Beyond Job Placement: Reimagining WIOA for Economic Mobility and Workforce Resilience

Federal investments in workforce programs operate on the theory that education and training can create a win–win—helping workers find better jobs while fueling broader economic growth. Lawmakers have long believed that a strong, adaptable workforce is essential for keeping the country competitive, especially as industries change due to technology, globalization, and other big shifts. By supporting efforts that build skills, boost career mobility, and keep people connected to the job market, these policies aim to strengthen both individual opportunity and the economy as a whole.

Unfortunately, workforce training programs focused on credentials for individuals with more than a high school diploma but not a bachelor’s degree (hereinafter, “workforce credentials”) often fail to achieve the intended results for two main reasons:

1. Not many jobs in the labor market offer socioeconomic mobility for workers with less than a bachelor’s degree.
2. Frequently, workforce programs are not structured to meet the needs of participants.

That said, workforce legislation could be restructured to produce more effective and equitable outcomes by addressing both labor market failures and programmatic inefficiencies. To achieve this, policies must be designed to not only expand access to education and training but also ensure that workforce investments lead to sustainable, high-quality employment rather than low-wage, low-mobility jobs. Additionally, workforce programs—particularly those administered under the Workforce Innovation and Opportunity Act (WIOA)¹—should be restructured to better align with the needs of both workers and employers, which means streamlining and expanding access to wraparound services, increasing financial support for participants, and reducing administrative hurdles for both employers and workers. By modernizing workforce policy to reflect economic realities, prioritizing long-term career growth, and incentivizing high-road employer behaviors, the United States can build a system that truly supports broad-based economic mobility and labor market resilience.

The Workforce Innovation and Opportunity Act (WIOA)

The Workforce Innovation and Opportunity Act, signed into law by President Barack Obama in 2014, is the nation’s flagship legislation for workforce training and development. Designed to modernize and streamline the federal workforce system, WIOA aims to help job seekers access employment, education, training, and supportive services, while also ensuring that employers can find the skilled workers they need to compete. As the primary federal investment in workforce development, WIOA provides the overarching framework for how states and localities deliver training and job placement services to workers and businesses across the country.

Like all previous iterations of workforce legislation, WIOA is primarily designed to (1) help job seekers secure quality employment in sub-bachelor’s degree careers and (2) build a skilled and capable talent pool for regional labor markets. To accomplish these goals, WIOA funds a wide array of workforce activities, including occupational training, career counseling, and job placement services. These services are delivered through a nationwide network of American Job Centers (AJCs) that provide comprehensive support to both job seekers and employers, and are meant to serve as a gateway to education, training, and other supportive services outside of WIOA.

The law is divided² into five legislative titles that provide the overarching framework for the nation’s workforce development system, with each title addressing a specific set of services, partners, and administrative functions. Within this structure, funding flows through a set of six core programs that operate under the authority of these titles. The Adult, Dislocated Worker, and Youth programs³—authorized under Title I—are the central programs supporting workforce development services across the country. The Adult program provides career services, training, and job placement assistance for low-income or unemployed adults; the Dislocated Worker program supports individuals who have lost their jobs due to layoffs or economic shifts, helping them retrain and reenter the labor market; and the Youth program targets “Opportunity Youth,” defined as individuals between the ages of 14 and 24, and mandates that at least 75 percent of youth funding be allocated to out-of-school youth programs⁴, connecting young people to education, training, and employment opportunities.

WIOA is funded annually through federal appropriations, with total funding levels typically ranging between $3.5 billion and $5 billion. The majority of these funds are allocated to Title I programs, with the Adult, Dislocated Worker, and Youth programs collectively receiving 50–80 percent⁵ of the total appropriated each year. That funding is roughly divided among the three principal programs (with the exact distribution varying slightly year to year based on congressional appropriations and formula adjustments), although the Dislocated Worker program generally receives about 30 percent more than the other two programs.

Federal funding is then allocated to states using a statutory formula⁶ that considers economic indicators such as unemployment rates and poverty levels. These funds support a range of workforce services for eligible populations, including adults, dislocated workers, and youth facing barriers to employment. States then distribute these funds to local Workforce Development Boards (WDBs), which are responsible for establishing partnerships with training providers and employers to deliver workforce services. As part of this process, WDBs are tasked with assessing regional labor market demand and identifying high-priority industries.

Funding is further distributed through contract-based agreements between local WDBs and training providers or through individual training accounts (ITAs), which are vouchers participants can use to pay for approved training. WDBs determine which programs and providers qualify for funding and set regional ITA limits⁷, typically capping funding around $5,000 per participant, although this amount varies greatly by location. Each year, approximately $500 million⁸ is allocated for job training vouchers, which eligible individuals can use to enroll in approved programs offered by community colleges, employers, or for-profit technical institutions. To receive WIOA funding, training providers must meet established performance benchmarks, including job placement rates, credential attainment, and wage outcomes.

WIOA is, by design, highly employer-driven, structuring workforce development around the immediate needs of businesses. WIOA prioritizes sector-based training models, influenced by rigorous research that demonstrated the impact of sectoral training led by workforce intermediaries that establish training needs through coalition dialogue across firms in a specific sector⁹, including Per Scholas in Bronx, New York, and the Wisconsin Regional Training Partnership. Other aspects of the law that favor demand-driven training include employer-led workforce boards, on-the-job training subsidies, and customized workforce development initiatives designed to meet the needs of specific employers. This structure ensures that firms play a central role in shaping local workforce development, including oversight of funding allocations, training curricula, and program design.

