Discriminating in apprenticeship, Trump II making it hard on red states, and $1.6 billion in grants listings.
Plus, the grant still paying out, immigrants and workforce dollars, and what's up with missing workforce funding.
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Hello
Greetings from D.C., where we’re back to the harried and clawed embrace of Too Many Things Happening at Once. Woohoo.
If you missed it, I published a detailed breakdown yesterday on the reappearance of a key Department of Labor apprenticeship grant and what it means in the context of an interesting couple months in the life of that program. Below, for paid subscribers, I have some takeaways for the future of WANTO the future of workforce dollars coming out of my analysis of that surprise grant solicitation.
Toplines
News you should know affecting money that gets people to work.
So, if you want to discriminate in Registered Apprenticeship programs…
On June 30, DOL’s Office of Apprenticeship published a circular—or binding guidance for apprenticeship programs—saying that it’s not going to enforce any equal-employment requirements of Registered Apprenticeship “until further notice.” The circular says apprenticeship programs “will not be required to continue implementing any program elements related to [the rule’s] requirements.”
There is a very good chance that “until further notice” means until DOL puts in place a replacement rule that it sent last month to the White House for review. The current rule prevents discriminating against registered apprentices (or potential apprentices) because of their race, gender, and several other reasons, and it includes affirmative action and recruitment requirements meant to expand access to Registered Apprenticeship for populations underrepresented in programs.
DOL’s revised rule hasn’t hit the street yet, and it may not for a little while longer. There is a good chance, then, that this circular means that Registered Apprenticeship programs won’t have to comply with apprenticeship-specific antidiscrimination requirements until well into 2026 to give DOL and the White House time to process what likely will be many comments and publish a final rule.
(Of course, that assumes that the Administration follows the normal notice-and-comment process. In some cases, the White House has told agencies that they don’t have to tell people they’re repealing “illegal” regulations and don’t have to go through notice and comment.1)
In the meantime, the circular notes that federal, state, and local equal-employment laws still apply to “illegal discrimination in the workplace.” Those laws should cover most of the things that need protecting in Registered Apprenticeship, but not everything.
For example, there are many apprenticeship programs that aren’t the apprentice’s actual employer. In theory, suspending enforcement of the antidiscrimination requirements means those organizations could, for example, use a person’s race as grounds for giving them less training or worse employer assignments. Or put in a more technical phrasing: yikes.
There also is a real need for something in Registered Apprenticeship to open up access for women, which DOL unintentionally highlighted in Wednesday’s new Women in Apprenticeship and Nontraditional Occupations grant.
In the 15 months between WANTO grants, the number of women in Registered Apprenticeship only increased by 4,000, based on figures cited in the funding opportunities. In a press release on the new WANTO, the Administration said 145,000 apprentices have registered since the Inauguration. Obviously, the time horizon is quite different and plenty apprentices graduate or drop out over 15 months. Even under the rosiest view, the figures suggest that women make up a microscopic number of the new apprentices claimed by the Administration.
In addition to scaling back rules meant to aid women in apprenticeship, the Administration has proposed killing WANTO and its grantmaking agency (the Women’s Bureau) while also setting a goal of 1 million active apprentices per year.2 You can’t get more people without getting more people into apprenticeship, and women make up half of all people. Some revised policy math might need to come into play here, to say the least.
What’s up with that frozen workforce cash again?
I don’t have good developments on what’s happening to key education and workforce dollars held up by “review” other than more people are noticing and asking questions about it. Whether those are people the Administration takes seriously is yet to be seen. On the Senior Community Service Employment Program, some key voices remain oddly quiet.
Similar to the apprenticeship math above, it’s worth noting this makes very little sense in political or policy terms. On the community college front, where $716 million remains held up, the Administration very much needs those schools to expand and thrive to see through many of its workforce goals around the trades. Similarly, unfunded after-school and summer programs could be useful to the Administration’s AI goals, which largely focus on training younger people in the skills they need to thrive in the future workforce. I’m also feeling doubtful the Administration has congressional support to defund or eliminate SCSEP, but it is worth noting that with more Americans working later in life, losing a program that helps them work doesn’t make a lot of sense, either.
This week’s grants listings number: $1.6 billion.
We’re back up above a billion thanks to a significant change based on some reader feedback. I haven’t been listing rolling funding opportunities—or grant applications that aren’t due by a certain date—to avoid routing readers toward money that an agency already spent (but hasn’t publicized). There is a significant rolling grant opportunity at Commerce that I think is a safer bet, along with a Pennsylvania grant I have been eyeing for a while.
Behind the paywall.
How the new WANTO twists the knife on several red states.
The extra ban of undocumented immigrants in federal workforce programs.
The Trump-opposed workforce money that isn’t getting held up.