WIOA Reauthorization May Get a Committee Vote This Summer

The Senate Health, Education, Labor, and Pensions Committee recently met to hear from workforce development experts and professionals about the need to renew the nation’s primary workforce development and training law.

The panel held a hearing June 12 on reauthorizing the Workforce Innovation and Opportunity Act (WIOA), which funds career, employment, and training services; re-entry services for formerly incarcerated people; programs for disconnected youth; and the nation’s network of 2,300 American Job Centers.

Committee Chairman Sen. Bernie Sanders, I-Vt., and ranking member Sen. Bill Cassidy, R-La., agreed on the need to reauthorize the law, which expired in 2020 and has been funded ever since by short-term appropriations bills. Both senators referred to a committee vote being held before the chamber’s August recess. The U.S. House of Representatives passed its bill reauthorizing WIOA in April.

SHRM is encouraging its members to contact their U.S. senators to support WIOA reauthorization by visiting SHRM’s Advocacy Action Center or by texting WIOA to 52886 and completing the form.

A Checklist of Reforms

Witnesses and lawmakers at the hearing listed what they would like to see in the Senate’s bill in addition to increased overall funding: more resources directed to training and youth workforce investment, stronger reporting requirements, and more support services for workers.

“Many Americans are not receiving job training because of our flawed workforce development system,” Cassidy said. “That is why reauthorizing and improving WIOA is so important and long overdue.”

Cassidy said that the overhaul should include improving the eligible training provider list to make it easier for workers to connect to quality providers, as well as increasing the transparency and accountability of WIOA programs for improving employment outcomes.

“The United States needs a workforce system that is adequately funded, agile, and innovative enough to keep up with the skill needs of America’s workers and in-demand employers,” said David Bradley, senior director for workforce policy at Jobs for the Future, a nonprofit based in Boston. “To make that a reality, Congress should take a holistic look at how workforce programs can be modernized, aligned, and funded to meet the needs of the U.S. economy today and in the future.”

Monty Sullivan, president of the Louisiana Community and Technical College System in Baton Rouge, said that over 80 million working-age adults have only a high school diploma or less education, and without some kind of postsecondary education and training, they “are doomed to career tracks that lead to low-paying jobs that often lead to a lifetime of struggle to provide for themselves and their families.”

Bradley added that today’s labor shortages are likely to persist because the skills required for quality jobs will continue to change due to ongoing technological advances.

He said that WIOA must be updated to account for the movement toward skills-based hiring. “The WIOA system can and should play a vital role in capturing skill attainment, regardless of the format, to help individuals attain quality jobs,” he said.

Bradley advocated skills-based training in WIOA through funding individual training accounts, work-based learning opportunities such as apprenticeships, and industry-based training.

Funding Shortfall

The U.S. spends far less on workforce development than other industrialized countries, Bradley said. “If funding for adult, dislocated worker, and youth programs kept up with inflation over the years, these programs would be funded at a minimum of $35 billion today.”

In fiscal 2023, programs and activities for adults, dislocated workers, and youth under WIOA’s grants to states were funded at $3.2 billion.

Sullivan added that a larger share of funding should be directed toward training. “Only 175,831 individuals received training services under WIOA in 2022,” he said. “This is a drop in the bucket for what is supposed to be the federal government’s premier training program. A much greater share of funds should be used for training services in conjunction with the critical wraparound services that make it possible to utilize such training services.”

Focus on Youth

Taylor White, director of the partnership to advance youth apprenticeship and postsecondary pathways for youth at New America, a think tank in Washington, D.C., spoke about the need to help young people ages 16-24 access education, training, work experience, and supportive services to stay connected or re-engage after periods of disconnection from employment and education.

“Each year, WIOA-funded programs such as Job Corps, YouthBuild, and myriad local programs provide training and services to more than 225,000 youth, a majority of whom are neither enrolled in school nor working,” she said. “But the number of youth served through WIOA is a shockingly small fraction of those who need support to access jobs and the education and training they need to succeed in them.”

According to the National Center for Educational Statistics, just over 10% of young people are neither enrolled in school nor working.

White’s top recommendation would be to double the current investment in youth through WIOA and ensure that a majority of new resources are reserved for local workforce development boards who know the needs of their communities best.

“Legislation must retain a requirement that a majority of funds be devoted to the most vulnerable young people,” she said. “There are communities that would like to and have found ways to dedicate resources to keep students connected to school rather than reaching them after they withdraw.”

WIOA currently requires that local workforce boards dedicate at least 20% of their Title I funding for youth to go toward work experiences and activities such as job shadowing, on-the-job training, summer youth employment, internships, pre-apprenticeships, and registered apprenticeships.

But this can be strengthened and expanded, White said.

“As a starting point, to ensure that these work experiences are attractive and accessible to youth, especially those who need to earn a wage to support their families, Congress should require that all youth work experiences longer than two weeks be paid,” she said. “To acknowledge the realities of today’s labor market, WIOA should prioritize earn-and-learn opportunities that provide components that we know matter, like meaningful credentials, paid work experience, mentorship opportunities, and clear paths to good jobs.”

White added that Congress should establish a work experience fund that can be used to reimburse employers for providing work experiences to young workers and incentivize local workforce boards to create progressive work experiences that build on each other.

Reforming Training Quality

Experts agreed that Congress should find better ways to measure the quality of education and training programs, including making improvements to the system’s eligible training provider list and to WIOA’s performance measurement system.

“Regarding the training provider list, a reauthorized WIOA should clarify that states are responsible for back-end matching of system participants with wage records, should require states to update the list at least twice a year, and should specify that local workforce boards have authority to deny funding to training providers that do not provide quality services to participants,” Bradley said.

“For too long, becoming an eligible training provider has not focused enough on providing pathways to high-wage jobs that economically sustain people and that meet the needs of employers and local economies,” Sullivan said. “The committee has an opportunity to require the use of earnings and other outcomes data to be more selective about which providers and programs are eligible to provide WIOA training services.”

He explained that in Louisiana, “we use a star system that lets individuals know whether a training program leads to an in-demand and high-paying job. Five stars means that the program is both high-demand and high-wage as compared to other jobs in the economy.”

An example of a five-star job is process operator in one of a number of manufacturing facilities along the Mississippi River, he said. “Two stars might mean that a job is in demand but does not provide high wages,” he said. “An example of a high-demand occupation with marginal earnings is early childhood education teacher.”

Establishing a simple way for individuals to gain actionable information and understand whether a program leads to high-paying job opportunities empowers them to meet their economic and employment needs, Sullivan said.

He added: “It is important, however, that tools like this and their assessment of what is in demand and high-paying be locally controlled and designed to reflect local and regional economies.”