Last month’s jobs report found that unemployment is at 6.1 percent, the lowest since September 2008. While this news is promising, nearly 80,000 of jobs added to the economy were in low-wage sectors. According to the Wall Street Journal, higher-paying jobs, like those in the manufacturing and construction industries, still lag behind in recovery. It’s good to see that more Americans are going back to work, but we should aim higher. To open the door to higher wages and the economic security that comes with a good-paying job, we must ensure the folks entering and reentering the workforce have the skills needed for success.
The Workforce Investment Act (WIA) first passed in 1998 and has been due for reauthorization since 2003. This legislation authorizes job programs that aid employers and job seekers by providing the training necessary to fill open jobs. Since WIA first passed, our economy has continued to transition, creating more and more high-intensive skills jobs. To accommodate this transition, additional job training programs have been added, which has created a confusing maze of programs for job seekers.
The House acted to address this issue in 2013, passing the Supporting Knowledge and Investing in Lifelong Skills (SKILLS) Act, which would reform and reauthorize the nation’s workforce development system. The Senate Health, Education, Labor and Pensions Committee also passed legislation to reauthorize WIA in 2013. For more than a year, House and Senate leaders have worked to finish this legislation to modernize workforce development programs while eliminating waste and streamlining duplicative programs. The final product of these negotiations is the Workforce Innovation and Opportunity Act (WIOA). This week, the House will pass WIOA, taking an important, bipartisan step to help job-seekers get the skills they need to find employment, rid our current system of needless bureaucracy and inefficiency, and increase accountability to protect taxpayer dollars. Since this bill has already passed the Senate, President Obama is expected to sign the bill into law.
WIOA authorizes WIA through 2020, empowers state and local leaders, eliminates 15 duplicative programs, applies one set of accountability measures to federal workforce programs to eliminate confusion, improves the Job Corps program, ensures adults have access to adult and postsecondary education programs, and takes steps to help individuals with disabilities access the resources they need to be successful within the workforce. All of these changes will help ensure job seekers have an easier time getting necessary skills training while protecting taxpayers in the process.
The economy is slowly improving, but for recovery to continue, state and local leaders must have the resources needed to adequately train workers to enter or reenter the workforce. When traveling throughout the district, I’ve heard from job creators who cannot find workers to fill open jobs because they lack the necessary skills. Last year, the federal government spent more than $145 million in Tennessee on programs intended to help Tennesseans find work. This important bill will pave the way to efficiently train workers, saving tax dollars and allowing more people to get back to work.
I am committed to saving tax dollars while also pushing measures to help put Americans back to work. Please rest assured I will continue to support real, commonsense solutions.
Feel free to contact my office if we can be of assistance to you or your family.
