The Trump Administration takes a stand... against ‘family-sustaining jobs.’

Plus, a grant-by-grant rundown on the changes made by the Trump Administration for DOL applicants.

In the past few weeks, the Trump Administration quietly made substantial changes¹ to Department of Labor grant applications² that

• Contradict existing Trump policy positions on jobs that support families.

• Raise questions as to how applicants will be scored for proposing projects that efficiently spend federal dollars by getting workers stable and good-paying jobs, and

• Kill support for grant projects that assure the right to organize even as the Administration touts a union-friendly Labor Secretary nominee, who could be confirmed as soon as today.

On the latter point, this follows the Administration quietly ending support for pre-apprenticeships that are “quality,” deleting cornerstone guidance for a key pathway into union-supported Registered Apprenticeship. This also adds to confusion caused by the Administration freezing workforce grant dollars and making funding cuts that look to hit even very red states very hard.

Behind the paywall, I provide a grant-by-grant breakdown of many of these changes, analyze them in light of House Majority and White House plans to fund the government, and offer some thoughts for applicants trying to react to all of this. But to summarize the high points of the changes:

• The Administration no longer supports “family-sustaining wages/jobs.”

• The Administration eliminated language that says homeless veterans (and their families) should be “treat[ed]. . . fairly.”

• The Administration removed language telling grantees to place homeless veterans in “jobs that pay living wages in safe and healthy workplaces[.]”

• The Administration repeatedly deleted text instructing grantees to connect workers to workplaces that “give workers a voice on the job and a free and fair chance to collectively bargain.”

• The Administration eliminated any mention that workforce development funding should go toward “good jobs,” in one instance directing states to spend money instead on costs related to applying for a special administrative status for apprenticeship.

“Family-sustaining wages” and “family-sustaining jobs” were Trump Administration talking points for workforce development. The idea was something along the lines of the nuclear family, as I understood it. We want wages that can sustain families so we have more families.

Here is a presidential proclamation from Trump in 2019:

My Administration is working to expand opportunities to empower men and women with disabilities through apprenticeships. In March, the Department of Labor (DOL) announced the Apprenticeship Inclusion Model (AIM) initiative to expand career pathways leading to family-sustaining wages for individuals with disabilities. These efforts help Americans earn paychecks while also earning credentials and degrees.

And here’s the phrase in a White House fact sheet issued in February 2020:

The [Trump] Administration is working to expand Pell Grants to provide education and training to inmates prior to release, helping them secure family-sustaining jobs.

Beneath the political particulars, “family-sustaining” is a clear and practical goal to target workforce programs. You’re spending money on people who need jobs to fill open jobs where they can stay and support their families.

There also are only so many ways to write about this stuff in government-scrubbed workforce materials, so at some point the Biden-Harris DOL starting using it while talking about good jobs. Because good jobs, which are good, pay wages that sustain families, you see.

At a time when employment appears flagging due to actions taken by the Administration, one would think that even if the new Trump Administration was going to sprint away from “good jobs” as part of its war on woke,³ it wouldn’t go so far as to kill its own talking point that someone can find in a couple quick Google searches.

But here is the Trump Administration’s new text for the Pathway Home 6 grant, published March 3 ahead of a March 14 application deadline. These grants are meant to connect workers returning from incarceration to stable employment to avoid the risk of recidivism.

Applicants are more likely to be successful under the scoring criteria if they show they will partner with employers, unions or other industry organizations that commit to providing employment, work experience, onsite job-related mentoring, and training to participants that lead to jobs.

And here is what the original text says, with changed or eliminated text in bold:

Applicants are more likely to be successful under the scoring criteria if they show they will partner with employers, unions or other industry organizations that commit to providing employment, work experience, onsite job-related mentoring, and training to participants that lead to good jobs. The criteria gauge job quality, which may be characterized by elements such as offering career progression into family sustaining higher wages; benefits that promote economic security and mobility such as health insurance, retirement, workers’ compensation, paid leave and caregiving supports; and opportunities where employers give workers a voice on the job and a free and fair chance to collectively bargain.

To put a fine point on it, the Administration’s edits contradict the Trump I commitment to “family-sustaining jobs” and its commitment to getting returning prisoners family-sustaining jobs. The Administration also nixed “family-sustaining” in last week’s revisions to a State Apprenticeship Expansion funding opportunity.

These types of changes raise the question of what the new Administration thinks workforce development is supposed to be. The things being deleted here are markers of the type of employment that keeps people from relying on government funding in the future. Or “help themselves,” as House leadership said a few weeks ago in talking about its budget framework.

It’s also possible that this is all unintentional. The apprenticeship changes appear to modify parts of the original funding opportunity that do not exist. It’s been five years since term one, and the current Trump team might not know “family-sustaining” was one of their phrases.

If it’s unintentional, that says something, too.

Behind the paywall: congressional updates and some grant-by-grant thoughts.