America’s Got (a) Talent (Strategy)

This post is an adaptation of an analysis provided to NYATEP members last week. If you are interested in learning more about the benefits of membership, please visit our website or contact us at [email protected] to learn more. 

On August 12, the Trump administration released “America’s Talent Strategy: Building the Workforce for the Golden Age."  Effectively a blueprint for workforce policy over the next several years, the document offers a mix of continuity with the largely bipartisan workforce policy path of the last several decades, and a number of sharp breaks from that consensus in service of the administration’s larger economic and social objectives. Below, I set out the context for this document, what it includes, and what it might mean. 

How we got here

On April 23, the administration released an executive order (EO), “Preparing Americans for High-Paying Skilled Trade Jobs of the Future,” which set out high level goals for workforce development. Citing the priority of supporting “America’s reindustrialization,” the EO called for “a plan to reach and surpass 1 million new active apprentices.” It also charged the Secretaries of Labor, Commerce, and Education to “review all Federal workforce development programs and submit… a report setting forth strategies to help the American worker.” Among other objectives, this report was to focus on integrating systems and realigning resources, name ineffective programs and propose plans to cut or close them, and find opportunities to upskill incumbent workers and identify alternative credentials and assessments to four-year college degrees. 

While waiting for the report, the administration was not idle on workforce matters. In late May, the Department of Labor (DOL) moved to close the Job Corps program, the fate of which remains in limbo after a federal judge issued a temporary restraining order blocking the action. The administration also released a budget proposal for Fiscal Year 2026 that would collapse 13 DOL-funded programs into one “Make America Skilled Again” (MASA) block grant, while cutting total funding for those programs by more than $1.5 billion. In July, Congress passed the president’s reconciliation budget bill featuring very large cuts to Medicaid and other social safety net programs, as well as expanding Pell grant eligibility to cover qualified short-term training programs, a measure known as “workforce Pell.” 

Congress reacted coolly to both the Job Corps closure and the block grant proposal. Enough Republicans went on record in support of Job Corps to suggest that the administration could lose a vote to end the program by statute, as required under law since Congress originally created Job Corps. Meanwhile, sources in Washington indicate that neither the House nor the Senate is inclined to embrace MASA. In fact, while the House took an unusually long recess this summer, the Senate released its own budget proposal for DOL programs, which called for level funding from the last fiscal year—and included an allocation for Job Corps. (The House released its proposal, which included a 28 percent cut to DOL programs, on Sept. 1.)

The blueprint 

The administration’s analysis names five strategic pillars: Industry-Driven Strategies, Worker Mobility, Integrated Systems, Accountability, and Flexibility and Innovation. As principles, none of these would be out of place in a strategy document from any administration of either party over the last half-century. 

Similarly, much of the administration’s critique of the status-quo workforce system—that it doesn’t do enough to help workers trying to get ahead or employers looking to fill talent needs, is overly bureaucratic, not sufficiently focused on skills, and lacks accountability—is tough to argue against. Even the criticism of “college for all” as a de facto workforce strategy is not incompatible with statements or actions from the Obama or Biden administrations. Two other notes of interest are an observation that “the patchwork of non-college programs targeting occupation-specific skills is inadequate to replace” college-for-all, and that the administration wants more Americans to enter the labor market. 

The bulk of the blueprint proposes strategic actions that the administration believes can “transform our workforce system into an employer-driven engine of prosperity.” Proposed actions within the five strategic pillars include: 

• Industry-Driven Strategies 
• Scale Registered Apprenticeships by simplifying registration processes, ease regulatory requirements, and support intermediaries
• Align education and workforce by expanding pathways into apprenticeship such as dual-enrollment programs, feature career exploration in K-12 education, and modernize and align career and technical education. 
• Grow industry-specific training including a focus on incumbent workers

• Worker Mobility
• Engage and support the disconnected workforce, including Able-Bodied Adults Without Dependents (ABAWDs) who now must meet work requirements in exchange for Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (Food Stamp) benefits
• Use technology to support career coaching, including through tools to support competency-based assessments and credit for prior learning, and support adoption of skills-based practices across education, workforce, and corporate HR systems
• Implement workforce Pell as a means to raise labor force participation 

