The effect of the Reagan administration on federal employment and training policy and expenditure patterns

When Ronald Reagan assumed the presidency in 1981, he pursued an agenda to drastically alter the national government and public policy. Reducing federal spending and curtailing the vast social programs that had evolved since the 1930s were at the core of the agenda. The purpose of this study was to examine the extent to which the Reagan administration altered employment and training programs, one component of social policy, focusing on three questions: What were the major historic trends in federal policies and budgets for training and employment up to 1981? To what extent did changes during the Reagan years represent a shift in national policy? Were the budgetary changes for employment and training unique compared to other components of social policy? The intent was to examine the federal budget and policy changes during the Reagan era, placing them into a longer-term context. The analytic framework was based on historic and political-economic theories about the budgetary process, using legislative and budgetary documents and data from 1940 through 1996.; Spending on the broad budget function "human resources" continued to increase during and after the Reagan administration at about the same rate as before 1980, mainly due to rising expenditures on health care. Spending for the subfunction "employment, training, education, and related services," though, declined sharply during the Reagan years, even though the downward trend had already begun in the late 1970s. Further disaggregation found that basic employment and job training programs, mainly for the disadvantaged, received a disproportionate funding reduction during the Reagan years, compared to other employment and education activities. Also, spending on other employment-related components and the overall human resources category gradually resumed the pre-Reagan trend of incremental increases, but by 1996, the funding for basic job training programs had not been restored to pre-Reagan levels.; The legacy of the Reagan administration in employment and training policy is that many goals were achieved through the budgetary process, rather than just through new legislation, and that the disproportionately large spending reductions imposed were dramatic enough to alter federal spending patterns that otherwise change only incrementally.