We need whole answers, not half measures, in jobs policy.
Where I think things stand after a year of JOBS THAT WORK.
Hey.
Today at 2 p.m. EST, I’m moderating a conversation hosted by Craft Education on DOL’s massive $145 million investment in pay-to-train apprenticeship grants—and we’ll be taking your questions. You can sign up here to join us.
This morning, we officially hit the one-year mark for this little enterprise. It’s been a busy year, and I have spent a lot of it on the road speaking and meeting with people about how to get workers in jobs employers need to be filled.
This week, I have been thinking about what my takeaway is from doing all this for 12 months. Per usual, my answer is a lot of things, but the idea that I keep coming back to is this: we have to do better than half ideas in this space.
Let’s be clear about the why behind that thought before I unpack what I mean by it. There are more people doing and interested in this work—and wanting more from it—than many people in power assume. That makes sense. Few things are more universal in the United States than the need to get a good job, mainly because so many vital things—like healthcare and a safe place to live—can turn on a person having one. Businesses, despite their ongoing courtship of The Robots, also still need dependable people to make money.
Many political leaders, though, don’t really take this work seriously. It’s usually issue 12, not issue four. This year, I have watched hearing after hearing in which members of Congress seem to barely understand how people actually get work—let alone the bare workings of the programs they fund. I regret to inform you that the lack of priority shows. Painfully.
I think this work gets dismissed by a lot of political folks because it’s expensive and hard to do right, so they don’t really try. The whole answer is not just having more apprenticeship programs, to pick an example, it’s having apprenticeship programs with access to childcare so people can go to after-work training. It’s not just about spending money so employers have incentive to participate, it’s making sure there’s a real job at the end of it and it pays enough that you’re not likely to need to pay for more services for that worker in the near future. (Also because it’s the good and right thing to do.)
When political leaders have spoken up on the issues, it’s frequently to sell half—or even a third—of what I described in the last paragraph. That’s understandable because they only budget for a bargain. In 2026 dollars, my Robot Research Assistant estimates we’re spending less than a third of what we spent on the most dependable sources of workforce development funding in 1982 dollars.
There are very few laws more half measure-y than the Workforce Innovation and Opportunity Act, the current version of the federal statute supplying that diminishing supply of dependable money. It sure provides a lot of training, but it spreads out resources so that it doesn’t necessarily do any of it well. It pays for childcare and transportation and healthcare, but only if you go through the odyssey of showing you can’t get the resources somewhere else.
Some lawmakers are thrilled to share with you how they are perpetually pissed off by WIOA’s poor results. But if you only spend enough money for half a shoe, it’s going to be hard to go for a walk. Problem is, though, workforce is so bottom-ranked by lawmakers and political leaders that a lot of us feel excited when they talk about the prospect of not going completely barefoot.
So what should we do about it?
One, I think a lot of people in this space hold their tongues out of fear of losing support from one political side or another. The thing I have found from filling this space every week is how much both political sides want actual unvarnished feedback from people who know these issues. If something sucks, or is incomplete, you don’t need to praise it just because you’re happy someone is talking about workforce. They should be talking about workforce. It’s one of the most important issues in the country, full stop. We need actual political prioritization of these issues if we’re going to get ahead on the challenges of today and the ones coming ahead. I don’t think you can manage that without expecting more and being vocal about it.
Two, it’s really hard to do that political prioritization without actionable ideas, and the only ideas the current majorities have are WIOA: Now With New Hat. I have my doubts about that happening in the near future.
That’s not a bad thing, though. There’s an idea in therapy called “striking while the iron is cold,” meaning that you should have the hard conversations when emotions aren’t running hot. Translating that to public policy, I think that means to have the hard conversations of building whole answers when you don’t have the pressure or the emotional tumult of needing to get something done.
The iron is real damn cold on Capitol Hill. If we’re going to build a better way of getting people to work, we shouldn’t wait around to build it until you have a Congress that seems interested in doing something. If you wait until then, it will be colored by the same political and financial bargain-seeking that isn’t what we need.
As we move into the next year of this space, that’s something I’m trying to fill it with even more, and in language and framing that sheds workforcespeak or consultantspeak or academicspeak. That doesn’t mean watering things down for the mainstream because I don’t think we need to. The issue is fairly universal, after all. It means telling people the story in real human language and getting across why it matters—and that it can be much, much better.
You should fill your spaces with those ideas, too.
Hello, valued customer.
Thank you for your support and readership of JOBS THAT WORK. Not only is this a sustainable part of how I make a living—and one of the top-100 business publications on Substack, in the world for some reason—it’s also been at the root of the most-fulfilling year of my professional life. That doesn’t happen without the evangelism of my readers, who are amazing. It’s part of why I find myself less willing to take half answers and half effort from America’s leaders on these issues. The appetite is there, and it’s not as niche as they think it is because they’re not listening.
I appreciate y’all. You’re awesome.
Card subject to change.
What’s less awesome is that we might be on the verge of another shutdown, although in light of the massive political upheaval happening after the killing in Minneapolis, that’s not surprising. I’ll be keeping an eye on that—and several other things—for tomorrow’s edition of THE MONEY. Also, there are like eight items I have had to shelve because of the Labor Department scandal, and I’m sure maybe half of one of those will sneak into tomorrow’s edition.
