Possible DOL grant freeze, a big apprenticeship redo, and $155 million in grants listings.
Plus, bad news for Workforce Pell, good math for Job Corps, and a question about DOGE and grant awards.
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Hello
Greetings from D.C., where I’m gearing up to head to San Diego for SHRM’s annual conference. Say hi if you see me at HR Comic-Con, which is at the actual site of Comic-Con and includes a speech from Rocket Raccoon. I, of course, will be dressed as San Diego resident Aquaman, who is SHRM certified in current canon. I think.
Programming note
THE MONEY will try to take a week off because of Independence Day. Obviously, if you look at everything going on the below, there is a decent chance you get a special paid edition before the holiday.
The Tuesday newsletter, which doesn’t have a fancy name, may also be delayed to Wednesday this week due to travel.
Toplines
News you should know affecting money that gets people to work.
About today’s shoe drop.
I haven’t had time to process how this morning’s Supreme Court order—limiting nationwide injunctions—hits programs like Job Corps. I would not be surprised to see a shearing of some of the grant opportunities listed below focused on diversity and equity, some of which may be out there only because of legal threats.
The beginning of the end of a huge DOL program?
As of this writing on Friday morning, the Trump II Department of Labor has not officially told grantees of the Senior Community Service Employment Program that they will receive funding after Monday. My understanding is that some grantees are planning to pause their operations starting Tuesday morning. Even if DOL were to nail down funding now, these programs would run out of money—at least temporarily.
That’s real bad, obviously. Based on a browse of a decade’s worth of guidance, May is always when SCSEP grantees usually receive notice of what DOL will pay them for the coming Program Year, the special workforce fiscal year running from July 1 to June 30. This year? Nothing, even though most other year-to-year programs have published guidance on allotments.
What did happen this May? Well, the White House proposed killing the program,1 saying it fails to move older workers into employment and “[i]n reality, it is effectively an earmark to leftist, DEI-promoting entities like the National Urban League, the Center for Workforce Inclusion, and Easter Seals.”2
A surprising number of people don’t know about SCSEP, a coast-to-coast program that is worth quite a bit of money. Last year’s four-year funding opportunity was worth $312 million for the first year, with $313 million expected to be paid out each year through 2028. The program provides work experience at community organizations to older workers who have significant barriers to employment—some of whom have never worked due to these barriers—so they can get jobs not paid for by the federal government.
It also has had a politically stout backer in the AARP, which credits the program for reducing isolation among older Americans. Goodwill is one of its current grantees.
Per the White House’s budget proposal, though
[SCSEP] is duplicative of Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program Employment and Training and DOL’s Workforce Innovation and Opportunity Act funding, including the new [block] grant program [which hasn’t been passed by Congress and may never be]. Seniors would be better served by programs operated by State and local governments, with proven track records of increasing wages.
Possibly due to the fog of their long and brutal war against Easterseals, I don’t think the White House drafters had a complete understanding of the program based on this write-up. Read the below from an academic article over at NIH and you’ll get a sense of why the underfunded WIOA system—which struggles to pay for basic human needs—may not be tailored to the needs of SCSEP’s population.
[P]articipants also face multiple barriers to employment, such as having a disability, being age 75 or older, having low English proficiency, and experiencing homelessness or being at risk of homelessness[.]
SNAP E&T also isn’t exactly a great fit.
[O]lder individuals are exempt from SNAP work requirements, which can make it more difficult to reach the population with SNAP E&T or make it less likely for SNAP E&T programs to focus on serving older job seekers.
From my work, I’ll say that DOL picked its current SCSEP grantees using a funding framework thoroughly rewired to really boost the outcomes for older workers, including wages and job security. It was one of the most substantial attempts to reshape a program around good jobs that I saw during my last run at Labor. Unless Congress comes up with bright new ideas, if you really want to boost outcomes for SCSEP’s population, sticking with this version of SCSEP is most likely the best available option.
Something else to keep in mind: SCSEP is statutorily designed to ensure uninterrupted services. I think that makes it much harder to just terminate those grants and puts the Administration in a worse spot legally to defend not funding the current grantees.
Typically, the Administration has based grant terminations on the project “no longer effectuat[ing] the program goals or agency priorities.” Killing a program that heavily focuses on avoiding disruption doesn’t exactly fit with that.
Bye Workforce Pell?
Under the arcane and mysterious weirding ways of the upper chamber of Congress, the Senate Parliamentarian concluded this week that The Bill Is Pretty and Big and That’s Just Fine Act cannot include the Republican Workforce Pell proposal if it wants to pass the Senate with 51 votes, not 60. There could be a run on shifting the proposal to fit it within reconciliation or an attempt to pass it with 60, but given the urgency to move That Bill With the Eyes Like Saucers That Sparkle Act by the end of next week, Workforce Pell may go by the wayside.
There had been hope among workforce organizations that if Workforce Pell passed in A Bill With the Awe and Beauty of the Grand Canyon Act, it could offset any cuts to workforce negotiated with the Trump Administration. Logically, you might think this change makes those cuts harder for the Administration to get, given there is plenty of bipartisan anxiety about gutting workforce under a fairly thin block grant plan from the White House. But logic is not politics.
The fed job cut bear trap remains ready to snap shut.
From Axios, which has—in a phrase the cements my D.C.-ness—a really startling-looking graph:
Businesses that rely on federal dollars are pulling back on hiring, putting more stress on an already faltering job market.
This week’s grants listings number: $155 million.
No, it’s not great that number dropped by about a billion from last week. Much of the money on the street hits a deadline in the next week or two.
Good news is there are several new state opportunities this week, including one in New Jersey I thought was interesting.
Behind the paywall.
A big apprenticeship redo is in the works.
A DOGE thought as we wait on June 30 grants.
Good signs for Job Corps? Maybe? Hopefully?