A SNAP stop twist, shutdown endgame questions, and $52 billion in grants listings.
Plus, immigration, AI layoffs, and a question about the Trump Administration’s goalposts on appenticeship.
JOBS THAT WORK: THE MONEY is a weekly rundown of the news and grant listings important for people who use money to get people to work, with exclusive intel and insights for paid subscribers. It’s brought to you by
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News you should know about money and things getting people to work.
The SNAP twist for workforce programs.
I don’t want to undersell SNAP running out of funding as well as the complete unnecessariness of it on the White House’s part. We are on the verge of a tremendous humanitarian crisis, and there are funds meant to prevent this from happening. Even after covering the reddest of the right during my reporting days, I don’t see the political upside to a White House making it clear they’re hurting people—some of whom are their own supporters. Polling released this week backs that last part.
That said, there’s an interesting side effect of cutting off these resources. The Workforce Innovation and Opportunity Act sort of allows spending on supportive services, resources for housing, childcare, and transportation needed to get workers to and through programs. Workers have to jump through hoops to get them, with services generally paid out only when workers are "unable to obtain such supportive services through other programs providing such services,” per WIOA. “Other programs providing such services” would describe SNAP.
Look, there’s no silver lining to SNAP running out of money, and the slack can’t be picked up by WIOA dollars. All that said, if there are no resources because there’s literally no SNAP program, I really struggle to see how you can’t spend WIOA dollars on food security for participants under WIOA’s own words. Same for childcare. Typically, WIOA participants get routed to Head Start—also affected by funding lapses. If that’s not an option, it makes it easier to assert that it’s OK to use WIOA resources to pay for childcare during the lapse. The resources literally wouldn’t exist, which removes the primary non-WIOA way to provide those supports.
If you’re a provider thinking about going this route, you should assess your own risk and your reasons for doing this. Be careful and don’t do anything that gets you in trouble legally, and talk to your lawyer (because this sure isn’t legal advice and I ain’t your lawyer).
But this does impact one of WIOA’s key limiters on actually helping workers. Even if it’s for one of the worst reasons possible.
Shutdown thawing, and what it means for workforce funding.
There are signs we’re inching toward the endgame of the shutdown, accelerated due to concerns about SNAP dollars running out. A key development Thursday is an attempt by Appropriations Chair Sen. Susan Collins to move a package of bills that (as of now) includes returning workforce funding to 2024 levels. As envisioned, the bill would move alongside a patch to keep the government open.
That doesn’t mean that workforce funding is going to be a beneficiary of all this mess. The Senate is very far apart from the cut-hungry House on many issues, including funding workforce programs. Per Politico, Republican leaders are resisting any patch that doesn’t extend into 2026, despite some urges to extend until December.
A fascinating development, also reported by Politico, is that some corners of the White House reportedly want to keep government funding the same through the end of 2026, presumably due to the midterms. The House bills were shaped in partnership with White House budget officials running around with comically oversized scissors and an ornery attitude, which is part of why Republicans need more time to work out a spending deal among their party.
Discretionary workforce funding has struggled to make it to the street, and I think that the length of any funding punt could have a big impact on when, or if, we see some programs again. A long timeframe probably means the White House will just not spend workforce funding it hopes will get rescinded.
A short timeframe I think is bad for some workforce dollars because I think it gives more weight to a House appropriations package that halves workforce spending alongside the concepts of friendship, fluffy kittens, and sunshine. I would be especially worried if I was invested in the Department of Labor’s re-entry grant programs, which appears to be the first to go if there is a need to appease the aforementioned ornery folks with large scissors and agreeable House members in tow.
AI job loss starts to grow. Probably.
As you probably saw this week, Amazon and other employers started thousands of white-collar layoffs, seen in some places as a tipping point in the cutdown of the American workforce by artificial intelligence. I won’t go that far—yet—because there remains a question of how much of this is an economic downturn and AI is taking the public blame. Still, I do think it merits a fuller plan than what we have now from government and maybe more reconsideration by employers of whether they need to cut workers or find new roles for them.
It’s also worth noting here that I’m not sure that AI job loss will be advisable for all employers, who won’t all reach the same place instantaneously. The tech isn’t going to be the same quality or the same fit everywhere, not that it will stop investors pushing to trim overhead as the most obvious way to boost profits. Some employers are going to invest in an AI solution that doesn’t fix anything—and may make their business worse—and create a lot of havoc for themselves.
I’m hesitant to frame anything coming from AI as an opportunity for jobs. I say this as a daily and enthusiastic AI user, mind you. Too often, the beginning and the end of many businesses’ AI plans is cutting jobs. That’s not ideal to the labor market—or quite frankly, advisable from a business perspective if not thought through beyond “Cut jobs, profit, yay.”
And we need a better societal net—or at least one with fewer holes—than the one we have now for workers who may go quite a while without a job.
This week’s grants listings number: $52 billion.
The federal grants are starting to slip off the board. Even if the shutdown ends soon, I suspect we’ll have a little bit of a drought as agencies mind the appropriations process and get programs back on timelines after a month of disruption. Some new state and private opportunities look like they’re coming in the next week, though.
Behind the paywall.
What does the Trump Administration mean by “one million apprentices” means and why oh why is that a reasonable question to ask?
An immigration bill with a big change in supportive services.
What bringing Ed youth-focused programs to DOL could mean and what it should mean.