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Workforce Investment Act: Recommendations to Improve the Effectiveness of Job Training |
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From Center for Law and Social Policy: The United States economy is undergoing a major transformation that requires a "high-road" path to U.S. global competitiveness, which is characterized by high skills, high productivity, and greater opportunity for all workers. Congress has the opportunity to build such a system through the reauthorization of the Workforce Investment Act (WIA) and subsequent appropriations decisions. WIA should focus on providing high-quality job training and education that results in employer-recognized credentials and leads to family-supporting wages and benefits. Even those who initially have low basic skills can substantially increase their earnings if they do not stop with adult education but go on to postsecondary education and job training.24 For example, welfare recipients who attended California community colleges and earned associate degrees found that by the second year out of school, their median annual earnings were four times higher (403 percent) than before they entered training. WIA should place greater priority on helping low-income youth and adults and individuals with barriers to employment enter and succeed in the labor market. A reauthorized WIA should strengthen priority of service requirements, mandate the adjustment of performance standards to encourage the provision of services to populations with barriers to employment, and require the system to connect individuals with barriers to employment to necessary support services such as mental health and substance abuse services. On the supply side, the workforce system should focus on connecting workers and job seekers to good jobs, helping incumbent workers build skills to advance to better jobs, and facilitating the receipt of work supports for low-wage workers that promote attachment to the labor market.
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