Block Grants Won’t Solve America’s Workforce Challenges—Local Expertise Will 

Posted on by Stacy

As I sat in the Rayburn hearing room on Capitol Hill yesterday as the House Education and Workforce Committee heard testimony from Secretary of Labor Lori Chavez-DeRemer, I was struck by a deep sense of irony. 

At a time when the Administration is promising to reshore manufacturing jobs, modernize our infrastructure, strengthen supply chains, and boost labor force participation, the president’s budget proposal for fiscal year 2026 cuts funding and dismantles proven programs that are essential for developing the talent pipelines needed to achieve these critical national goals. 

Secretary Chavez-DeRemer highlighted the Administration’s proposed budget as giving states the flexibility to spend workforce dollars “in the way that makes the most sense for them.” She describes consolidating all federal workforce development programs into a single Make America Skilled Again grant, with DOL funding reduced by 35%. Some would call it a block grant. I would call it risky.  

How can we be sure that governors will spend the money according to WIOA law to serve all communities and reach the most vulnerable populations? How can we be sure that the needs of local businesses continue to be prioritized, as they currently are by local workforce boards?  

In short, we can’t. 

The proposal to consolidate federal programs and shift to states would undermine a proven nationwide network of Job Centers, neglect local businesses’ insights crucial for workforce planning, and upend public-private partnerships.  

We already know that the current 15% governors’ set-aside under WIOA would benefit from clearer accountability and transparency measures to ensure it fully addresses statewide workforce needs. Expanding governors’ authority over 100% of workforce funding without clear guidelines risks weakening the locally driven services and partnerships that have proven essential for meeting workforce needs in communities throughout the country. 

Businesses in America today are struggling to fill over seven million jobs. They need economic stability, access to skilled jobseekers, and multiple training opportunities including apprenticeships, on-the-job training, and work study to ensure a strong and successful talent pipeline.  

Federal investments in workforce development already yield immense dividends, including $66 billion in annual wages earned by newly employed workers, reduced reliance on public assistance, business growth and productivity, and increased U.S. competitiveness.   

Congress should indeed provide pathways to help Americans become skilled and employed. Dissolving the very system that already gets the job done is not the way. 

What was Missing From the WIOA Hearing on March 5, 2025

Posted on by Support

March 7, 2025 — Workforce boards in communities all across this country strive every day to connect work opportunities and jobseekers. They help businesses – tens of thousands of small and medium sized companies that are our economy’s backbone – fill their talent needs, to the tune of over 1 million jobs filled every year.

The House Subcommittee on Higher Education and Workforce Development hearing held on Wednesday, March 5, Strengthening WIOA: Improving Outcomes for America’s Workforce, addressed such things as the economic costs of not connecting young people to education and/or work, the important role community colleges play in preparing workers for today’s economy, and the critical need for better data to support workforce development efforts. While these are all good aspects of the discussion to reauthorize the Workforce Innovation and Opportunity Act (WIOA), the hearing did not explore all that workforce boards do to meet the needs of business and those trying to enter the labor market.

Several committee members noted the impact their local workforce boards have on their district’s economy; Ranking Member Alma Adams (D-NC) noted specifically that last year NAWB member CharlotteWorks generated over $224 million in economic impact while serving more than 40,000 people. That’s quite a return on public investment – but what would happen if CharlotteWorks is mandated to spend 50% of its resources to provide a one-size-fits-all type of training, regardless of an individual jobseeker’s needs?

That’s exactly what will happen if the previous Congress’s WIOA reauthorization proposal is introduced in its original form. The bill, A Stronger Workforce for America (ASWA), mandates local workforce boards spend 50% of their Adult and Dislocated Worker funds on training.

While there was an allowance in the final, nearly enacted version of ASWA to permit including supportive services including childcare or transportation supports, and career services including case management or career coaching to comprise part of that mandated threshold, the provision restricts a local workforce board’s ability to determine the best overall use of these funds.

ASWA proposes using a hammer when what’s needed is a multi-tool. Local boards need to be able to use any number of tools to bring talent and opportunity together – not just one mandated ‘go to’.

Instead of CharlotteWorks being able to respond to local worker and business needs in the ways determined by their customers, they will be forced to either authorize training when it’s not really needed or deny services to jobseekers because they don’t need training.

