve the program is through the authorization of community based job training grants created in 2004. there are grants -- there grants bill the capacity of community colleges to train workers and develop the skills necessary for success in high

growth and high demand industries. finally, congress should give local workforce investment groups to utilize training contracts. this is especially helpful with low tuition training providers. we have the opportunity to think broadly about the most effective ways to increase training funds at the regional and local levels. this would ensure the proper fix between participant access to training and the development of training capacity. the community based job training grants provide a model for possible reforms of service delivery under the adult and dislocated worker program. it appears that we are moving toward a pyramid economy, madam speaker, with a small number of highly skilled jobs at the top, a large number of low-skilled, low-paying jobs at the bottom and relatively few middle class, mid level jobs which

drove the unprecedented growth of our nation's economy in the 20th century and made the american dream a reality for millions of americans. but the reality is mid level jobs still account for almost half the jobs in this country and will continue to be the largest job segment in the economy for years to come. as we look to reform our work force, as we look to reform our work force development system to meet the demands of the 21st century labor market we need to look for proven strategies to help workers acquire the skills necessary for these jobs and ensure employers have a skilled work force able to compete in today's economy. two strategies emerged at the state level. state part nepships and career pathways. these can help us meet our goal.

second partnerships work by bringing together multiple stake holders in a specific industry with the interest and development -- interest in developing and implementing work force development strategies that can contribute too growth. these include firms, labor, organizations, community based organizations and state and local agencies. sector approaches draw upon the experience of many partners who improve worker training, retention and advancement by developing cross-firm skill standards, keer ladders, job redefinitions and shared training and support capacities that facilitate the advancement of workers at all skill levels, including the least skilled. an emerging body of research demonstrates that sector strategies can provide significant positive outcomes for workers including increased wages and greater job security.

sector strategies have become an integral way some states respond to local and regional work force needs. as discussed earlier, the ohio skills bank is implementing efforts across a broad range of industries in each of the 12 economic development regions. another example is congressman fattah's state of pennsylvania, which has more than 6,000 firms participating in nearly 80 partnerships and 70,000 workers receiving training services since 2005. to date, at least 39 states have adopted industry or sector strategies, but for the most part, they are doing so in spite of the work force investment act, not because of it. as written the workforce investment act does not adequately support the hard work of convening multiple stake holders and allowing a area or region to develop targeted depth and capacity in

high growth or emerging industries in a way that develops broad growth sectors. the measure introduced in the house, of which i'm a co-sponsored, would establish a separate title for industry or sector strategies. as a supporter of the legislation, i'm working to ensure the principles set forth in this bill are included in a re-authorized wia. we need to recognize that different workers enter the job market in different ways. from young people entering apprenticeship programs or college, dislocated workers entering new careers to low-income adults entering adult education programs to obtain the skills to obtain an industry-recognized credential. for reasons of both equity and economic necessity we must work to provide every individual with the means and opportunity

to do so while removing barriers they may face along the way. career pathways accomplish this goal of easing individual into the job market by aligning adult education, job training, and higher education systems to create seamless transitions for workers at all points of their career trajectories. successful models allow individuals to easily move between institutions and programs to take advantage of new career opportunities while continuing to work and support their families. as with sector parking lot for theships, states have tapped into career pathways models as a way to provide economic opportunities for citizens while supplying businesses with new sources of talent. washington state has had significant success with its own ivest model which combines occupational skills train, college-level coursework and english language and basic

skills education to pro pre-pair workers for a broad range of occupations. research indicates that participants are more likely to continue into credit-bearing course work and earn occupational credentials than other adult education students. congressman bobby scott's state of virginia announced the implementation of a state wade strategy between education and employment system and ensure success. unfortunately, current law across a number of federal programs, including wia, the higher education act and temporary assistance for needy families presents obstacles to the development of career pathways,est pablish -- establishing different funding streams for various educational and employment programs and often creating conflicting performance measures between systems. even with a single program such as wia, we often see

disconnects in the system. for example, one outcome measure for an individual receiving adult basic education services under wia title two is the attainment of a g.e.d. however, simply having a g.e.d. does not mean a person has the skills he or she needs to enroll in a job training program funded under wia title one. unfortunately, far too often, people confronted with such obstacles get frustrated and drop out of the system. they never get the skills they need to succeed in the workforce. we must work to reduce the barriers between systems under current federal law and create incentives for states to better align and correct their workforce development, education and human services. wia authorization is one place to start. with that, i yield to the distinguished member from california, our chair, the gentlelady from california, ms. bar rah -- ms. barbara lee.