WIOA also includes a wide range of flexibilities¹⁰ that allow states and localities to tailor workforce services to meet the needs of their communities. WIOA funds can be used for supportive services such as transportation, child care, digital access, and other wraparound supports that help individuals stay engaged in training and employment. The law also permits co-enrollment across programs, allowing individuals to be simultaneously enrolled in both a Title I job training and placement program while also participating in a Title III adult education and literacy program. This model streamlines service delivery and allows for a wide variety of training models, including incumbent worker training, on-the-job training, and other work-based learning strategies. Funding can also be braided with other public and private resources to increase impact. Successful examples from across the country demonstrate how these options have been used to expand access, center equity, and improve employment outcomes.¹¹

Community colleges play an important role in the WIOA system by serving as key providers of education and training services. With their deep connections to regional employers and ability to deliver both short-term and degree-bearing programs, they are uniquely positioned to align training with local labor market demand. In many areas, community colleges operate as WIOA service providers, offering career counseling, skills training, and supportive services under one roof. Their critical role in WIOA creates opportunities to strengthen pathways from short-term credentials to higher-level degrees, advancing both immediate employability and long-term economic mobility for jobseekers.

Recognizing that many job seekers face non-employment-related barriers, AJCs also offer access to wraparound services through mandated program partners¹² such as Temporary Assistance for Needy Families (TANF)¹³, Vocational Rehabilitation Services, and Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program Employment and Training (SNAP E&T). These partnerships are designed to address the broader challenges that can prevent individuals from successfully engaging in training or employment, such as a lack of child care, transportation, stable housing, or income support. By integrating access to these critical services within the workforce system, AJCs help ensure that more participants can overcome barriers and fully participate in the labor market.

To measure impact, WIOA gathers extensive performance reporting on employment-related outcomes, including job placement rates at the second and fourth quarters after program exit, median earnings at the second quarter after exit, credential attainment within one year, and measurable skill gains during training. The law also tracks effectiveness in serving employers, collecting metrics such as retention with the same employer, repeat employer utilization of AJC services, and the employer penetration rate, which reflects the percentage of employers served in a given area.

WIOA was originally authorized for the six-year period covering fiscal years 2015 through 2020, with the expectation that Congress would reauthorize the law every year thereafter to reflect changing workforce needs. Although no reauthorization attempt has been successful since the law’s passage, WIOA remains in effect, and funding for its core programs has continued without interruption through the annual appropriations process. This has allowed essential workforce development services to operate nationwide, even in the absence of legislative updates. During the past two legislative sessions, lawmakers have signaled renewed interest in advancing reauthorization. The cornerstone of these efforts is the A Stronger Workforce for America Act (ASWA)¹⁴, a bipartisan bill originally introduced by Representatives Virginia Foxx (R-NC) and Bobby Scott (D-VA). The bill passed the House of Representatives in the fall of 2024 with broad bipartisan support, but instead of advancing the House version, Senate lawmakers introduced their own draft. While a bicameral compromise framework was ultimately reached and positioned for inclusion in a year-end omnibus spending package, the proposal was removed during final negotiations following a push for a pared-down Continuing Resolution focused exclusively on short-term government funding.

WIOA’s Challenge: Turning Timely Job Placement into Lasting Mobility

Due to its strategic and research-backed framework, WIOA contains the elements essential to success: it centers on connections to required partners¹⁵ that provide critical wraparound services for job-seekers and are flexible enough to be tailored to local workforce needs. It’s important to note that WIOA’s key function is to facilitate timely job matching—helping individuals reenter the labor force quickly and reducing foregone earnings associated with prolonged unemployment. Data from the studies cited below shows that WIOA performs this role effectively, with strong labor market attachment outcomes demonstrating it plays a meaningful role in minimizing earnings losses and stabilizing short-term income by accelerating job placement rates for participants over those who do not receive WIOA services.

The law’s strongest outcomes are associated with the provision of intensive, staff-assisted services (such as job counseling, career navigation, skills assessments, and the development of individualized employment plans), which have demonstrated not only timely job matching but also measurable gains in participant earnings. Systems consistently meet key performance benchmarks,¹⁶ including placing over 70 percent of participants into employment, reinforcing WIOA’s effectiveness in achieving the primary goals policymakers set.

One study that offers good insight into WIOA’s impact is the Gold Standard Evaluation¹⁷ conducted by the U.S. Department of Labor’s Employment and Training Administration (ETA). While the study focused on programs authorized under the Workforce Investment Act (WIA), WIOA’s predecessor, many of those core service models were retained under WIOA, and its findings directly informed the law’s reauthorization and subsequent improvements. Carried out by Mathematica in collaboration with Social Policy Research Associates, MDRC, and the Corporation for a Skilled Workforce, the study followed over 34,000 job seekers between November 2011 and April 2013. Participants were randomly assigned to one of three different service tracks across more than 200 AJCs located in twenty-eight workforce areas chosen at random. Because of this randomized selection, the results are broadly representative of the experiences and outcomes of job seekers nationwide who engage with WIOA-funded programs.

Key findings of the Gold Standard Evaluation of WIOA included the following:

• “Intensive services funded by the programs were effective. Providing intensive services increased earnings over the follow-up period by $3,300 to $7,100 (7 to 20 percent) per customer depending on the data source. The benefit-cost analyses demonstrate that providing intensive services is cost-effective from the perspectives of customers, taxpayers, and society as a whole.”
• WIOA training programs underperformed relative to intensive services, falling short in delivering meaningful economic gains for participants.
• In light of these results, policymakers should continue to invest in intensive services, but look for ways to improve training outcomes.

So although WIOA demonstrates strong performance on its primary objective—facilitating timely job matching and reducing the duration of unemployment—it has shown limited impact on long-term economic outcomes such as sustained wage growth or upward mobility. This shortfall is not a failure of execution of the law, but rather a reflection of its design and purpose, which is focused on rapid labor force reentry rather than structural economic advancement. In other words, WIOA was not built to address deeper issues related to job quality, occupational mobility, or long-term earnings trajectories, so although the law succeeds in its intended impact of facilitating labor market entry, it falls short in shifting long-term economic outcomes.