• Integrated Systems 
• Restructure and consolidate programs, as the administration proposes to work with Congress to implement the MASA proposal through reauthorization of the Workforce Innovation and Opportunity Act (WIOA), with operational examples such as local workforce boards integrating their functions at local community colleges  
• Reorganize federal statistical agencies including the Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS), Bureau of Economic Analysis, and Census to leverage synergies and reduce burdens

• Accountability 
• Eliminate Job Corps, the Senior Community Service Employment Program (SCSEP), and WIOA Title II (Adult Education), and reform the Federal Work Study program
• Terminate grants that fail to meet first-year benchmarks and reallocate their funds, through an expanded WIOA recapture authority 

• Flexibility and innovation 
• Use statutory authorities (waivers) to promote flexibility and innovation, with a strong hint that proposals to expand training for incumbent workers will be considered favorably
• Among other AI-related measures, study AI’s impact on the labor market and support the creation of regional AI learning networks

What it all might mean 

There is a world in which the administration’s largely valid critique of the workforce system, and some of the measures it proposes to address its many flaws, leads to a more rational and effective set of job training and employment services. Any reasonable observer would acknowledge that “system” is a misnomer: no single intention connects the 43 federal programs that support employment and training, collectively funded at a total of nearly $20 billion annually. Nor would anyone argue against greater clarity of purpose and accountability for performance, both called for in the new blueprint. 

Many of the proposed action steps would be welcome as well. Greater support for upskilling incumbent workers—a proven strategy in California with its Employment Training Panel, among other places—could help to convey the potential value of public workforce programs to employers. Emphasizing career exploration in K-12 schools will be valuable in helping young people of all circumstances imagine and take control of their future path into jobs and careers. And the long hoped-for innovation of workforce Pell unlocks a potentially transformative new funding stream. 

Against these grounds for optimism, however, we must weigh the administration’s track record to date on workforce issues, including funding and staffing. Its opposition to Job Corps, SCSEP, and adult education seems more grounded in ideology than data or evidence. Its larger moves against the federal workforce have led to an estimated 20 percent staff reduction at DOL, not to mention the dismantling of the Department of Education and political interference at BLS. Further, the MASA block grant proposal, featuring both an enormous cut to total investment and devolution of policymaking to state officials, does not offer a positive vision for the system. 

There are several additional concerns with the administration’s approach. While the blueprint offers powerful critiques of both the federal workforce system and “college for all,” it does not show evidence of having grappled with why these approaches failed. Regarding publicly funded workforce services, recent analysis from The Century Foundation makes a compelling case that WIOA is “not designed to drive long-term economic mobility.” WIOA’s placement-focused approach to service delivery and its limited funds for training mean that its programs largely serve to make relatively short-term job placements into positions that offer relatively low wages and limited advancement prospects. As such, it effectively subsidizes employers whose business model depends on a high churn of workers through low-quality jobs. The administration’s strategy does not explicitly commit new resources or present different incentives that might change how providers or employers utilize WIOA-funded services to drive toward higher quality jobs. 

A similar misperception is at work in the administration’s take on “college for all.” To be sure, this approach has proven misguided and ineffective. But it’s important to understand both why it largely didn’t work, and why so many students, families, and policymakers embraced it anyway. Extensive research has found that college persistence and completion is strongly correlated to social and economic support, whether in the home—a major determinant of college completion is whether a student’s parents are themselves college graduates—or through quality advising and material assistance. Colleges, and society at large, did not do nearly enough to support the new surge of learners. 

At the same time, many students found the social and economic pressure to go to college irresistible. The college wage premium has held steady at around 50 percent for recent grads over the last several decades, while bachelor’s holders earn an average of about $1 million more over a working lifetime than do those with no education beyond high school. While this wage differential has many causes, among them are macroeconomic developments such as the decline of unions, increasing utilization of labor-saving technology, and employers’ decreasing investments in upskilling their own workers. Workforce development offers policymakers few tools to address these challenges.  

The recognition of a vast talent pool that does not hold degrees is long overdue, as are many of the steps the administration proposes. How the positive aspects of its vision will square with its overall push to disinvest in the system very much remains to be seen. 

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