Respondent places particular emphasis on legislative statements expressing an intention, for example, to extend coverage "on the basis of services performed for all educational institutions," H. R. Rep. No. 94-755, at 56,18 and to "employees of non-profit elementary and secondary schools," id., at 2. See also id., at 41 ("This section requires States, as a condition for tax offset credit to their employers, to extend coverage to employees of non-profit primary and secondary institutions of education, thus broadening present required coverage limited to non-profit institutions of higher education"); S. Rep. No. 94-1265, pp. 2, 9-10 (1976).

These references are simply too general and too ambiguous to bear the weight respondent would assign to them.19 There is no indication that Congress, in these references, had in mind the scope of § 3309 (b)(1) and religious organizations. Rather, all the evidence demonstrates that it was concerned solely with the then-existing § 3309 (b)(3) and secular educational institutions, particularly the public schools. Furthermore, the reported comments implying total coverage of all educational institutions, as a result of the repeal of the former § 3309 (b)(3), could not be taken as literally true because the 1970 Report expressly had noted that a college

18 This comment reads in full:

"Section 115 (b) also has the effect of requiring the State to pay unemployment compensation on the basis of services performed for all educational institutions. Under existing law, the State is only required to provide coverage of services performed for institutions of higher education."

19 The United States also relies on Congress' expressed intention to cover "substantially all of the nation's wage and salary earners," H. R. Rep. No. 94-755, at 1, and "to provide equal treatment of all the nation's wage and salary workers under the permanent unemployment compensation law." Id., at 2. Such general statements of overall purpose contained in legislative reports cannot defeat the specific and clear wording of a statute. Helvering v. City Bank Co., 296 U. S. 85, 89 (1935); Caminetti v. United States, 242 U. S. 470, 490 (1917). Cf. Gooch v. United States, 297 U. S. 124, 128 (1936).

"devoted primarily to preparing students for the ministry," H. R. Rep. No. 91-612, at 44, would be exempt. All institutions of higher education had not been covered by the 1970 Amendments.

Respondent also relies on a single statistic estimating the number of employees newly to be covered as a result of the repeal of the then § 3309 (b)(3). See S. Rep. No. 94-1265, at 8 (table). This statistical reference, to the effect that 242,000 employees of nonprofit organizations would be covered by the 1976 repeal of subsection (b)(3), is much too meager to sustain respondent's position. The Committee Report's table containing this figure is devoid of any explanation, source, or supporting data. The South Dakota Supreme Court relied on the figure, however, reasoning that because it "approximates the total number of teachers in all nonprofit elementary and secondary schools" in 1975,2o 290 N. W. 2d, at 849, and n. 5, Congress must have included within that number religious-school teachers, who constitute more than half the staff of all private elementary and secondary schools in the United States. Yet, in repealing § 3309 (b)(3), Congress intended to include not just full-time teachers, but all employees of the newly covered nonprofit private elementary and secondary schools (custodians, cafeteria workers, nurses, part-time help. counselors, etc.). Thus, the inclusion of all employees in nonprofit private lower schools within the number of persons brought within FUTA by the repeal would far exceed the 242,000 contained in the Report's table, rendering it, in our view, of dubious significance for the present issue.

This legislative history does not reveal any clear intent to repeal § 3309 (b)(1) or to alter its meaning. The Court has

20 The court noted that census figures for 1975 showed 261,000 full-time teachers in nonprofit elementary and secondary schools, of which 150,000 were in Roman Catholic schools. Cf. Bureau of the Census, Statistical Abstract of the United States 155 (1980) (reporting that in 1976 there were 268,908 teachers in such schools and that, of these, 206,577 were in schools with a "church affiliation").

STEVENS, J., concurring in judgment

451 U.S.

had frequent occasion to note that such indefinite congressional expressions cannot negate plain statutory language and cannot work a repeal or amendment by implication. "In the absence of some affirmative showing of an intention to repeal, the only permissible justification for a repeal by implication is when the earlier and later statutes are irreconcilable." Morton v. Mancari, 417 U. S. 535, 550 (1974); see also Watt v. Alaska, ante, p. 259; TVA v. Hill, 437 U. S. 153, 189–190 (1978); FTC v. A. P. W. Paper Co., 328 U. S. 193, 202–203 (1946); Posadas v. National City Bank, 296 U. S. 497, 503505 (1936); United States v. Noce, 268 U. S. 613, 618-619 (1925); United States v. Greathouse, 166 U. S. 601, 605 (1897). This long-established canon of construction carries special weight when an implied repeal or amendment might raise constitutional questions. See NLRB v. Catholic Bishop of Chicago, 440 U. S. 490 (1979). We therefore hold that the repeal of § 3309 (b)(3) did not alter the meaning of § 3309 (b)(1). Petitioners are eligible for exemption under subsection (b)(1)(A) by virtue of the nature of their relationship to the church bodies that employ them.

This makes it unnecessary for us to consider the First Amendment issues raised by petitioners.

