The Department of Labor (DOL) manages various programs under the Workforce Innovation and Opportunity Act (WIOA) to provide job training, displacement, and employment services generally to low-income Americans [i]. The programs are administered through The Employment and Training Administration under the DOL [ii]. The programs are mainly structured as block grants to states. The states then follow statutory rules and regulations in the distribution of benefits. Services are primarily delivered through American Job Centers, of which there are about 2,300 across the nation [iii].
Programs that target low-income Americans include:
- Adult Employment and Training Activities
- Youth Activities
- Dislocated Workers Employment and Training Activities
- Reentry Employment Opportunities
- Apprenticeship Program
- YouthBuild
- Workforce Data Quality Initiative
- Community Service Employment for Older Americans (CSEOA)
- Job Corps
The Adult Employment and Training program helps adults with barriers to employment gain new skills and find jobs in sectors that are projected to grow. Youth program supports a wide range of activities and services to prepare low-income youth for academic and employment success, including summer and year-round jobs. The Dislocated Worker (DW) program helps workers who have lost their jobs gain new skills and find meaningful jobs in sectors that are projected to grow. The Reentry Employment Opportunities program promotes opportunity by preparing justice-involved adults and youths for the job market.
The Workforce Data Quality Initiative provides competitive grants to states to support the development and enhancement of longitudinal data systems that integrate education and workforce data. The YouthBuild program helps ensure that youth have an opportunity to develop the skills and knowledge that prepare them to succeed in a knowledge-based economy. YouthBuild specifically targets at-risk, high school dropouts who are particularly vulnerable in the current economy.
CSEOA supports the employment of older workers by providing part-time, paid community service positions and work-based training for unemployed, low-income individuals, aged 55 and older. To qualify, seniors must have income below 133% of the poverty threshold.
Job Corps [iv] is an intensive education and vocational training program that targets at-risk youth ages 16 to 24. Job Corps offers career planning, on-the-job training, job placement, and other services. Students are also provided with room and board. The program operates in 121 centers around the U.S. In Program Year 2018, 61% of Job Corps enrollees were high school dropouts, 22% were from families receiving public assistance, 30% had a self-reported disability, and 5% were in foster care or homeless.
The 2021 budget request [iv] includes the following description of Job Corps: “The program has historically struggled with numerous issues, including safety and security, uneven center performance, and a lack of innovation. A randomized control trial of the program in 2003 found that program participants did not experience long-term employment or earnings gains relative to non-participants, though it did find positive long-term earnings impacts for the 20-24 year-old cohort.1 The program is also extremely costly. In addition, the OIG has repeatedly included Job Corps security and safety on its list of top challenges facing the Department.”
Trends in Job Training Services Provided
The chart to the right shows the participants in the Adult Employment and Training Activities, Youth Activities, and Dislocated Workers Employment and Training Activities [v]. Here is an explanation of the data from the DOL:
“Figure 2 shows the trends in the training services WIOA title I program participants received from PY 2018 through PY 2021. In PY 2021 the percentage of Adult and Dislocated Worker participants receiving training services marginally decreased, yet training services were provided at or above pre-pandemic rates. The percent of WIOA Youth program participants who receive training has been marginally decreasing since peaking in PY 2019. Of note, 58.3% of all PY 2021 WIOA title I participants who received training are Persons of Color or Hispanic/Latino.”
Improper Payments and Fraud
Improper payments for the Job Training Programs are included on the Welfare Fraud Page.
Entire Welfare System
Job Training is one of thirteen welfare programs. See how it fits in the entire system on the Welfare Programs Page.
History of Job Training Programs
The following history of Job Training Programs was adapted from the CATO Institute [vi].
The forerunner of today’s employment and training legislation was the Wagner-Peyser Act of 1933, which created a nationwide system of employment offices to match workers to jobs. Federal employment and training programs were expanded in the 1960s and 1970s. The Area Redevelopment Act of 1961 provided subsidized training to workers in depressed areas. The Trade Adjustment Assistance Act of 1962 provided subsidies to workers who lost their jobs due to import competition. The Manpower Development and Training Act, also enacted in 1962, aimed to retrain workers displaced as a result of automation. The Economic Opportunity Act of 1964, part of Lyndon Johnson’s “Great Society” created an array of new employment and job training programs, including the Job Corps.