This shortcoming can be seen in both the Gold Standard Study, which found limited evidence that WIOA-funded training leads to sustained long-term gains for participants, and a 2022 meta-analysis¹⁸ conducted by the Department of Labor, which examined forty-six job training programs funded by WIOA and similar initiatives. (It should be noted that the meta-study focused on programs aligned with the career pathways approach—an evidence-informed strategy that combines education, training, and support services to help individuals progress through a sequence of credentials and occupations. While many WIOA programs incorporate career pathways elements, not all fall strictly within this model.) The study’s abstract concludes with a clear message:

Based on robust evidence, the meta-analysis reports the average impacts from these 46 evaluations, revealing that the career pathways approach leads to large educational progress gains, large gains in industry-specific employment, small gains in general employment, small gains in short-term earnings, and no meaningful gains in medium/longer-term earnings.

Together both studies suggest that while staff-assisted services are effective at improving short-term outcomes, the training component of WIOA—particularly under the Adult and Dislocated Worker programs—does not yield meaningful earnings gains within thirty months of enrollment. Although the findings are not definitive, due in part to the fact that only a minority of participants received training through these programs and some accessed training through other sources, the data indicate that differences in training participation between groups disappeared by the second year. This makes it unlikely that longer-term impacts would emerge over time.

This lack of long-term impact is tied, in large part, to the quality of jobs available to individuals with a high school diploma or workforce credential (alongside the opportunity cost of lost earnings when workers spend time in classroom-type training rather than in paid work). While WIOA is effective at connecting participants to employment quickly, many of the roles they enter—often in sectors such as health care, retail or transportation—offer limited wages, few benefits, and little opportunity for upward advancement. While these jobs may serve as a critical reentry point into the labor market, they rarely provide the earnings trajectory or mobility needed to achieve lasting economic security.

Compounding the problem is the sharp decline in employer investment in worker training and development. Once a standard part of workforce strategy, employer-sponsored training helped workers build skills, advance within companies, and achieve greater economic security. Unfortunately, investment in worker training appears to have declined over time,¹⁹ with businesses increasingly relying on public education and workforce systems to prepare job-ready candidates. While employers benefit from these publicly funded pipelines, they too should contribute—ideally by offering paid, work-based learning opportunities. Today, however, many firms—particularly those in low-wage sectors—no longer view training as a core business responsibility. Instead, they expect workers to arrive fully trained or to upskill independently, often at their own expense. Without strong employer-sponsored pathways, workers have few opportunities to gain the additional skills or credentials needed to advance, placing the burden of economic mobility squarely on individuals and exacerbating barriers for those already in lower-paying positions.

As a result, even though WIOA programs succeed in meeting their objective of facilitating fast and effective labor market re-entry, they are not successful in driving economic mobility. Low-wage work tends to be “sticky,” meaning that once workers enter low-paying jobs, it can be extremely difficult to transition into higher-wage occupations. This stickiness is driven by a combination of factors: limited access to affordable upskilling opportunities, persistent scheduling instability that makes pursuing additional training or education nearly impossible, and structural barriers such as unreliable transportation, unstable child care, and benefits cliffs. Consequently, even highly motivated workers often find themselves trapped in a cycle of low earnings and constrained mobility, with few viable pathways to sustained economic advancement. An abundance of low-wage jobs has kept the long-run U.S. unemployment rate lower than other nations, but prevented many working Americans from achieving economic stability, much less economic mobility.

The outcome of this dynamic is that, instead of acting as a springboard to help job seekers become competitive candidates for in-demand, family-sustaining careers, a good portion of WIOA funding effectively serves as a publicly subsidized recruitment and training mechanism for firms that rely on a high-churn, low-wage labor model with no clear pathway to professional advancement or upward mobility.

This misalignment is reinforced by the way WIOA performance metrics are structured. Because local workforce boards are incentivized to prioritize rapid job placement and cost-efficiency, they often focus on industries that can absorb large numbers of workers quickly with minimal training investment. High-churn sectors—such as health care and transportation—fit this model well, offering fast placement outcomes and low-cost credentialing programs that help boards meet federal targets. However, these same industries rarely offer long-term stability or upward mobility, meaning that while participants are quickly employed, they are often placed into jobs with limited potential for wage growth or career advancement.

A classic example is the trucking industry²⁰, where federally funded workforce programs in most states cover the costs of commercial driver’s license (CDL) training, reducing onboarding expenses for trucking firms while failing to impose any standards around job quality, retention, or wage growth. Despite leveraging public investment in training, major trucking carriers continue to operate on a high-turnover model (studies place this rate around 90 percent per year²¹), offering entry-level positions with low wages, erratic scheduling, grueling conditions, and minimal long-term career development²²—a system that depends on a constant influx of new trainees rather than improving working conditions to retain experienced drivers.

WIOA (and other federal workforce programs) subsidizes the perpetual cycling of underpaid workers into volatile, high-attrition roles, rather than fostering true career pathways with sustainable earnings potential.

This structure allows firms to socialize risk and loss while privatizing gains, externalizing training costs onto taxpayers and job seekers while ensuring that the financial benefits of increased productivity and low labor costs accrue to them. This creates a labor market distortion in which WIOA (and other federal workforce programs) subsidizes the perpetual cycling of underpaid workers into volatile, high-attrition roles, rather than fostering true career pathways with sustainable earnings potential. Without accountability measures that require firms that benefit from WIOA-funded training to provide wage progression and internal mobility, WIOA inadvertently enables industries to maintain a low-road employment strategy, prioritizing labor replenishment over genuine workforce development while shifting the financial burden of turnover onto the public.

Labor Market Factors Constraining WIOA’s Success

WIOA’s impact on economic mobility is inherently constrained by the structure of the labor market it operates within. WIOA cannot fix the broader structural issues that shape poor job quality, such as declining unionization, weakened labor protections, and the erosion of standards that once ensured fair wages and working conditions. To unlock WIOA’s potential as a tool for economic mobility, policymakers must also strengthen labor laws, expand collective bargaining rights, and align industrial and economic development policies with job-quality standards. This disconnect between WIOA’s role and the dynamics of the broader labor market highlights why even well-designed workforce programs struggle to deliver lasting economic mobility absent complementary policies that improve job quality.

