Making Up for Lower Pay

The program is reaching only a fraction of those eligible, however, due to the complicated qualification requirements and a lack of knowledge about the program among front-line job counselors. Last year, a Government Accountability Office report found that no more than 20 percent of older workers at five closed job sites received the wage benefit; at two sites, more than half of older workers were not aware of it. Others had trouble finding a new job before the six-month deadline.

Since the program began in 2003, fewer than 6,800 workers have received wage insurance, with nearly half of them signing up last year.

A bill by Senate Finance Committee Chairman Max Baucus (D-Mont.) and Sen. Norm Coleman (R-Minn.) would expand the entire trade-adjustment program to include service-sector workers whose jobs are lost to trade and would lower the age minimum for wage insurance to 40. McDermott and Sen. Charles E. Schumer (D-N.Y.), the third-ranking Democrat in the Senate, are working to adapt a proposal by Brainard and others that would cover almost any displaced worker of any age who loses a job for almost any reason and takes a new one for lower pay. Workers who make less than $97,500 would be eligible, according to a Schumer aide, and benefits could be increased to a maximum of $20,000.

Such an expansion would cause the cost of the program to increase to roughly $3.5 billion annually from about $20 million. Brainard said the cost could be covered by adding $25 to every worker's annual unemployment tax, an idea Schumer said he is considering.

While there is support in both parties for wage insurance, the idea is also drawing fire. Many labor unions oppose it, saying it encourages workers to accept lower wages and benefits. They also argue that the program amounts to "burial insurance" for workers whose jobs should have been protected in the first place.

At a hearing on wage insurance before the Joint Economic Committee last week, Maurice Emsellem, policy director for the National Employment Law Project, argued that wage insurance doesn't work and is likely to steal resources from the nation's unemployment insurance system and other benefit programs.

Some Republicans are willing to embrace a limited expansion of the program as a trade-off for renewing the president's trade-negotiating authority. But they are reluctant to expand it significantly at a time when the Bush administration and congressional Democrats have promised to balance the federal budget.

"My role is to make sure it's directly related to trade, not used as a subterfuge for another social-benefit program," said Sen. Charles E. Grassley (Iowa), the ranking Republican on the Senate Finance Committee, which handles trade legislation.

With many people in both parties backing at least a limited expansion, more workers seem likely to find themselves eligible for the program that has been a blessing for Michael Maynard.

"I thought I was going to lose a lot of money and that's that," he said. But the extra money he gets from the government "is keeping me alive."