On March 20, the House Education and the Workforce Subcommittee on 21st Century Competitiveness approved, 15-12, legislation (H.R. 1261) that would reauthorize the job training and adult education programs under the Workforce Investment Act (WIA).
Approved by Congress in 1998, the WIA consolidated more than 60 job training programs into block grants to states and established a centralized, one-stop delivery system providing federally funded employment and training services.
The Workforce Reinvestment and Adult Education Act (H.R. 1261) would renew and make changes to the programs under the WIA. The bill would combine the WIA adult program, the WIA dislocated worker program, and the employment services state grants, or Wagner Peyser program, into one funding stream and would eliminate the Youth Opportunity Grant, which provides job training to youth in low-income areas. The legislation also would create a National Challenge Grant program to provide job-training programs for youths who are out of school. Pregnant and parenting teens are among those eligible to receive services under the new grant program.
Additionally, the bill also would create Back to Work accounts to provide unemployed individuals with up to $3,000 to purchase training or supportive services through the one-stop centers.
Subcommittee Chair Buck McKeon (R-CA) opened the mark-up saying, “This important legislation would help improve results for Americans striving to get back to work by streamlining unnecessary bureaucracy, increasing effective cooperation among workforce development partners, and placing increased emphasis on basic skills in adult education programs.”
Ranking Member Dale Kildee (D-MI) expressed concerns about the bill. “Whenever we block grant programs, they lose their identity, their advocacy, and they tend to lose dollars,” he said. “This proposal squanders $2.6 billion for reemployment accounts that could be better spent on extending unemployment benefits,” he criticized. “This legislation also denies services to in-school youth,” he added.
The subcommittee rejected, 7-11, an amendment by Rep. Kildee that would have stripped the Back to Work reemployment accounts from the bill and instead would have provided extended benefits for unemployed individuals having difficulty finding a job.
The subcommittee rejected, 11-15, an amendment by Rep. Rush Holt (D-NJ) that would have restored $650 million for WIA programs that had been cut from the President’s budget.
The subcommittee rejected, 10-14, an amendment by Rep. Kildee that would have stripped the reemployment accounts from the bill and would have added a provision to hire 100,000 additional first responders.