National wage data from labor market analytics firm Lightcast²³ on jobs that require more than a high school diploma but less than a bachelor’s degree shows that over two thirds of associated jobs pay less than $25 an hour. Almost 90 percent of the labor market for this educational category pays less than $30 an hour. Often referred to as middle-skills jobs, these are occupations that can provide better wages and workplace standards than those workers would achieve with a high school diploma alone. With additional work experience and training, workers can advance into better pay in these fields over their career. But too often they are stuck in jobs where they can scrape by but not get ahead.

To put these wages into perspective, MIT’s living wage calculator²⁴ estimates that a single parent with one child in Clay County, West Virginia (a county with one of the lowest cost of living rates in the country) needs to earn around $34 an hour to be economically independent. In New York City, a region with one of the highest costs of living in the country, a single adult must make around $33 an hour to live above the poverty line, and if that adult has at least one child, that number jumps to $56 an hour. Lightcast projections indicate almost total wage stagnation across these earnings bands over the next four years, while cost of living is projected to rise.

Fundamentally, the U.S. labor market does not offer a sufficient supply of jobs paying above $30 per hour for sub-baccalaureate credentials to serve as a dependable route to economic mobility. This labor market failure must be addressed. Individuals with workforce credentials play indispensable roles in sectors that are foundational to economic productivity and societal well-being, including advanced manufacturing, health care, transportation, and public infrastructure. Successful efforts to create family-sustaining jobs in these sectors—such as the Laborers International Union of North America, whose members earn $41 per hour in highway construction jobs, compared to $18 per hour at nonunion companies—point the way to a more sustainable economy.

These types of high-wage, high-quality jobs are important because it is neither economically efficient nor socially equitable to confine these essential workers to low-wage, low-quality employment. Furthermore, requiring a four-year degree as a de facto condition for earning a living wage imposes unnecessary barriers and exacerbates inequality. Expanding the availability of high-quality, middle-skill jobs is critical not only for improving individual outcomes but also for strengthening the resilience and inclusivity of the broader economy. Without structural interventions to raise job quality and compensation standards for nondegree workers, WIOA and other workforce development programs will remain limited in their ability to deliver sustained economic advancement.

Figure 1. Distribution of wages for jobs that require a workforce credential

Systemic Challenges Limiting Workforce Training Outcomes

Even if wages in low- and middle-skill occupations were to rise significantly, workforce training programs would still struggle to reach their full potential due to systemic inefficiencies, structural barriers, and inadequate support mechanisms that limit worker participation and success. Under WIOA, intensive services such as career counseling, job navigation, and individualized support have delivered strong results and positive outcomes. However, the training component of the system continues to face persistent challenges—in part because it is designed around employer demand without giving equal consideration to worker needs, and in part because the deep, complex systemic obstacles facing many WIOA participants (especially those with high barriers to employment) are difficult to overcome. The following section outlines key challenges—ranging from fragmented service delivery and underfunded support systems to policy loopholes and weak quality controls—that limit WIOA’s ability to fulfill its full promise.

First, while WIOA theoretically either directly provides key resources like computers and Internet stipends, or connects participants to core partners that provide wraparound services such as child care, transportation assistance, and income supports, the process is often highly fragmented, bureaucratically complex, riddled with administrative hurdles, and hamstrung from lack of resources. Participants must navigate multiple agencies, extensive paperwork, and lengthy approval processes, making these services effectively inaccessible to many who need them most. Furthermore, the provision of many critical resources—such as access to computers and the funding limit of ITAs—is, by design, left to the discretion of local WDBs²⁵ as part of the process of tailoring WIOA to local requirements. Unfortunately, this approach can lead to significant regional disparities and create inequitable access to essential resources disproportionately affecting low-income job seekers, justice-involved individuals, English Language Learners, and those in rural areas who may face barriers beyond skills training.

Additionally, WIOA participants can encounter structural barriers, including inflexible training schedules that fail to accommodate workers’ other priorities such as caregiving, and training locations that are inaccessible for workers without private transportation. Similarly, employed workers seeking to upskill or reskill may find that, even if training is offered at no cost to them, the foregone wages associated with time away from work makes participation financially unfeasible unless they are paid as part of the training.

Further complicating the situation for some WIOA participants is a so-called “benefits cliff.” Job-seekers who receive public assistance may fear a modest increase in their earnings will trigger a sharp reduction in essential benefits. While many public benefits are designed to phase out slowly as earnings rise, such as food assistance through the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP), others—such as child care subsidies, housing assistance, or Medicaid—are not consistently designed this way. While only about one-quarter of families who are eligible for child care assistance²⁶ and housing assistance²⁷ receive these benefits, this can create a significant risk or disincentive for job-seekers to accept higher pay—particularly whose primary employment opportunities are in low-wage sectors. While income thresholds for benefits eligibility vary by state and program, the misalignment between these thresholds and entry-level compensation in low-wage industries may force some workers to choose between advancing their careers and accessing child care, housing, or health care.

Compounding these issues is the widespread use of waivers under WIOA, which allow states to bypass certain statutory requirements. While waivers were intended to introduce local flexibility or pilot innovative models, the prevalence of their use²⁸ appears to indicate that either states cannot effectively perform functions within the structure of the law, or that they are deliberately circumventing critical protections in the law—raising important questions about how well the system is functioning as designed. The volume and variety of waivers suggest misalignment between federal policy intent and on-the-ground implementation. From an accountability standpoint, it is essential to evaluate the rationale for these waivers, their impact on participant outcomes (such as employment and earnings), and whether they point to underlying structural flaws in the law itself that warrant reform.

Another structural shortcoming lies in the lack of accountability measures associated with the Eligible Training Provider List (ETPL). The ETPL is intended to help WDBs identify high-quality training programs aligned with labor market demand. In practice, however, the list often lacks meaningful indicators of program quality or long-term value. States vary widely in how they populate and maintain their lists, with limited transparency around outcomes such as graduation rates, job placement, or post-training wages. As a result, job seekers may struggle to differentiate between low- and high-return programs, and some may exhaust limited training funds on offerings that do not lead to stable or well-paying employment. Moreover, the decentralized administration of the ETPL has created inconsistencies across regions, reinforcing geographic disparities in access to quality training and undermining the system’s broader equity and performance goals. Strengthening the ETPL to increase accountability through standardized outcome metrics, clearer performance thresholds, and more rigorous vetting processes would improve participant choice and ensure public funds are better aligned with programs that promote true economic mobility.

