The federal government's experience with adult retraining programs began in 1962 with the passage of the Manpower Development and Training Act and creation of the Trade Adjustment Assistance program. When the 1973 Comprehensive Employment and Training Act expired in 1982, Congress enacted the Job Training Partnership Act. During the 1980s, states…

The Job Training Partnership Act (JTPA) was heralded as a major overhaul of the Comprehensive Employment and Training Act (CETA) program. Five years after passage of JTPA, the answer to the question of whether it has indeed managed to remedy CETA's shortcomings appears to be an unequivocal maybe. Although the JTPA has been praised by numerous…