WASHINGTON — The House gave final approval on Thursday to a significant expansion of aid to workers displaced by global competition, sending to President Obama the second half of a trade package that House Democrats dramatically rejected just two weeks ago.
The trade adjustment assistance program was approved overwhelmingly, 286-138, as part of a broader trade bill assembled by Senator Mitch McConnell, Republican of Kentucky, the majority leader, to ensure that Mr. Obama has enhanced powers to complete major trade accords with Asia and Europe.
Beyond health care, education and retraining assistance to dislocated workers, the newly approved measure extends a popular trade agreement with much of sub-Saharan Africa and expands the government's ability to confront trade partners that "dump" steel and other products in the United States at artificially low prices to drive American companies into bankruptcy.
Earlier this month, House Democrats joined conservative Republicans to vote down the worker assistance legislation, hoping to scuttle the White House's entire trade effort. This time, the assistance bill came before the House as a stand-alone measure that arrived a day after the Democrats' true target — enhanced trade negotiating power — was passed by the Senate and sent to the president for his signature.
Trade adjustment assistance programs have existed since the Kennedy administration, but pro-trade Democrats demanded a significant expansion as a price for their support for so-called trade promotion authority. The bill extends assistance through June 2022, with an expansion of the program through June 2021. That includes $ 2.7 billion for worker retraining and education, while making workers in service industries eligible for a program once reserved for out-of-work manufacturing workers.
The bill extends and expands a tax credit for the purchase of health insurance, and it includes subsidies for the wages of workers age 50 or who are older forced to take lower-paid jobs than the ones they lost to international competition.
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Some Democrats remained opposed. Representative Stephen Lynch, Democrat of Massachusetts and a former union president, railed against Congress's abrogation of its responsibility by agreeing to the trade promotion authority (T.P.A.), which blocks Congress from amending the trade agreement. He said that decision could not be assuaged by the salve of welfare.
"I would rather have my representative fighting for my job than coming up with a public assistance program after I lost my job," he said.
But Republicans had Democrats cornered.
"T.P.A. is already the law of the land," said Representative Pete Sessions, Republican of Texas. "The question for us today is whether we are going to include the last parts of the package."
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