A final significant barrier is the low level of Individual Training Account (ITA) funding, which, even at the federal maximum, is insufficient to equip workers with the skills needed for jobs that provide true socioeconomic mobility in today’s labor market. The costs of receiving high-quality, recognized credentials in many industries—particularly in health care, advanced manufacturing, and information technology—far exceed this funding cap. For example, while certified nursing assistant (CNA) programs range from just below $1,000 to around $3,000²⁹ and last four to sixteen weeks, associate degrees in nursing (ADN) cost between $8,000 and $14,000³⁰ and take closer to two years to complete. The return on the additional investment is substantial: workers with CNA credentials typically are paid an average of around $22 per hour in a high cost of living (COL) area,³¹ whereas those who complete an ADN and become registered nurses earn as much as an average of $42 per hour³² in a high COL area, demonstrating the stark difference in earning potential tied to the level of credential attained.

Together, these systemic, structural, and resource-related barriers limit WIOA’s ability to deliver on its full potential. For too many workers, entry-level positions secured through WIOA services offer a short-term foothold in the labor market but fail to provide a path to advancement. Without deliberate reforms to strengthen training pathways, improve access to wraparound services, and align workforce investments with opportunities for true mobility, WIOA risks reinforcing existing patterns of inequality rather than helping workers climb the economic ladder. Addressing these barriers is critical if the workforce system is to play a more transformative role in expanding economic opportunity.

Recommendations to Strengthen WIOA

To address these challenges, there are several steps legislators can take to draft legislation that more effectively meets today’s workforce training and placement needs. WIOA’s strength in facilitating timely job matching through intensive services—such as career counseling, job navigation, and individualized support—should be preserved. However, as the labor market and employer practices change, the law must also evolve in order to promote long-term socioeconomic mobility. While WIOA was not originally designed to shape labor market standards—a goal typically achieved through other statutes and regulations focused on wages, benefits, and working conditions—it can no longer fulfill its promise in today’s economy without doing more to confront the reality that many jobs available to workers with workforce credentials offer low wages, few benefits, and limited upward mobility. Strengthening WIOA to encourage high-road employer practices and avoid subsidizing low-road employment is now essential.

Strengthening WIOA can be accomplished through a comprehensive set of reforms that fall into four strategic categories: (1) increasing job quality and mobility, (2) strengthening accountability and performance, (3) improving training access and program design, and (4) modernizing system structure and capacity. Together, these reforms aim to ensure that WIOA not only connects workers to jobs but also builds a workforce system that delivers economic security, upward mobility, and broad-based growth.

Job Quality and Mobility

WIOA should require states to set stronger job quality standards—such as wage thresholds, advancement tiers, and guidelines for safe, accessible workplaces—for employers receiving WIOA services such as on-the-job training or recruitment support. In addition, states should be encouraged to use WIOA resources to improve job quality more broadly and ensure that Individual Training Accounts (ITAs) are directed toward pathways that lead to higher-paying, stable employment. Transparency around outcomes—such as wages, placement rates, and job retention—should be strengthened in the Eligible Training Provider List (ETPL) to help participants as well as policymakers assess which training programs offer real mobility, and to prevent public funds from subsidizing low-road employment models.

To help achieve this, the ETPL should be updated to include clear, standardized performance indicators—such as post-completion wages, employment placement rates, retention, and credential attainment—disaggregated by race, gender, geography, and other key equity factors. These outcome metrics should be reported uniformly across states and integrated into a public-facing, user-friendly platform that allows job seekers, case managers, and policymakers to compare training providers and make data-informed decisions. The U.S. Department of Labor should also raise the threshold for inclusion on the ETPL by requiring providers to demonstrate alignment with high-wage, high-demand occupations and to meet minimum performance benchmarks. These improvements would reduce the likelihood of public funds subsidizing ineffective or low-road programs, while reinforcing WIOA’s intended role as a lever for upward mobility and labor market equity.

WIOA investments should be carefully aligned with regional economic development goals of increasing employment and labor market participation while driving regional wealth creation in order to maximize these investments’ impact. The most effective way to achieve this alignment is by prioritizing WIOA investments in traded sectors—that is, industries that produce goods and services sold outside the local economy, either to other regions or exported outside the country—such as advanced manufacturing, clean energy, and information technology. For producer regions, these sectors generate income inflows, attract capital, and create multiplier effects that spur sustained economic growth. By concentrating WIOA’s training dollars in high-value, export-oriented industries, programs can deliver stronger returns on investment—boosting both individual earnings and regional economic competitiveness—rather than subsidizing low-wage, low-mobility service jobs.

The Department of Labor evaluates states’ WIOA outcomes using a set of performance metrics (related to training completion, employment, and employer engagement). WIOA should require performance measures that measure program success based on participants’ hourly wage outcomes in addition to their quarterly earnings, as quarterly wage data obscures critical factors like total hours worked, part-time or season employment, underemployment, and other job quality and wage metrics. Including wage-based metrics as well as quarterly earnings would incentivize local programs to ensure public workforce funding leads to enhanced economic mobility while also promoting stronger alignment between training investments and employer demand to minimize credential misalignment and skills gaps. This could be achieved by enhancing unemployment insurance (UI) quarterly wage records with two critical data points: “occupation” and “pay rate.” Another valuable data point to collect—though not one that should be used to judge program success—is the degree of alignment between the sector in which participants receive training and the field in which they find employment, as it could help identify gaps between training investments and labor market outcomes.