ms. lee: thank you, madam speaker. thank you, congresswoman marcia fudge. the gentlelady from ohio, for continuing to -- as i say, beat the drum every monday night on behalf of the congressional black caucus, on behalf of our communities, many of our communities which have been shut out and marginalized for years and years and years. but also on behalf of the american people because we know and recognize as members of the congressional black caucus that what's good for our communities, especially communities of color, the african-american community makes america stronger. it's good for the country. thank you very much for continuing to lift our voices on behalf of the people. tonight, you've done a great job talking about really the reason and the rationale we have to embrace workforce development training, job training because so many of our

constituents are not only recently unemployed, but they haven't been unemployed for many, many years, for many, many historic reasons, many of which are systemic. the opportunities just have not been there. and so -- as i was listening to you, i was reminded of the new green industry. it's a trillion-dollar industry. but of course there are many in our country who don't have the requisite skills to be able to even apply for these jobs in this new industry. i want to just call attention to one organization in my district, in oakland, california, the oakland green job corps, where young people are learning green technology, are learning to weatherize homes, are learning to put solar panels on roofs. they are learning and developing the skills necessary to be able to be fully employed in this new industry. these are young people who may

not have had a chance, had it not been for the training center, our city of oakland and the department of labor and all the partners who have helped put that together. our energy czar from the white house, ms. brown, came out and looked at the green job corps. we are hoping this will be seen as a model to replicate throughout the country. let me just remind you that the congressional black caucus has historically been known as the conscience of the congress. and we recognize that the dignity of all human beings is extremely important in our work to close these -- some of us call it the moral gaps that exist, the disparities. tonight, of course, we're talking about jobs and employment and unemployment. well, the good paying jobs

recognize the dignity of all human beings. when people are unemployed, when they don't have jobs, it's very difficult to take care of their families, take care of themselves and as a person who majored in psychiatric social work, i understand all the psychological effects. we see that each and every day now, the emotional trauma, the depression, suicide rates are soaring now as a result of this bush recession. and so we have to remember that when people are unemployed, it's not only that they don't have a job to make money, but it's -- their self-esteem, their self-worth, it's their dignity that becomes shattered as a result of this. so we have to work very hard each and every day to make sure that we provide the vehicles and the opportunities for everyone in our country to get a job. the trigger may have been, of course, the bubble in the

housing marks in terms of the unemployment rate, but i tell you the excesses in wall street and the failure of the bush administration to enforce any security laws, the deregulation of the financial services industry and i was on the financial services committee for eight year, we kept talking about that with chairman greenspan and there were few who really wanted to bite the bullet and say, we have to not do this, but we did, unfortunately. so now we have an industry that's just run wild, really. it's run amok. also, we have to remember that there was very little oversight of the banks. this unfortunate situation has spread the crisis to each and every household and business in our country. we've seen now seven million jobs lost since the beginning of the bush recession and how now this unemployment rate has risen to 9.4% nationally. 14.9%, however, for

african-americans and for latinos. during the bush administration, five million more people fell into poverty. unfortunately, now, we have 37 million americans living in poverty. 47 million with no health insurance. that is rising. and so we have to tackle this because if we don't tackle this, we will have millions more living in poverty. actually, last week, the congressional black caucus released our agenda, as well as our biannual report, we call it for all, pathways out of poverty. all members of the c.b.c. put one of their bills on this agenda. we have 42 bills and if you look at each and every of the legislation that's pending that we consider our priority legislation, each one provides a pathway out of poverty and

opportunity for all. we also unfortunately in the last few years have watched company after company cut their benefits and millions more americans now as i said earlier lost their health insurance and the 401k's, their retirement plans and pension plans have fallen, unfortunately, off the table. the last administration has left ourselves and our nation in shambles and it's really critical that we come together to begin the work of providing opportunities for all in america and ending this spiral of poverty that is spiraling, unfortunately, downward with millions more in this situation. we've got to expand and extend the proven anti-poverty programs that were included in the american recovery and reinvestment act, like expanding

