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Report

Government-Supported Job Training in the US: Paths Toward Reforming The Workforce

American Enterprise Institute

July 21, 2023

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  • Funding for government-supported job training in the US has been declining since the 1970s, and the current Workforce Innovation and Opportunity Act program needs administrative reform to cut red tape and increase flexibility.
  • The program needs to incentivize rigorous evaluations of training programs to identify successful models for improving training and employment outcomes.
  • Section 1115 of the Social Security Act offers a potential avenue for providing states with flexible waivers to test innovative reform approaches. Such experiments would provide insight and models for other states and localities to use as they adapt and scale.
  • Rigorous evaluations of waiver-driven experiments and supplemental resources and implementation assistance are necessary to help build the workforce development practices of the future.