Comprehensive Employment and Training Act Statement on the Level of Public Service Jobs Under the Program.

It gives me great pleasure to announce that the level of public service jobs under the CETA program reached 753,000 in the first week of March. This surpasses the target of 725,000 we had set for that date more than 9 months ago.

Last May, when the economic stimulus package was passed, there were fewer than 300,000 jobs being provided by the major public service employment titles of the Comprehensive Employment and Training Act. There were numerous contentions that we would be unable to meet our schedule of 725,000 jobs by March 1.

Not only did we meet the target, but we met it in the week we had scheduled more than 9 months ago. This demonstrates that the CETA system is an effective fiscal policy tool that can move rapidly against the problem of unemployment.

This rapid expansion of the public service jobs program was done without the creation of a large, new Federal bureaucracy.

It was done, as a recent study by Richard Nathan of the Brookings Institution indicates, without a significant degree of substitution of CETA workers for regular municipal employees.

The increase in CETA employment since May was accompanied by a much larger increase in private sector employment. While the 450,000 new CETA jobs were being created, private employment increased by 2.6 million. The unemployment rate fell from 7.1 percent to 6.1 percent now. Black employment increased by 5.9 percent. It is estimated that 33 percent of that increase was due to the buildup of the CETA system jobs.

The growth since May has been concentrated much more heavily among disadvantaged workers than before. Prior to the expansion, fewer than half the enrollees in the major CETA employment titles were disadvantaged. During the expansion, more than 86 percent of new enrollees were disadvantaged. I have submitted to the Congress a reauthorization of the CETA bill that will devote 100 percent of the future resources of the system to the disadvantaged.

The new bill also contains a provision that automatically increases the funding for this program when the unemployment rate rises. Our recent success in reaching the 725,000 jobs target indicates these additional funds will be able to be spent quickly and efficiently, as we had intended when drafting the new bill.

I took office with the firm conviction that government can be made to work compassionately, quickly, and effectively. The successful expansion of the public service jobs program within such a short period of time reaffirms my faith in the ability of government to deal directly with serious economic and social problems.