Want To Know About Your Tax Rebate Check?

The IRS has released information about when to expect your Economic Stimulus Payment and how to calculate the amount you will receive. Click Here to Learn More. 

America 's Edge

Say yes! I support sharpening America's Edge in the global economy.  America's Edge relies on our skills and our kids' abilities to learn and adapt to the ever-changing demands of tomorrow's workplaces. And it is time public investment flowed in their direction.  Go to www.americasedge.tv and sign the petition.

Each decade, 30 million American children enter high school but only 6 million of them ever receive a college degree. The remaining 24 million either drop out; complete high school and enter the workforce; or attend a community college or university for a couple of years.
Each year, over half a trillion dollars of local, state and federal monies is focused on students bound for college. Technical and vocational education, by contrast, receives less than two percent of that amount.
Increasingly, blue collar kids find the path to college blocked by exorbitant tuition costs, intense academic competition, static enrollment levels in colleges and universities, and the financial realities facing their families. Entering the workforce immediately after high school seems their only realistic option.
And yet, America faces a growing skills shortage. Labor economists predict that �a serious lack of skilled workers will begin in 2005 and grow to 5.3 million in 2010 and 21 million in 2020.�
A recent white paper on California�s growing labor/skill shortage reports that �the percentage of employers who indicate that they have difficulty filling vacancies for highly skilled blue-collar workers is very high � 68 percent.� The paper asserts that California is �suffering from �chronic underinvestment in training.�� And California is not alone.
Senator Tom Harkin put the issue in perspective. �Today�s skill deficiencies and tomorrow�s skill demands will require significant investment in education and training. Employers estimate that 39 percent of their current workforce and 26 percent of new hires will have basic skill deficiencies � Seventy-five percent of the American workforce will need to be retrained merely to retain their jobs. �The IAM�s SKILLS initiative is called America�s Edge. It has three components:

• Re-emphasizing technical and vocational classes in America�s high schools;
• Expanding the availability of industrial technology and information technology courses in America�s community colleges; and
• Creating High Tech Institutes in each state that focus on 21st Century manufacturing technologies and materials.

The IAM�s SKILLS initiative � with its inherent appeal to the values of family security, fairness, work and personal fulfillment � has great potential. It connects with blue collar workers at many levels:

• taking pride in their work and workmanship
• achieving more job security and a higher standard for living for their family
• getting a fairer start for their kids to face the global competition

Simply put, AMERICA�S EDGE relies on OUR SKILLS and OUR KIDS abilities to learn and adapt to the ever-changing demands of tomorrow�s workplaces. And it is time public investment flowed in their direction.

Health Care Survey

Working men and women of every age, race and income know the importance of health care to our families. This survey is our chance to make our voices heard and ensure that leaders and candidates at every level understand what working families are experiencing.
 Survey responses will be given to the presidential candidates, every U.S. senator and representative, every candidate for Congress and state and local officials in every state in our country.