IRAPs 2.0, Labor Secretary says workforce cuts aren't cuts, and $1 billion in grants listings.
Plus, more predictions on what will happen to federal jobs programs.
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Hello
Greetings from D.C., where I’m still recovering from my velociraptor daughter waking me up at 3:30 a.m. the other day to let me know that if anything happens to Moana while she’s wayfinding, she’ll adopt Moana’s little sister for her. I’m not sure it was middle-of-the-night breaking news, but that would be a major life change, and I do appreciate the heads up.
Hot take: Moana is a movie about on-the-job training and its effectiveness. Prove me wrong.
Toplines
News you should know affecting money that gets people to work.
Congress talks workforce money at budget hearing.
On Thursday, it was Labor Secretary Lori Chavez-DeRemer’s turn to try to put together the conflicting pieces of the Trump Administration’s jobs policy while testifying about her department’s budget proposal.
She confirmed the Administration views the end result of the consolidation of workforce programs as a “block grant” to states. I remain highly skeptical of that description so long as the grants are intended to stop “woke,” but at least the intent is clearer now than it was in the President’s budget.
That said, Chavez-DeRemer bristled when Rep. Madeleine Dean, D-Penn., described the workforce funding cuts in the President’s budget as, well, cuts
“While you want to call it ‘cuts,’ that’s up to you. I want to call it ‘a re-evaluation,’” Chavez-DeRemer said of the $1.6 billion workforce funding reduction in a proposed budget that talks about cutting workforce funds and eliminating two coast-to-coast workforce programs.
Women’s Bureau remains real? Not just in your heart?
It was interesting timing for an appropriations hearing given recent workforce grant cuts, including the programs of the Women’s Bureau. For most of the Administration, word has been that DOGE had taken aim at the Bureau, just as DOGE noticeably cut women’s programs throughout the federal government. Yet, word also has been that DOGE and DOL (and other agency) leaders don’t always line up on priorities.
Rep. Rosa DeLauro, D-Conn., ranking member of the Labor, Health and Human Services, Education, and Related Agencies Subcommittee, is a longtime supporter of the Women’s Bureau. She asked Chavez-DeRemer how to square the cuts to the successful Women in Apprenticeship and Nontraditional Occupations, or WANTO, program with the President’s goal of 1 million apprentices per year.
“You should believe me because I’m a woman and I’m in the workforce,” Chavez-DeRemer said.
Interestingly, Chavez-DeRemer seemed to volunteer that the Department is required to run the Women’s Bureau by statute. Based on results, I would say that DOGE has won more arguments at DOL in recent weeks, and I expect more grant cuts soon. Even still, the Secretary saying the law requires a "Women’s Bureau” seems to buck DOGE goals.
Chavez-DeRemer largely declined to specifically discuss the fate of WANTO due to litigation. WANTO also has its own statute, by the way.
What’s next for Job Corps.
Chavez-DeRemer indicated that the Administration is interested in training Job Corps students “through a different avenue”—something the Trump Administration tried unsuccessfully in term one. She indicated that the (ironically opaque) “Job Corps Transparency Report” had shifted her away from being a “Job Corps champion.”
Chavez-DeRemer called the six-tab spreadsheet “the most comprehensive study that has been done” of Job Corps. As someone who can think offhand of at least three more comprehensive reports on Job Corps that I did myself, I think it’s fair to question that description, particularly since the Trump II report doesn’t specify what costs it allots to price tag for each Job Corps graduate.
(Happy to discuss if anyone disagrees! I’ll have more on the issues in the report in the May 27 edition of JOBS THAT WORK.)
Still unclear? If Job Corp goes away—and Chavez-DeRemer insisted the Trump Administration’s all-but-certain decision hasn’t been made yet—how would DOL serve students from low-income backgrounds with fewer workforce dollars? When pressed, Chavez-DeRemer did not say.
Congress continues to drive me crazy by not knowing stuff.
Republicans, meanwhile, seemed all over the map on where they are on jobs policy, particularly on unionization, which GOP members separately praised, then lamented for union leaders’ relationship with the Biden Administration. Republican members also seemed prepped to call federal workforce programs as “one size fits all”—Lord, I have wished they were sometimes for the sake of my long-term memory—and offer the Uniform Congressional Majority View that some people shouldn’t go to college.
Beyond that, members continued to talk up the importance of “JOBS EQUAL GOOD” while being frustratingly unaware about how hiring and training happens and how the federal government tries to help with both.
The subcommittee chair, Rep. Robert Aderholt, R-Ala., seemed to misstate the length of current Registered Apprenticeship regulations as two pages. (Brother, I wish.) I thought he was referring to the length of the National Apprenticeship Act, but I’ll be honest, it takes some large type to spread that 99-word law beyond half a page.
Rep. Andrew Clyde, R-Ga., called for workforce programs that measure “earnings” and “employer partnerships.” Both of these things are supposed to be measured by the failed (Republican co-engineered) performance metrics presently in the Workforce innovation and Opportunity Act, America’s main source of workforce cash.
Rep. Chuck Fleischmann, R-Tenn., twice asked Chavez-DeRemer about “Jobs Corp.” With a very, very hard P at the end.
Don’t call it a birthday party.
Meanwhile, Chavez-DeRemer denied the early April report that used DOL money to pay for a birthday party amid staffing and grant cuts, something that drew internal protest from usually staid DOL career staff. She called the report “fake news” and complained California Democrat Josh Harder’s questions were “disrespect.”
“I didn’t have a birthday party,” Chavez-DeRemer said. “I had a swearing-in party, an official swearing-in party, for me and my deputy secretary.”
This week’s grants listings number: $1 billion.
There is a fascinating Department of State grant that I chose to include because it’s hard to argue it’s not workforce training—not to mention its contrast with the elimination of international funding at DOL.
Behind the paywall.
Wait… IRAPs 2.0?
I point out that money is missing again.
Predictions for Trump decisions on YouthBuild and veterans dollars.