The American workforce is undergoing rapid changes driven by demographic shifts,  technological advancements, and evolving skill requirements. During this time of rapid disruption, the question arises: How can our training programs and workforce development systems do a better job of supporting workers and employers to meet their skill and employment needs?

The Workforce Futures Initiative (WFI)—a collaborative research effort between the American Enterprise Institute, the Brookings Institution, and the Harvard Kennedy School Malcolm Wiener Center for Social Policy—sought to answer this question when it launched in 2021. Over the past three years, we’ve probed workforce development policy and programs looking for evidence of success. The answers we found, published today in a new volume of reports, What’s Working?: Perspectives on Key Issues in Workforce Development Programs and Practices lay the groundwork for a workforce system that helps prepare Americans for the economy of the future. 

Despite decades of reforms and hundreds of billions in spending, our understanding of US workforce programs is still insufficient to effectively guide policymaking. While a few training approaches, like rigorous sector-based training, have demonstrated strong outcomes in improving access to quality employment and higher wages, they were the exception in our review rather than the rule.

The absence of evidence, however, does not mean workforce development programs have failed. The US lags behind almost every developed nation in spending on active labor market programs, and it is arguable that under-funding may be the chief source of weak outcomes. In other words, we are in a policy catch-22: without more evidence of success Congress is unlikely to increase funding, but without that funding generating success may not be possible.

The most important question facing policymakers is how to break out of this negative equilibrium? On this topic, What’s Working? has answers. Our volume contains a range of recommendations for improving the existing system including increased funding, streamlined eligibility processes, and greater flexibility for states to design innovative programs.

We need to nurture and expand successful sector-based training programs. This is challenging because these programs are small, and their size, which fosters strong connections with participants, may be crucial to their success. Thus, we suggest a number of ways to leverage the expertise of programs like Per Scholas and Year Up that would permit increasing participation from a few thousand to the tens of thousands needed to make real progress in helping talented but under-trained individuals access better, family-supporting jobs. 

Still, the relative absence of data on the efficacy of workforce development programs suggests that innovation, combined with rigorous evaluation, will be critical going forward. Along these lines, the report argues for broad flexibility for states to reform their workforce systems. The bipartisan workforce reauthorization bill that passed the US House of Representatives this year contains demonstration authority for this purpose. If the US Senate concurs with the House in this Congress or the next, the new authority would allow us to turn to the “laboratories of democracy” to create and evaluate new, innovative job training and workforce development approaches. This approach would allow us to reform gradually from the bottom-up rather than impose reforms from the top based on weak or inadequate evidence.

Now is the moment to face the reality of our workforce future. Evolving demographics, technology, and skill gaps are rewriting the rules of the economy and the workforce. Our knowledge of how to respond to that change is very limited. The recommendations the WFI collaboration has identified are solid steps toward building a workforce system that can help more Americans keep up as the economy accelerates toward a challenging future.