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Fair Trade Archive: GTW E-Newsletters, Action Alerts, and Updates 
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NAFTA-Transitional Adjustment Assistance (1994-2002)An estimated 525,094 U.S. workers were certified as eligible for the NAFTA-TAA (Transitional Adjustment Assistance) program between 1994 and the end of 2002 when the program was terminated. This program provided up to 52 weeks of income support (after regular unemployment benefits have been exhausted) for workers enrolled in training at a program-qualified facility who had lost (or were threatened with losing) manufacturing jobs or substantial income as a direct result of Canadian or Mexican imports, or whose employer relocated production to one of those countries. As with the TAA program, only those groups of workers who filed for certification with the Department of Labor (DoL) and who met all the criteria were eligible for benefits. According to our data, the DoL certified 62 percent of NAFTA-TAA petitions that it received in the almost nine years of the program's existence. These data represent a limited sample of all workers who have lost jobs or income as a result of NAFTA. Many affected workers did not apply to the program. First, the majority of workers who are not represented by a union may not have been aware of the program as there was no requirement for mandatory posting of information about the program at local unemployment offices. Second, many unions suggested to their affected workers to apply for generic Trade Adjustment Assistance (TAA) program or seek benefits under the Workforce Investment Act (WIA) because these programs were easier to comply with than the NAFTA-TAA --which cut off benefits to workers who were not living in proximity to approved training programs and thus could not enroll and attend within a set number of days after initial certification. Many laid-off workers are also likely to have foregone training and instead jumped into lower-paid positions in the service sector. Furthermore, the eligibility criteria for NAFTA-TAA were narrow and excluded many workers who lost jobs or significant wages under NAFTA. For example, workers at an auto plant that relocated to Mexico would be covered but the plant's parts manufacturers and suppliers, as well as stores and restaurants in the community, would not have met the criteria. The secondary suppliers may have been eligible for assistance under a different program; all service workers were excluded. While jobs certified under the NAFTA-TAA program represent only the tip of the iceberg in terms of total NAFTA-related job losses, it does provide an important record of specific cases where workers lost jobs or wages as a direct result of NAFTA. For a more comprehensive estimate of NAFTA-related job losses, please see the Economic Policy Institute's report "The High Price of 'Free' Trade: NAFTA's failure has cost the U.S. jobs across the nation." NAFTA-TAA was terminated in the 2002 Fast Track bill which established a new consolidated Trade Adjustment Assistance (TAA) program. Many observers understood the elimination of the NAFTA-TAA program to be a political maneuver to try to mask the serious NAFTA job loss. NAFTA-TAA petitions received before November 4, 2002 were processed and certified and workers will have access to benefits for the full period of their eligibility. Data on certifications under the expanded TAA program are available here.
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