access to the child tax credit and the earned income tax credit. we have to maintain support for the vital extensions of unemployment insurance and cobra health insurance. these are subsidies, while millions of americans -- they need these subsidies while millions of americans continue to face job loss and extended periods of unemployment. these are stop gap measures but this has to be seen as necessary just to stop the hemorrhaging and get people some relief so that they can survive and sustain themselves until the jobs that we are working so hard to create are created. we've got to maintain support for and invest in education and job training programs as congresswoman fudge talked about earlier. and fully support initiatives such as the affordable housing trust fund and the neighborhood stabilization program which our colleague, congresswoman maxine waters, who chairs the housing

and opportunity subcommittee of the financial services committee worked so hard with the congressional black caucus' support to bring some stability to our hardest-hit communities. but we all know we have to do more. we need to raise and index the minimum wage so that every working person can be assured that they will earn a wage that will lift them up and out of poverty each and every year without having to rely on legislation to keep up with increases in the cost of living. yes, we increase the minimum wage several -- increased the minimum wage several years ago but i believe that we must support and find ways to provide for a living wage, raising the minimum wage is not enough. we also must ensure access to early education, early childhood education, guarantee a quality public education for every american student and make sure that every working family has access to affordable, quality

child care. again, why is child care so important? well, we have millions of women, millions of single moms and single men, who want to work, but they can't afford the child care and so we cannot look at creating jobs without understanding we must provide for the job training and child care assistance so that he -- so that they can really afford to get a job and will not have to worry about their young people. also and oftentimes we forget this, there are millions of men now who are considered -- we call them in my community form early incarcerated individuals who have been released from jail and we know that the recidivism rate is very high and part of the reason is because there is very little employment for these individuals and so we have to

provide support for our re-entry initiatives and i'm very proud of the fact that congressman danny davis, a member of the congressional black caucus from illinois, continues to work on behalf of those who would not have this second chance. so we passed the second chance act a couple of years ago, but we must fully fund this so that we can provide for that job training and those jobs for form early incarcerated individuals. also our disconnected youth. we have young people who need jobs. many families now because of the fact that mothers and fathers are unemployed, oftentimes young people have to help and they deserve to be able to get a job, too. so we have to fully fund and support summer job programs for our young people which i'm very proud of the fact that president obama, speaker pelosi and all of our leadership here, our majority whip, support it with the economic recovery package to

make sure we have funding in there for our summer jobs program for youth. also, access to health care. some of us believe, i know many of us in the congressional black caucus believe that health care should not be a privilege. it's a basic right, it's a basic right and as we begin this health care debate, again, we cannot forget that closing health care disparities and communities of color must be part of any health care reform package. otherwise those communities, those individuals who have historically been discriminated against in our health care system and really that's what's happened over the years, it has been discrimination. they deserve to have some of these gaps closed and so this has to be part of any, again, part of a comprehensive approach to job creation and employment. so, let me just conclude by saying that during this economic

crisis we think that we have to see this also as an opportunity to make the changes that we seek, some of the systemic changes that we seek, to guarantee access to health care, to guarantee and ensure fair and adequate housing for all and to provide top flight education for all of our children and support the growth of the new green living wage economy that will carry america into the 21st century. we have to support the employee free choice act. many of us in the african-american community know that if it weren't for or if it hadn't been for labor unions, many of our families would not have become middle income and so the right to organize, the right to participate and to be in a union is essential because when we're talking about jobs we're not just talking about a job but we're talking about a job with justice, jobs with good-paying -- with benefits, with a

pension, with health care, the type of job that any american so deserves and so this employee free choice act is an extremely important part of any jobs movement that we have developed here in the congress and so the congressional black caucus continues to be the conscious -- conscience of the congress and we will continue to speak out for those who don't have a voice and for those who could possibly be left behind were it not for members of the congressional black caucus who stand strong, 42 of us, in moving forward an agenda, opportunities for all pathways out of poverty. let me thank congresswoman marcia fudge again for stepping up to the plate and for bringing this very crit cap -- critical debate once again on a monday night to the country. thank you. ms. fudge: thank you, madam chair. i would again like to thank our chair for her leadership. certainly congresswoman lee has

kept the focus of the c.b.c. on those who have the least and that is very, very important. she has kept our focus on job creation and has allowed us to be the voice for the voiceless. with her leadership we know that we represent more of the poor than any other group of people in this house. and it is just refreshing to know that our focus as a caucus is on poverty and jobs and i thank you again for your leadership and with that, madam chair, i would close by saying that -- mr. lee: would the gentleman yield for just a minute -- ms. lee: would the gentlelady yield for just a moment? let me talk about very quickly one of the aspects of job creation and the issue as it relates to pay equity for women. as i remember it, the numbers are really staggering, when you look at women.

