Which agency told applicants they're not making awards? And $51.9 billion in grants listings.

Plus, Congress lines up to punt, the real fed job cuts kick in, and thoughts on what might really happen to the missing workforce money. Other than not getting spent.

Sep 19, 2025

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Toplines

News you should know about the money that gets people to work.

Countdown.

We’re 11 days from the end of the fiscal year. Absent sudden developments or an explanation to the contrary, I expect these grants will expire with it: Workforce Opportunity in Rural Community ($50 million), Susan Harwood Occupational Safety Grants ($12.7 million), and likely unspent Women’s Bureau grants funding (approximately $1 million).

The bad news: money that did get competed might end up not getting spent too. More behind the paywall.

Congress stands to put off big decisions on workforce and everything else.

Much like the Iowa Hawkeyes football team, Congress looks like it’s going to be punting until around Thanksgiving.

At the time of this writing, my understanding is the House could vote today on a bill that would keep the government open for another seven weeks beyond the end of the fiscal year. The bill is fairly clean and, unlike the shorter-term funding bill from March, it doesn’t cut a big mess of workforce dollars.

It also buys time to settle the big gaps between House and Senate appropriators on topics like workforce development, which the Senate would fund at 2024 levels and the House would cut in half. From a sheer logistical perspective, I don’t think teaching a compromise is possible by September 30. There are questions about whether the stopgap will pass in the Senate in its current state, where some Democratic support is necessary—and in question—but I do think we’re ultimately going to get a punt here.

I still haven’t seen anything that tells me program consolidation—or the cut-and-replace-then-cut-again version of “consolidation” in the Trump block grants plan—will happen during this appropriations cycle. I have heard more noise in the past couple weeks about a fairly static re-authorization of the Workforce Innovation and Opportunity Act, America’s chief source of workforce dollars and the thing that would get cut real good by the House bill. I also have heard things in recent weeks that makes me question how hard some corners of the Administration are really pushing for block grants.

A dark-horse option to watch, though, is appropriations language that allows states to merge together the WIOA formula programs, state’s most consistent spigots of workforce funding. I have had a couple folks email me House bill language for consolidating WIOA funding that they say would be a backdoor block grant. However, I read that language as applying only to “outlying areas” since it doesn’t use the word “states” in the current version of the bill. The committee report also doesn’t indicate it applies to states—and urges that attempted consolidations be run by the committee.

Either way, I think some folks on the right would be more comfortable with current funding levels if that option were available and gave them the opportunity for “efficiencies.” Behind the paywall, I note one big potential consequence of the timing of this move and another potential WIOA wild card.

This week’s grants listings number: $51.9 billion.

So… just $50 billion higher than last week! There is a big new Health and Human Services cooperative agreement that is a single application for five years—which you can read about below. DOL’s open competitions close in the next few days.

Which agency just told applicants they’re not making awards?
The big workforce issue we’ve forgotten about because the world is madness.
Some possibilities on how missing workforce money gets spent.