At-Large Councilman David A. Catania has introduced two bills that seek to tackle D.C.’s high unemployment rate by offering businesses more incentives to hire locally. Since the market bottomed out in 2009, the city’s unemployment rate still hovers at 10 percent, and roughly 1 in 4 residents of Ward 8 are unemployed.
One bill, co-sponsored by Ward 3 Councilwoman Mary Cheh, would require Certified Business Enterprises to staff at least half their workforce with District residents. A CBE designation allows companies to receive preferential treatment when seeking city contracts. Currently, there is no resident requirement per se for the CBE designation. However, the amount of D.C. residents a business employs is often considered when the city awards a contract.
The bill does, however, contain an exception for city savings — a CBE loses its preferential points if a competing firm submits a bid on a contract that is at least 12 percent cheaper. The exception is likely a nod to a hearing last month that revealed a CBE with a grass mowing contract for two city wards charged nearly twice the rate of another firm mowing the remaining six wards. That firm, however was based in Maryland and does not employ any District residents, while the other firm employed mostly D.C. residents.
Catania’s other bill introduced Tuesday, the WAGES Act, would expand the District’s earned income tax credit to residents ages 18 and older who meet the income requirements for the federal credit and are not eligible as a deductable child. The current age limit is 25 years old; the credit is available to childless adults who earn less than $13,400 a year.
Catania argues the credit expansion will help young adults entering the workforce avoid going on welfare.
“Experts agree this credit is one of the most effective anti-poverty programs ever enacted,” his new release says.