they make, i think it's maybe 70-some cents on the dollar, african-american women a lot less, maybe 60-some cents on the dollar, latinas even less than that. i think it's very important that as we talk about jobs and job creation we have to really first applaud the president for signing the lilly ledbetter bill and secondly, in each and every initiative that we take here in the house, make sure that we look at the bills in terms of the type of equity and justice it brings to women. because women have a long way to go in our society. we've made tremendous gains but when you look at these moral gaps in terms of wages, we have to understand that we do need to take and some don't want to say affirmative action, but i consider affirmative action a very democratic policy so we do

need to take affirmative action to make sure that these disparities in wages as it relates to women are closed and closed very quickly as we create these new jobs in if the industries of the future -- in the industries of the future. ms. fudge: thank you, madam chair. i would say that there are so many things we need to be addressing. certainly what i have found in my home district is that as you look at what is happening with women and children, it's really appalling. right now the fastest growing group of children in schools today are homeless. homeless children. so that means their parents are homeless. and more times than not, it's just their mother. so these are people who most times don't have jobs, don't have the ability to take care of their children and we have to do what we have to do as a government. we have to make sure that which we provide and so i'm really -- that we provide and so i'm really happy that we put significant money in the act for

shelters, for homeless -- for meals for children, for many things that i think are going to make their lives better, food stamps. we've done what we think we needed to do to at least get them back moving in the right direction. so i think you're right. as we look at where women are today, not just in equal pay and benefits but in how we live as people in a society, i think it's very, very important that we focus on where women are going in this society and i know that because of your leadership that is one of the things the c.b.c. has been looking at so i thank you again for all that you do to make sure that women get equal treatment, that women have the ability to raise their children in a positive and safe place, because if we hadn't done some of the things that we've done with this recovery package, where would they be? i mean, certainly, you may be poor but you still deserve a decent place to live, you still deserve to be able to feed your

children and send your kids to school in a safe environment. so, again, i thank you just for the kind of leadership that you have given to us that makes us really take a look at what is happening in our communities. ms. lee: i thank the gentlelady for her comments and just want to say, we have to, you know, look at what is taking place with everyone in our country during this economic downturn and many have said, why would we do some of the things we did in the economic recovery package such as many of the initiatives which you spoke of? well, how could we not do it? otherwise we would leave millions behind once again. so that was a mandate that we had to do. another area that you helped us so brilliantly on was the involvement of and ensuring the involvement of minority and women-owned businesses in the economic recovery package. oftentimes as difficult as it is when you lose a job and are unemployed, new opportunities open up. small entrepreneurs now have the

opportunity now, those with creative ideas, to establish small businesses and we put, i believe it was $35 million in a microloan program, so the small entrepreneurs, people who have been unemployed who want to start a business who want to start whatever time of a business can go to the s.b.a. now and apply for a loan without having to go through all of the stuff businesses have to go through. now people who have been recently unemployed can have the opportunity to actually establish a small business so that they can take care of themselves and their families during this very difficult time. we also made sure that we put some very strong language in terms of the involvement of minority and women-owned businesses in all of the federal funding that was coming through the agencies in our package. for example, the department of transportation and the infrastructure money, well, and i'm saying this loud and clear

now to everyone in this country in terms of minority and women-owned businesses, that money that you will be -- that will be coming to these states, you have to make sure that you involve your minority and women-owned companies in contracts and subcontracts in this construction money and this infrastructure money because it's all well and good to be able to hire people for the jobs but there are many who have the skills and the businesses who want to participate in the economic vitality of our country through the business route and so it's very important that our smaller and minority and women-owned businesses are able to create the jobs themselves and that's a federal requirement, hopefully states are complying with the law, but if they're not, we definitely have an oversight process that's going to be looking at this and so i'll happily yield back now to my colleague from ohio. ms. fudge: thank you. again, madam chair, i think that we have done a lot of work in a