The U.S. economy is rebounding: real gross domestic product growth has reached a 20-year high, the stock market is up and business investment is increasing. However, while the job market is improving, the gains have been modest. In many cases, workers must build new skills to fully participate in an economic recovery that is being driven by growth in new industries. To ensure workers get the new skills needed to achieve economic security, the United States should re-examine its training and unemployment programs. Could a new, worker-centered approach to retraining programs and unemployment insurance empower individuals, better prepare them for new jobs and ultimately reduce unemployment?

• Would Personal Reemployment Accounts (PRAs), which provide individual workers with the flexibility to choose their own training path, be a better way to help them get back to work quickly?

• What effect would individual unemployment insurance accounts, which provide incentives for workers to save for the possibility of being unemployed, have on the unemployment rate?

Speakers include:

R. Glenn Hubbard, Ph.D. Russell L. Carson Professor of Finance and Economy Columbia University, Graduate School of Business

Emily S. DeRocco Assistant Secretary Employment and Training Administration, U.S. Department of Labor

Diana Furchtgott-Roth Chief Economist Office of Policy, U.S. Department of Labor

Donald Marron, Ph.D. Executive Director and Chief Economist Joint Economic Committee