An Analysis Of The Employment And Training Policies Of The Kennedy And Johnson Administrations

In the waves of science-and-technology revolution following World Warâ…¡, the technological changes in production set off the transconformation of American industry and economy, which transferred the United States to Post-industrial Society. In the above process, social elites and governmental officials in the U.S. recognized the negative effects brought about in the labor market as the poverty among affluence. During the period of Kennedy and Johnson Administrations, the U.S. Congress and Federal Government first established and then reformed the employment and training policies, which, as the watermark of the microeconomic policies of the early 1960s, developed into welfare policies in the years after1964. The policies in the first half of decade were to solve the structural unemployment and improve the employment ability of the labor force, while the policies after 1964 was ultimately to eliminate poverty by using the methods of employment and training. By utilizing a great deal of government documents and findings produced by research institutions and scholars, this dissertation reviews the background of the employment and training policies in the Kennedy and Johnson Administrations. Special attention was devoted to the formation, legalization, implementation and various programs therein. After making a comprehensive survey, we could find that, no matter how the tenets and characters of the policies in the Kennedy and Johnson Administrations changed, the operations all embodied the objectives of fulfilling the needs of labor-shortage in some specific industries, providing employment opportunities to the unemployed as much as possible, furnishing the approaches of casting off the poverty and improving the qualities of the labor force.The dissertation is composed of three sections: the introduction, the main body and the conclusion. The introduction part mainly introduces the previous research work on the subject of the U.S. Federal employment and training policies by American and Chinese scholars, and then describes the adopted research methods in writing the paper, the theory basis and both the academic and realistic significance of the subject. The main body is made up of three parts. The first part includes two chapters. Chapter One explores the transconformation of American society and the problems of unemployment and poverty, revealing the shortage of social welfare system. Chapter Two describes the origin of Federal employment and training policies and the related debates within and without government decision makers, including the policy-debate toward Employment Act of 1946, the tax policies and the problem of unemployment, as well as the discussion of all fields toward the utilization and development of manpower resources and other problems, such as automatization. The second part includes two parts. Chapter Three discusses the process, operation and partial adjustments of employment and training policies toward structural unemployment, including the establishments, operation and partial adjustments of Area Redevelopment Act of 1961 and Manpower Development and Training Act of 1962. Chapter Four expounds the transformation of employment and training policies from microeconomic policies to welfare policies in the period of"War on Poverty", including the causes of transformation, the establishment of Economic Opportunity Act of 1964, the amendments to Manpower Development and Training Act of 1962, and institutional management which influence the policy transformation. Chapter Five describes the operation and effects of employment and training programs in the Kennedy and Johnson Administrations, involving federal management, local operation and specific programs, the extent of policy accomplishment, and so forth. The conclusion part generalizes the main viewpoints of this dissertation, and summarizes the characters of employment and training policies in the Kennedy and Johnson Administrations, the objectives and operation of those policies, and characteristics and conditioning factors which were embodied in the policy operation and adjustments.