The recession of 1971 led to calls for a new Works Project Association depression-style program to hire unemployed workers for government jobs. That led President Richard Nixon to sign into law the Emergency Employment Act of 1971, which created about 185,000 Public employment Programs (PEP) jobs for two years, mainly in local governments.
In 1973, Congress enacted the Comprehensive Employment and Training Act (CETA), which boosted subsidies for job training programs and extended the funding for direct government jobs. The PEP program was renamed Public Service Employment (PSE), and it handed out billions of dollars through the 1970s to create jobs in state and local governments and nonprofit organizations. Under President Jimmy Carter, the federal government was directly funding more than 700,000 PSE jobs annually. The PSE jobs program was highly controversial in its approach and effectiveness.
President Ronald Reagan came into office promising to cut wasteful spending, and PSE was eliminated in his first budget, thus ending hundreds of thousands of federally funded jobs. Reagan initially tried to kill CETA entirely. However, the nation’s unemployment rate was soaring in the early 1980s, and there was pressure on the Reagan administration and Congress to “do something” to help.
The scandal-plagued CETA was replaced in 1982 by the Job Training and Partnership Act. JTPA was designed to help poor and unskilled workers improve their employability and increase their wages. Rather than creating government jobs, JTPA put the emphasis on training workers for private-sector jobs. In 1998, the Workforce Investment Act reorganized federal employment and training programs in an effort to make them more efficient and effective. It built on JTPA and continued the focus on the job training. One new feature was the creation of One-Stop Career Centers across the nation, with the goal to help unemployed workers find jobs and access employment counseling and job training.
The Workforce Innovation and Opportunity Act of 2014 amended the Workforce Investment Act and consolidated programs into a single funding source. It authorized programs under the act for six years with the proviso that the programs measure how many participants get new jobs under the various programs [vii].
Job Training Expenditures Over the Years
In fiscal year 2023, Job Training cost $5.8 billion, including CSEOA of $.4 billion and the Job Corps of $1.8 billion [viii].
The graph above shows Job Training expenditures per year adjusted for the impacts of inflation (stated in 2022 dollars) [ix]. The high expense associated with job programs in the late 1970s and early 1980s was due to the PEP Program described above.
[i] For a description of the programs, see Department of Labor, FY 2023 Budget in Brief. [Internet] Retrieved June 25, 2023. Available here.
[ii] General information on the programs can be found at U.S. Dept. of Labor, Employment and Training Administration. [Internet]. Various data were retrieved on June 25, 2023. Available here.
[iii] CareerOneStop. Sponsored by the U.S. Department of Labor. [Internet]. Retrieved June 26, 2023. Available here.
[iv] US Department of Labor. Employment and Training Administration. FY 2021 Congressional Budget Justification – Job Corps. [Internet]. Retrieved June 26, 2023. Available here.
[v] US Department of Labor. Employment and Training Administration. WIOA Titles I and III National Performance Summary
Program Year 2021 (July 1, 2021 through June 30, 2022). [Internet]. Retrieved June 26, 2023. Available here.
[vi] Cato Institute, Employment and Training Programs: Ineffective and Unneeded. June 2011. [Internet] Retrieved July 20, 2022. Available here.
[vii] Adapted from Wikipedia. Workforce Training and Opportunity Act. [Internet]. Retrieved July 20, 2022. Available here.
[viii] USGovernmentSpending.com [Internet]. Total for Training and Employment Services, Community Service Employment for Older Americans, Office of Job Corps and TAA Community College and Career Training Grant Fund. Retrieved March 15, 2024. Available here.
[ix] Data from USGovernmentSpending.com [Internet]. See methodology of inflation adjustment on the web page, Poverty and Spending Over the Years.