Order 13100 EO 1
MEMORANDUM FROM THE PRESIDENT
March 8, 1997
MEMORANDUM FOR THE HEADS OF EXECUTIVE DEPARTMENTS AND AGENCIES
SUBJECT: Government Employment for Welfare Recipients
Since I signed the historic welfare reform law, I have urged
businesses, nonprofit organizations, and religious groups across the
Nation to help make its promise of opportunity real by offering jobs to
welfare recipients. We are making great progress, but there is more to do.
And today, I take action to ensure that the Federal Government, as the
Nation's largest employer, contributes to the greatest extent possible to
this national effort.
I therefore direct each of you, as head of an agency or department, to
use all available hiring authorities, consistent with statute and prior
executive memoranda, to hire people off the welfare rolls into available
job positions in the Government.
In particular, I direct you to expand the use of the WorkerTrainee
Program and other excepted service hiring authorities. The Worker-Trainee
Program allows agencies to quickly and easily hire entry-level persons for
up to 3 years, with the ability to convert the appointment to career
status if the employee has performed satisfactorily. Though recently
underutilized, the program allows agencies to bypass complex Federal
personnel hiring rules and procedures to bring people into the junior
grades of the work force.
I further direct you, in recognition of the different characteristics
of the various agencies' work forces, to prepare an individualized plan
for hiring welfare recipients and to submit that plan to me within 30
days. This plan should have three principal components:
- The plan should contain a survey indicating in which divisions and
for which categories of positions your agency can most easily hire
welfare recipients, both in the Washington, D.C. area, and in the
field.
- The plan should describe in detail how the agency intends to recruit
and hire qualified welfare recipients. This description should include
a proposed local outreach program, and utilize Federal
Executive Boards and Federal Executive Agencies to bring Federal
job opportunities to the attention of welfare offices, State and
private employment offices, nonprofit organizations, and others that
work with welfare recipients on a regular basis. This program should
build upon the Government's existing nationwide employment information
systems.
- The plan should describe in detail how the agency will assist
welfare recipients, once hired, to perform well and to keep their
jobs. The agency should include in this aspect of the plan proposals
for on-the-job training and/or mentoring programs.
I expect each agency head to report to me about his or her plan at a
special cabinet meeting called for that purpose. Following this meeting, I
also expect monthly reports on implementation.
To ensure deep and continuing involvement in this issue by the White
House, I ask the Vice President to oversee this effort. Based on his
expertise in Federal workplace issues, he will assist all agencies in
carrying out their commitments.
Finally, I direct appropriate agencies to take three steps that will
help bring welfare recipients into the Federal work force while assisting
all other low-income Federal employees.
- I direct each agency head to notify all employees eligible for the
Earned Income Tax Credit (EITC) of both their eligibility and their
ability to receive EITC monies each month in their paychecks.
Currently, not all agencies inform qualifying employees of their
eligibility and options for payment. To insure uniform implementation,
I direct the Secretary of the Treasury to issue to each agency within
15 days a statement of EITC eligibility rules which agencies can use
to inform their employees.
- I direct the General Services Administration (GSA) to issue within
30 days guidelines regarding use of the Federal Fare Subsidy Program.
These guidelines should address whether agencies may offer fare
subsidies based on employee income, which would enable more agencies
to participate in the Fare Subsidy Program.
- I direct the GSA, after consultation with all Federal agencies, to
report back to me within 30 days on plans to assist low-income Federal
workers in finding affordable child care. This report shall include
information on agency-sponsored child care centers and agency
contracts with local child care resource and referral services, as
well as recommendations on any appropriate expansion of these
arrangements to provide assistance to low-income Federal workers.
WILLIAM J. CLINTON
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