Accountability and Performance

WIOA plans—statewide planning documents that define how WIOA programs will be run and are submitted for approval to the Department of Labor—should be considerably shortened to enhance their value as strategic planning tools rather than bureaucratic compliance documents. The average state application³³ exceeds 600 pages, making it impractical for stakeholders to update, engage with, or use as a framework for coordinated workforce development efforts. A streamlined plan would improve stakeholder collaboration, cross-sector alignment, and strategic clarity, ensuring that workforce boards, employers, and education partners can coalesce around clear, actionable goals. In parallel, WIOA should reduce administrative hurdles and paperwork for employer partners, simplifying engagement and making it easier for businesses—especially small and mid-sized firms—to participate in training and hiring initiatives. By eliminating redundancy, prioritizing key performance indicators, and shifting the focus from compliance-driven reporting to strategy and execution, WIOA plans could function as dynamic, living documents that drive effective workforce investment and economic growth.

To ensure comprehensive and accurate performance measurement, new legislation should establish dedicated funding streams for data collection, with a portion specifically allocated to longitudinal analysis. This could be achieved through something like the Workforce Data Quality Initiative³⁴ (WDQI) grants included in the A Stronger Workforce for America Act. These grants are intended to provide funding to help states modernize data infrastructure, integrate education and workforce datasets, and develop analytical tools to assess employment outcomes. Such an approach would enhance policy accountability, equity impact analysis, and workforce program efficacy by identifying disparities and long-term economic mobility trends.

WIOA should require enhanced transparency and reporting for all state waiver requests by mandating that each state include a clear rationale, evidence of need, and an assessment of projected and actual impacts on employment and earnings with the waiver. Additionally, the Department of Labor should conduct periodic analyses of waiver usage to identify systemic issues that may indicate misalignment between statutory requirements and operational realities. This process should distinguish between waivers that support innovation and those that signal avoidance of core program responsibilities, helping policymakers determine whether underlying provisions of the law require reform.

Training Access and Program Design

To ensure WIOA-funded training programs lead to jobs that offer true economic mobility, the federal Individual Training Account (ITA) funding cap should be significantly increased to reflect the actual cost of high-value credentialing programs in fields such as health care, advanced manufacturing, and information technology that lead to high-wage jobs. While this might reduce the total number of participants that WIOA can serve with training services—absent an increase in overall public workforce investments from Congress—given the relatively poor outcomes for participants in WIOA-funded training programs, there is no strong defense for funding only low-cost, short-term training. An increase in the ITA limit would allow job-seekers to access training for in-demand, higher-wage occupations, rather than being restricted to low-cost programs with limited career advancement potential. This policy adjustment would also help employers fill critical jobs, strengthening the long-term economic impact of workforce training investments and improving overall labor market efficiency. It should be noted, however, that such an increase in the cap would need to be accompanied by robust guardrails (such as the suggestion above about increasing accountability associated with the ETPL) to ensure that public funds are directed toward high-quality programs with strong labor market outcomes. These safeguards should include rigorous accountability measures to ensure that more expensive training programs translate into stable employment, family-sustaining wages, and measurable returns for both workers and the broader economy.

WIOA should also expand and prioritize earn-and-learn opportunities—such as Registered Apprenticeships and high-quality incumbent worker training—as a central workforce strategy. The registered apprenticeship model allows workers to earn wages while they train, reduces the need for WIOA funds to cover direct training costs, and ensures that employers benefiting from public investment share responsibility by contributing to workforce development. This approach strengthens accountability, improves job quality, and supports equitable access to high-road employment pathways. WIOA can play a particularly important role in providing pre-apprenticeship pathways that prepare disadvantaged workers for the rigor of registered apprenticeships.

WDBs should have greater flexibility to provide direct financial support as appropriate, such as stipends, to WIOA participants while they are in training to ensure equitable access to skill development. Many low-income individuals cannot afford to forgo earnings while attending training, making paid support essential to broadening participation and reducing barriers for those most in need of upskilling. While providing stipends to workers while they attend training may lead to some financial loss due to noncompletion or job transitions, the long-term workforce gains—higher skill levels, increased productivity, and improved labor market mobility—far outweigh the costs, ultimately strengthening the workforce and enhancing regional competitiveness. Implementing performance-based incentives for training participants, such as a completion bonus for passing a final assessment, could further drive program retention and success.

System Structure and Capacity

WIOA should also call for balanced participation between worker and firm representatives on the Workforce Development Boards (WDBs) that set local workforce policies and oversee workforce investments and training programs. Legislative requirements currently dictate that the majority of board seats must be held by representatives from the business community, and allocate only 20 percent for worker representatives.³⁵ This skewed composition mutes worker voice and results in the boards adopting approaches that fail to meet participant needs, such as limiting the provision of critical wraparound services. By balancing board composition between worker and employer representatives, WDBs would be far better positioned to design programs that address both employer and worker requirements in equal measure.

WIOA should formally integrate grants for high-road training partnerships—a distinct type of sector strategy that centers industry partnerships between labor and management , includes worker-representing organizations (such as unions and worker centers) as core partners, and is explicitly designed to improve job quality outcomes. WIOA should provide a dedicated funding stream for states to support these partnerships, which would help shift WIOA to better prioritize industry-led, worker-centered training strategies and promote economic mobility, high-road employment practices, and inclusive regional growth. These high-road training partnership grants could be modeled after the Department of Labor’s 2023–24 Building Pathways to Infrastructure Jobs³⁶ grants and would help scale innovative approaches aligned with the goal of increasing participant economic mobility, leveraging efforts in multiple states to advance high-road economic development strategies in a range of industries.

WIOA should be strengthened to better anticipate and address labor market disruptions caused by technology-driven job displacement, creating a more effective framework for ensuring smooth workforce transitions amid evolving labor market needs. This challenge will only grow as our knowledge- and technology-intensive (KTI) economy accelerates innovation cycles, triggering frequent shifts in skill requirements across occupations. To meet this need, WIOA could establish an Advanced Technology Worker Training Fund—similar to the Critical Industry Skills Fund proposed in A Stronger Workforce for America³⁷—that would use formula dollars to support upskilling for incumbent workers in at-risk industries. These resources should also prioritize expanding access to earn-and-learn pathways such as Registered Apprenticeships and labor-management training partnerships, which provide working-class individuals with structured, paid routes into stable, high-quality jobs.

