House Education & Labor Committee passes Workforce Innovation and Opportunity Act reauthorization

On April 5, 2022, the House Education and Labor Committee marked up the Workforce Innovation and Opportunity Act (WIOA) of 2022. The WIOA bill would reauthorize the WIOA Act of 2014, which seeks to connect more Americans with quality jobs and includes support and funding to help young people gain the skills they need to succeed in the workforce. The Democratic reauthorization legislation passed the House Committee on Education and Labor on a party line vote of 29-21.

The Workforce Innovation and Opportunity Act of 2022 (H.R. 7309) introduced by House Education and Labor Committee Chairman Bobby Scott (D-Va.) includes several key components:

• Fully funds WIOA programs by authorizing $74 billion over six years, which will allow the workforce system to serve one million workers per year by 2028;
• Establishes a permanent Department of Labor program to help individuals released from incarceration transition back to employment and access sustainable career pathways;
• Expands summer and year-round jobs programs for youth;
• Strengthens the quality of the Jobs Corps program;
• Codifies partnerships between employers and community colleges to provide high-quality job training;
• Strengthens industry and sector partnerships to better meet the needs of both employers and job seekers; and
• Provides funding for innovative approaches to workforce development.

From an out-of-school time perspective, the following provisions in the bill should help ensure older youth are able to get additional workforce skill development support through afterschool, summer learning, and other positive youth development organizations:

• Includes a local comprehensive needs assessment that each local Workforce Investment Board must carry out every four years which will help direct funding decisions at the local level. This change would replace previous funding parameters that hindered the access of some students to needed youth workforce supports.
• Increases the role of community-based organizations (CBOs) including those providing out of school time programs in local and state workforce board plans:
  • Governors must develop the Unified State Plan in consultation with “interested community representatives, including community-based organizations.”
  • Requires consultation with “interested community representatives, including community-based organizations” as well as “representatives of eligible youth” in developing Local Needs Assessment.
  • Clarifies CBOs/nonprofits are eligible providers of career services in a one-stop job/workforce system.
  • Clarifies CBOs/nonprofits can offer training for individual training accounts.
• “Foundational skill needs” is now included as a focus for youth being served by WIOA programs. The definition adds coverage of “a youth or adult…that does not possess digital literacy, interpersonal communication, time management, critical thinking, or financial literacy skills at a level necessary to function on the job, in the individual’s family, or in society.”
• A new program on Summer and Year-Round Employment is included in the legislation, based on the Open Doors for Youth Act, which could subsidize up to 65 percent of youth wages for work-based learning opportunities during the summer and school year. This section was also updated to explicitly include soft skills as part of work-readiness training.

Unfortunately, the legislation that passed the Committee does not include the bipartisan, bicameral Youth Workforce Readiness Act (YWRA). The YWRA would provide funding for hands-on skills education at afterschool and summer learning programs for students starting in elementary school and progressing through middle school to high school. It complements in-school support by ensuring that students are exposed to a wide array of technical education offerings at afterschool programs starting at age six. While YWRA was not included, the WIOA reauthorization bill that passed the Committee does require more participation in the state and local workforce development processes by community-based organizations including those providing out of school time programs. Increased participation could help with coordination regarding efforts in career introductions and development as children grow, but would not provide funding or a defined structure as YWRA would. Fortunately, an opportunity still exists for the YWRA legislation to be included in a Senate version of WIOA reauthorization.

Traditionally, workforce programs have enjoyed bipartisan support. Yet, the WIOA 2022 legislation passed the House Committee on Education and Labor on a party line vote of 29-21 after lengthy partisan discussion and disagreement. The legislation is now pending floor consideration of the full U.S. House of Representatives. On the Senate side, while the Senate Health Education, Labor and Pension Committee has held a few hearings on workforce programs, the Senate outlook for WIOA re-authorization is unclear.