The judgment of the Supreme Court of South Dakota is reversed, and the case is remanded to that court for further proceedings not inconsistent with this opinion.

It is so ordered.

JUSTICE STEVENS, concurring in the judgment.

The legislative history of the Unemployment Compensation Amendments of 1976, 90 Stat. 2667, persuades me that Congress did intend the repeal of 26 U. S. C. § 3309 (b)(3) to remove the exemption from coverage under the Federal Unemployment Tax Act (FUTA) for all employees of private, nonprofit elementary and secondary schools. Not only do the Senate and House Committee Reports expressly so

772

STEVENS, J., concurring in judgment

state,1 but also the estimate contained in the Senate Report of the number of additional employees that would be covered by the FUTA as a result of the repeal of § 3309 (b)(3) confirms the contemporaneous understanding of the draftsmen of the 1976 Amendments. Nothing in the 1976 Amendments

1 The House Report states:

"Section 115 (b) also has the effect of requiring the State to pay unemployment compensation on the basis of services performed for all educational institutions. Under existing law, the State is only required to provide coverage of services performed for institutions of higher education." H. R. Rep. No. 94-755, p. 56 (1975).

See also id., at 2, 6, 41. Similarly, the Senate Report provides:

"The bill would require the States to extend the coverage of their unemployment compensation programs to employees of nonprofit elementary and secondary schools (present law requires coverage for employees of institutions of higher education)." S. Rep. No. 94-1265, p. 2 (1976). See also id., at 7, 9-11.

In addition, the legislative history contains several references to the general congressional intention to extend the coverage of the FUTA to substantially all of the Nation's wage earners. See, e. g., H. R. Rep. No. 94-755, supra, at 1-2; 122 Cong. Rec. 22518-22519 (1976); id., at 2289922900. While such general statements of legislative purpose cannot override plain statutory language, see ante, at 786, n. 19, they are nonetheless consistent with the more specific statements of purpose quoted above.

2 The Senate Report estimated that 242,000 additional employees of nonprofit organizations would be covered under the FUTA as a result of the repeal of § 3309 (b) (3). See S. Rep. No. 94-1265, supra, at 8. This figure approximated the number of full-time teachers in all private, nonprofit elementary and secondary schools in 1975. See ante, at 787, n. 20. Because well over one-half of these teachers were employed in parochial schools, respondent argues that this statistic, although perhaps slightly inaccurate, indicates that Congress intended to extend coverage to employees of parochial elementary and secondary schools. As the Court notes, the South Dakota Supreme Court accepted this argument. See ante, at 787; 290 N. W. 2d 845, 849, and n. 5 (1980).

The Court finds that respondent's reliance upon this statistic is misplaced because, "in repealing § 3309 (b) (3), Congress intended to include not just full-time teachers, but all employees of the newly covered nonprofit private elementary and secondary schools." Ante, at 787 (emphasis in original). The Court's observation, however, indicates only that the

STEVENS, J., concurring in judgment

451 U.S.

or the corresponding legislative history suggests that Congress believed the extension of FUTA coverage to nonprofit, private schools applied only to nonprofit, private, nonparochial schools.3

Despite this legislative history, I agree with the Court's conclusion that FUTA coverage does not extend to persons employed in petitioners' schools. Although Congress' intention to cover such employees was, in my judgment, clear, the 1976 Amendments simply failed to give effect to that intention. By repealing § 3309 (b)(3), Congress removed only one of the two statutory exemptions that, by their terms, applied to employees of parochial elementary and secondary schools. Congress left in place and did not qualify the scope of the separate exemption granted by § 3309 (b)(1). The clear expressions of congressional intent that appear in the legislative history of the Act that repealed § 3309 (b) (3) statistic was factually inaccurate; it does not undercut respondent's reliance upon that statistic as a guide to congressional intent. Whether Congress believed that the figure 242,000 was an estimate of the number of additional teachers that would be covered by the Act as a result of the repeal of § 3309 (b) (3), or an estimate of the number of additional employees that would be so covered, the estimate would have had meaning only if at least some parochial school employees were represented among the 242,000 newly covered individuals.

It also should be noted that the Secretary of Labor, in his order declining to certify the unemployment compensation programs of the States of Alabama and Nevada under the FUTA, stated that the statistic had been supplied to Congress by the Department of Labor as the thenavailable best estimate of the total number of employees in all nonprofit, private elementary and secondary schools. See 44 Fed. Reg. 64378, 6438064382, and n. 16 (1979). The Secretary also expressly stated that the estimate included employees of church-related elementary and secondary schools. See ibid.

In light of the fact that approximately 86% of the students, see Rice, Conscientious Objection to Public Education: The Grievance and the Remedies, 1978 B. Y. U. L. Rev. 847, and over 50% of the teachers in private, nonprofit elementary and secondary schools are in parochial schools, Congress' failure to mention any exception for such schools is surely significant.

1