As I noted in a blog earlier this week, I am not aware of anyone involved in the workforce system that doesn’t support finding more ways for jobseekers to get the training and skills development they need to access opportunities. But if the end game here is to get more people trained, incentivize local boards to achieve that result as opposed to restricting their ability to fully serve their customers; consider leveraging other funds – public or private – to count toward a training goal; pass the bipartisan legislation that would open access to Pell Grant dollars for short-term training.

1.5 million jobs are filled each year with support from our nation’s public workforce system; that’s a job filled every five seconds of every business day. Yes, WIOA reauthorization should be responsive to the important topics covered in the House Subcommittee hearing. But it also needs to add to the tools a workforce board uses to meet this moment, not limit them.

– btl

Our Job is More Than Training

Posted on by Support

A robust workforce system requires well organized orchestration, customer centricity in its services, and agility for changing economic conditions

March 4, 2025 — Those of us in the workforce development space know that the 118th Congress came “just this close” to reauthorizing the Workforce Innovation and Opportunity Act (WIOA) through a bill titled A Stronger Workforce for America (ASWA). While a logical starting place for this Congress’s WIOA reauthorization debates (the bill was a bipartisan, bicameral agreement), I invite policy makers to pause, step back a bit, and consider a bigger picture as they initiate these discussions.

A robust workforce system requires well organized orchestration, customer centricity in its services, and agility for changing economic conditions.

While ASWA did have some provisions which would enhance our nation’s public workforce system it was unfortunately based on an incomplete premise; namely that it exists primarily to be a conduit for training. Creating access to training is certainly a part of what workforce boards do, but they – as prescribed in WIOA’s purpose section – do so much more. The law was designed to “improve the quality of the workforce, reduce welfare dependency, increase economic self-sufficiency, meet the skill requirements of employers, and enhance the productivity and competitiveness of the Nation.”

Tomorrow (Wednesday, March 5), the House Education and Workforce Committee’s Subcommittee on Higher Education & Workforce Development will hold this Congress’s first official hearing on WIOA entitled “Strengthening WIOA: Improving Outcomes for America’s Workforce”. I hope the witnesses paint the full picture of what workforce boards do in communities all across the nation to achieve those results noted above.

While there will certainly be questions and testimony about skills development, I hope the witnesses spend time outlining the convener role workforce boards play and the investment it takes to effectively play this role. Bringing stakeholders together – business leaders, training providers, community-based organizations, economic developers, educational entities, unions – to discern their region’s pathway to economic vitality is no small task. It takes – among other things – agility, negotiation, data analysis, and strategy. And it takes the investment of time and planning.  Without that investment, communities lack a shared future vision and the path to get there.

I hope Congress’s aperture can broaden to learn more about this essential role of workforce boards and understand the vital importance of shaping WIOA reauthorize to enhance it.

I also hope testimony is offered to reflect the value small and medium-sized businesses receive from using the WIOA system to address their talent needs. FutureWork Systems analysis of WIOA data from the last four reported quarters (July 2023-June 2024) reveals that over 1.5 million jobs were filled by employers leveraging WIOA in just this way – that’s a job filled every 5 seconds of every work day. That means that by the time you finish reading this sentence, a business will have hired a new employee because of WIOA.

Employers use this system every day to find talent; they also use it to upskill that talent once on the job. WIOA offers small businesses the ability to provide talent development to their teams without having to have a full-blown training department like bigger corporations may have. This service enables small business to find and grow its talent and compete in today’s rapidly changing environment. I hope Congress hears about this vital support for small businesses and sees how it is a critical part of the WIOA picture.

Through this hearing, I hope Congress understands the importance of the full variety of supports and resources WIOA offers to job seekers – including, but not limited to, training resources. Training is certainly a type of support accessible through WIOA; it can be just what’s needed to help someone enter the labor market. But (as referenced in the FutureWork Systems analysis) there were literally over a million people who found work from July 2023 – June 2024 because of WIOA who did not need training to make that move; they needed something else such as career services, resume development, technology skills, transportation, or other supportive services. And WIOA is designed – and should continue to be designed – to just that: meet the job seeker where they are and provide what’s needed, either directly or through partners.

I’m not saying training is not important; it is.

I’m not saying WIOA shouldn’t offer training; it should.

Do I think WIOA could or should be doing more to ensure training is offered when warranted and that that training leads to employment?  I sure do. But there’s no one-size-fits-all solution when it comes to training.

