Comprehensive Employment and Training Act

{{Use American English|date=June 2025}}

{{Infobox legislation

| short_title = Comprehensive Employment and Training Act (CETA)

| legislature = U.S. Congress

| long_title =

| citation = Pub. L. 93-203 Comprehensive Employment and Training Act of 1973

| territorial_extent = United States

| enacted_by = U.S. Congress

| date_enacted = December 28, 1973

| date_assented =

| date_signed = December 28, 1973

| signed_by = Richard Nixon

| date_commenced =

| bill = S. 1559, Comprehensive Employment and Training Act of 1973

| bill_citation = Pub. L. 93-203 Comprehensive Employment and Training Act of 1973

| bill_date =

| introduced_by = Gaylord Nelson (D–WI)

| 1st_reading =

| 2nd_reading =

| 3rd_reading =

| repealed_by = Ronald Reagan in March 1984

| related_legislation = Job Training Partnership Act of 1982

| summary =

| keywords = artist relief, art jobs program, federal artist employment, public art

| status = repealed

}}

The Comprehensive Employment and Training Act (CETA, {{USPL|93|203}}) was a United States federal law enacted by the Congress, and signed into law by President Richard Nixon on December 28, 1973{{Citation

| last = Peters

| first = Gerhard

| last2 = Woolley

| first2 = John T.

| title = Statement on Signing the Comprehensive Employment and Training Act of 1973, December 28, 1973

| work = The American Presidency Project

| url = http://www.presidency.ucsb.edu/ws/index.php?pid=4088

| accessdate = 2012-08-30}} to train workers and provide them with jobs in the public service.{{Cite web|last=Maksymowicz|first=Virginia|date=2020-12-26|title=The Forgotten Federally Employed Artists|url=https://hyperallergic.com/610071/the-forgotten-federally-employed-artists/|access-date=2020-12-27|website=Hyperallergic|language=en-US}} The bill was introduced as S. 1559, the Comprehensive Employment and Training Act of 1973,{{cite web

| title = Bill Summary & Status, 93rd Congress (1973-1974), S.1559

| work = THOMAS

| publisher = Library of Congress

| url = https://www.congress.gov/bill/93rd-congress/senate-bill/1559}} by Democratic Senator Gaylord Nelson of Wisconsin.

The program offered work to those with low incomes and the long term unemployed as well as summer jobs to low income high school students. Full-time jobs were provided for a period of 12 to 24 months in public agencies or private not for profit organizations. The intent was to impart a marketable skill that would allow participants to move to an unsubsidized job. It was an extension of the Works Progress Administration (WPA) program from the 1930s.

Inspired by the WPA's employment of artists in the service to the community in the 1930s, the San Francisco Arts Commission initiated the CETA/Neighborhood Arts Program in the 1970s, which employed painters, muralists, musicians, performing artists, poets and gardeners to work in schools, community centers, prisons and wherever their skills and services were of value to the community.Reiss, Suzanne B.,interviewer, [https://calisphere.org/item/344189833efbf0994f59a1f742b0bd41/ “The Arts and Community Oral History Project: San Francisco Neighborhood Arts Program,”] Bancroft Library, University of California, Berkeley, 1978 The idea for CETA/Neighborhood Arts Program came from John Kreidler, then working with the Arts Commission as an intern, with the Arts Commission's Neighborhood Arts Program under the direction of Stephen Goldstine.{{Cite web|last=Hamlin|first=Jesse|date=2008-04-21|title=S.F. Neighborhood Arts: 40 years of art for all|url=https://www.sfgate.com/education/article/S-F-Neighborhood-Arts-40-years-of-art-for-all-3287194.php|access-date=2020-12-27|website=SFGATE|language=en-US}}{{Cite web|last=Chen|first=Kevin B.|last2=Cortez|first2=Jaime|date=2017|title=Legacy of the Neighborhood Arts Program|url=https://www.foundsf.org/index.php?title=Legacy_of_the_Neighborhood_Arts_Program|url-status=live|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20190319132959/http://www.foundsf.org/index.php?title=Legacy_of_the_Neighborhood_Arts_Program |archive-date=2019-03-19 |access-date=2020-12-27|website=FoundSF}} The program was so successful in San Francisco that it became a model for similar programs, nationally. The CETA Artists Project in New York City was one of the largest.

Nine years later, CETA was replaced by the Job Training Partnership Act.{{Cite web|title = WB - Our History (An Overview 1920 - 2012)|url = http://www.dol.gov/wb/info_about_wb/interwb.htm|website = www.dol.gov|accessdate = 2015-10-13}}{{Cite news|last=Bovard|first=James|date=2011-09-13|title=What Job 'Training' Teaches? Bad Work Habits|language=en-US|work=Wall Street Journal|url=https://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424053111904332804576538361788872004.html|access-date=2020-12-27|issn=0099-9660}}