WIOA should codify and make permanent the Strengthening Community Colleges Training Grants³⁸ (SCCTG) program as a core component of the federal workforce system. Community colleges play a critical role in delivering accessible, industry-aligned training that meets the needs of both learners and regional economies—particularly for working adults and individuals historically underserved by traditional higher education. Dating back to the financial crisis as the TAA Community College Training grants, the SCCTG program has demonstrated success in building institutional capacity³⁹, fostering employer partnerships, and improving program quality and labor market alignment. Making this program a permanent feature of WIOA would provide stable, long-term funding to scale innovative practices, enhance credential completion, and better integrate community colleges into regional workforce strategies.

Conclusion

In sum, WIOA has consistently proven itself effective at fulfilling its primary mandate: connecting job seekers to employment quickly and efficiently. Its success in delivering intensive services—such as job counseling, skills assessments, and individualized employment planning—has helped reduce unemployment durations and stabilize earnings in the short term. These services are particularly vital for individuals navigating periods of job loss or transition, and the data shows that WIOA performs this role well. In short, the law works as intended—but it’s time to expand its scope to meet the realities of a modern labor market defined by stagnant wages, high turnover, and limited advancement opportunities for workers without a college degree. That means pairing rapid job placement with clear pathways to economic mobility and access to high-quality, career-sustaining employment.

To address this, WIOA must be reimagined to serve a dual purpose: rapid job placement and long-term economic mobility. This will require structural changes that elevate job quality, raise training standards, and build stronger incentives for employer investment in the workforce. It also means redesigning performance metrics, increasing transparency, and ensuring participants are guided toward training aligned with better-paying, higher-quality jobs. By updating WIOA to reflect the realities of today’s economy, policymakers can preserve what works while expanding the law’s capacity to support not just workforce entry—but upward mobility, stability, and long-term prosperity for America’s workers.

Appendix: An Overview of the History of Workforce Legislation

The groundwork for modern workforce legislation was laid by President Franklin Delano Roosevelt as part of his New Deal⁴⁰, a comprehensive effort to address the economic devastation caused by the Great Depression. Assuming office in the midst of the biggest financial downturn in American history, when roughly one-fourth of the labor force was unemployed⁴¹, the Roosevelt administration turned to work relief initiatives to address the unemployment rate and rebuild the economy. Roosevelt’s approach to federal workforce policy was rooted in his broad concept of an Economic Bill of Rights, which guaranteed employment, education, and economic security for “all,” and emphasized the government’s responsibility to ensure income opportunity and stability for all Americans (though in practice, these promises systemically excluded Black Americans, prompting Dr. Martin Luther King, along with other labor organizers, to introduce a Freedom Budget for All Americans⁴² in 1966).

In support of this vision, the Roosevelt (and later Truman) administrations oversaw the passage of key programs that would go on to influence subsequent workforce legislation including the Wagner–Peyser Act of 1933, which was designed to match unemployed workers with open jobs, and the Employment Act of 1946, which established the federal government’s responsibility to maximize employment and promote economic stability. These initiatives set a precedent for the federal government to address labor market challenges via policies and investments that spur job creation, workforce development, and maintain economic stability, and remain a key part of the public workforce system, linking workers receiving unemployment insurance to training and employment services through WIOA.

The first piece of bona fide workforce legislation was the Manpower Development and Training Act (MDTA) of 1962⁴³. The draft bill was transmitted to Congress by President John F. Kennedy on the heels of his proclamation that “Large scale unemployment during a recession is bad enough, but large-scale unemployment during a period of prosperity would be intolerable.”⁴⁴ Conceived as part of Kennedy’s New Frontier agenda (a vision for progress and innovation that emphasized domestic reforms, technological advancement, and global leadership), the MDTA was designed to address labor market friction caused by rapid technological advancements, particularly automation, which was leading to job displacement.

The biggest evolution between workforce policy in the New Deal and the New Frontier eras was the shift toward a more proactive approach to addressing unemployment, skills mismatch, and other sources of labor market friction. New Deal workforce initiatives were, by necessity, highly reactive, seeking to alleviate the immediate problem of widespread unemployment by matching workers to open jobs. New Frontier policies moved towards a more strategic approach, tackling systemic unemployment through retraining initiatives focused on emerging industries, with the broad goal of building a national talent pool with the capacity to deliver on Kennedy’s vision of innovation, prosperity, and global leadership.

The progression from job placement to skill development marked a fundamental transformation of workforce policy, establishing the federal government’s active role in responding to industry need. The act’s emphasis on integrating education and employment services, and equipping individuals with skills for emerging labor market opportunities remains a defining principle in workforce policy today.

The threads of MDTA can be traced through the nation’s four subsequent pieces of flagship workforce legislation, each building on its predecessor to address evolving labor market challenges and policy design flaws.

1. Comprehensive Employment and Training Act (CETA) of 1973

The Comprehensive Employment and Training Act (CETA) of 1973 was passed under the Nixon administration to replace the MDTA, shifting from a federally controlled system to a decentralized model that empowered states and local governments. CETA introduced block grants to fund training and public service employment programs tailored to regional needs, emphasizing local authority in workforce initiatives. Additionally, and notably, CETA consolidated several job training initiatives, including public service employment (PSE) programs similar to FDR’s, which provided federally funded, temporary jobs for unemployed individuals in government and nonprofit organizations. These jobs aimed to address immediate unemployment by directly creating work opportunities, mostly in infrastructure, community development, and other public service roles.

While PSE was an effective way to address immediate unemployment, it faced criticism for inefficiencies,⁴⁵ concerns about sustainability⁴⁶, and allegations of misuse.⁴⁷ This led to a shift in subsequent workforce policies, which have since focused exclusively on skill development rather than direct job creation.