But to begin and end the understanding of WIOA as being only or even primarily about training is not just short-sighted; it’s inaccurate and misleading.

It fails to reflect the complexity within our nation’s public workforce system. Every day, thousands of career coaches help people enter the workforce through WIOA. Small businesses turn to WIOA to find their next employees and communities across this nation are working to understand where their economy is going and put together plans to meet that future.

So, I hope tomorrow’s hearing doesn’t continue the limited view from last year’s debate but rather paints the fuller picture so that WIOA reauthorization can truly improve all that our nation’s public workforce system does for the communities it serves.

NAWB Issues Statement on WIOA Reauthorization

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NAWB President and CEO, Brad Turner-Little, made the following statement in response to the Congressional committee leadership’s bipartisan, bicameral agreement to reauthorize the Workforce Innovation and Opportunity Act (WIOA).

The new bill, which we provided an initial summary of, is currently being considered on a fast-track procedure in the Senate.

“Since WIOA’s reauthorization in 2014, workforce development boards (WDBs) have sought to meet the evolving needs of employers, jobseekers, and the local communities that they serve. It is laudable that lawmakers have reached consensus on legislation to make significant updates to the nation’s public workforce development system, including improvements that recognize the vital role that WDBs play in strengthening local economies.

Since the initial release of a new bicameral and bipartisan WIOA reauthorization agreement last week, A Stronger Workforce for America Act (ASWA), the National Association of Workforce Boards (NAWB) has spent time analyzing this proposal and engaging with our members to understand how the bill would affect ongoing operations, service delivery, and the ability of WDBs to serve jobseekers and employers alike throughout the nation. Through these discussions, it has become clear that there are aspects of this legislation that conform with NAWB’s vision for the future of the public workforce system, while there are other significant components of this agreement that will be challenging to implement at best and could undermine WBDs’ ability to meet their mission.

ASWA would renew the law for five more years, sending a powerful signal that the public workforce system authorized by this legislation is critical to wider efforts in preparing and sustaining the skilled workforce needed for America’s wider success. NAWB is pleased to note that many of the organization’s recommendations have been incorporated into this legislation. These include clarifying local WDBs’ authority over local budgets; increased flexibilities to serve incumbent workers; improvements to cost-sharing requirements for one-stop centers, including flexibilities for the sharing and pooling of these resources; increased professional development opportunities for local staff; allowing for marketing and outreach efforts on behalf of the system; allowing WDBs to serve as one-stop operators when meeting certain conditions; a new emphasis on skills-based hiring; and dramatic improvements to data collection and subsequent reporting to make the public workforce system more transparent and responsive to the needs of workers and employers.

While NAWB appreciates these and other aspects of the agreement, the legislation unfortunately continues to advance provisions that our organization does not support, including a new systemwide mandate for training and an overly prescriptive work experience requirement for youth funding which we believe runs counter to local autonomy and flexibility. While we appreciate the agreement’s recognition of the important role supportive services play in the success of worker skills development, we continue to call on Congress to ensure that any new requirements reflect the realities facing the populations WIOA is structured to prioritize.

NAWB’s members have made clear that increased state-level set-asides will mean fewer resources will be available to local WDBs to implement these and other aspects of this legislation with fidelity. In conjunction with the proposed local workforce area redesignation provisions, NAWB’s members have also made clear that there is a strong potential that aspects of the public workforce system will need to close, staff laid off, and business services significantly curtailed under these new operating constraints.

Taken together, we remain deeply concerned that these aspects of the agreement will make it more difficult for the public workforce development system to serve jobseekers and employers alike moving forward.

We are grateful to have heard from so many of our members who provided thoughtful and meaningful perspectives as part of NAWB’s analysis of this legislation. They are the true experts, working every day with local community partners, elected officials, businesses, and jobseekers. We recognize the extremely challenging environment that workforce boards will be in whether this bill is enacted during the final days of the 118th Congress or if current law remains in place for the time being.

In either scenario, NAWB remains committed to working closely with the incoming administration and new Congress to ensure that the public workforce development system is responsive to the needs of workers, learners, and businesses, and can fulfill the significant workforce development needs of our nation now and in the future.

This will certainly be among our top priorities during Workforce Advocacy Day, scheduled for April 1-2, 2025 in Washington, DC. NAWB members need to share their expertise with members of Congress to ensure that the workforce system has the necessary resources to serve their local communities.”

Learn more about NAWB’s work on WIOA.