2. Job Training Partnership Act (JTPA) of 1982

CETA was replaced by the Job Training Partnership Act (JTPA) of 1982 under the Reagan administration, which introduced a more performance-driven, market-oriented framework. JTPA emphasized partnerships with private employers and created local Private Industry Councils (PICs) to ensure training programs aligned with the labor market demands of the private sector. JTPA⁴⁸ also introduced stricter performance metrics to evaluate program success in an attempt to foster greater accountability, but this focus on metrics incentivized local programs to serve only those candidates who could be easily placed in jobs, excluding many historically marginalized communities due to the additional barriers to employment many faced. Additionally, the act hinged on inexpensive, short-term training programs that failed to meet industry demand for more highly trained workers, and used a fragmented approach to providing services that ultimately made it difficult for participants to access the full range of resources offered under the law.

3. Workforce Investment Act (WIA)

In 1998, during the Clinton administration, Congress passed the Workforce Investment Act (WIA) to replace JTPA, modernizing the workforce system with the creation of One-Stop Career Centers, later rebranded as American Job Centers (AJCs). WIA emphasized⁴⁹ integrating services across multiple agencies and programs, offering a centralized location for job seekers to access training, career counseling, and support services. Reflecting concerns that too many individuals were being trained for jobs that did not exist, WIA introduced a tiered service model that prioritized job search assistance and career counseling before approving access to training programs. A key innovation was the introduction of standardized data capture mechanisms to assess program impact, an unprecedented move that (in theory) enabled policymakers to analyze participant employment outcomes, earnings, and overall workforce development effectiveness. Another important feature was the development of Individual Training Accounts (ITAs), allowing participants to choose training providers and programs that met their specific needs.

Despite these innovations, WIA failed to impact⁵⁰ worker training because its fragmented structure made it difficult to coordinate services across education, training, and employment systems, leaving participants without seamless access to comprehensive support. It also focused heavily on short-term outcomes, such as immediate job placement, which incentivized providers to prioritize easier-to-serve individuals over those with significant employment barriers. Additionally, WIA’s programs did not sufficiently adapt to the evolving labor market, providing outdated training that failed to meet the demands of emerging industries or address regional workforce needs effectively.

Adding complexity to the national workforce landscape is the fact that, starting in the latter half of the twentieth century, Congress began funding federal agencies beyond the Department of Labor to implement workforce development training in response to evolving economic, technological, and national security needs. While early workforce training efforts were largely tied to labor policy, agencies such as the Department of Defense, Department of Agriculture, Department of Energy, and others recognized the need to develop specialized talent pipelines to support their respective missions.

By the 1970s and 1980s, as globalization and automation began reshaping industries, federal agencies launched a wide portfolio of workforce initiatives tailored to specific economic sectors, such as defense manufacturing, rural agricultural labor, and STEM education. Programs like the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program Employment and Training (SNAP E&T), administered by the Department of Agriculture, emerged to provide workforce training and job readiness support for low-income individuals receiving nutrition assistance, scaling access to career pathways outside of traditional labor programs. Similarly, the National Defense Authorization Act (NDAA) under the Department of Defense expanded to include federal support for industry-specific training. Over time, these and other agencies grew their investments to address workforce shortages in critical sectors, support transitioning military personnel, and boost economic resilience in rural and underserved communities. The shift has been particularly pronounced in infrastructure, technology, and manufacturing-related legislation, where workforce training is almost always a component of flagship bills. Today, non-WIOA training investments⁵¹ comprise nearly 90 percent of the nation’s $28.2 billion⁵² annual workforce expenditure.

4.Workforce Innovation and Opportunity Act (WIOA)

Despite the nation’s diverse set of workforce training investments, by 2010, labor market friction and shortages of willing workers were exceeding the ability of federal programs to meet national labor market demand. In response, during the Obama administration, Congress passed the nation’s current piece of flagship workforce legislation—the Workforce Innovation and Opportunity Act (WIOA) in 2014 as a bipartisan effort to modernize and improve public workforce programming. By that time, WIA’s framework had become outdated, failing to adequately address the needs of a rapidly evolving economy driven by technological advances and associated changes in labor market demand. Congress was particularly concerned that they wanted a greater share of WIOA funding to go towards training, contrasting to WIA’s requirement that participants proceed through other employment services before gaining access to training. High unemployment following the Great Recession of 2008 further underscored the need for a more streamlined, responsive, and equitable workforce system to help both job seekers and employers.

WIOA introduced several structural improvements intended to modernize the public workforce system. It strengthened coordination across federal, state, and local agencies through unified planning requirements, promoted employer engagement and sector-based strategies, and emphasized the use of labor market data to guide training investments. The law consolidated core programs under a single legislative umbrella, including adult, dislocated worker, and youth services, as well as the Wagner–Peyser Employment Service and Vocational Rehabilitation programs. It also reinforced the role of American Job Centers as one-stop access points for employment, training, and support services, while enhancing performance accountability through common outcome metrics tied to employment, earnings, credential attainment, and skills gains. In doing so, WIOA sought to create a more integrated, demand-driven system capable of responding to regional labor market needs and improving employment outcomes for a diverse range of job seekers.

The evolution of federal workforce legislation—from New Deal-era public job creation programs to today’s skills-based training models—reflects an ongoing attempt to balance economic stability, labor market responsiveness, and individual opportunity. Each legislative milestone has responded to distinct economic and social challenges, gradually shifting from direct employment and reactive relief toward a more decentralized, market-driven, and performance-oriented system. While WIOA represents the most modern iteration of this effort—emphasizing training access, cross-system alignment, and data accountability—it continues to operate within a fragmented ecosystem shaped by decades of policy experimentation and institutional layering. Understanding the history of workforce legislation is essential not only for contextualizing WIOA’s limitations and opportunities, but for guiding future reforms that align workforce investments with long-term economic competitiveness, labor market equity, and the changing nature of work in the twenty-first century.

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Tags: jobs, economy, WIOA, workforce training