The federal and state governments spend tens of billions of dollars each year on workforce training, but they rarely hold programs accountable for whether participants reach wages they can live on. The result is a system that meets its targets while leaving workers stuck below self-sufficiency: the typical Workforce Innovation and Opportunity Act (WIOA) participant exits training into a job paying roughly 30% less than the income required for a single adult with no children to be self-sufficient. This is not a failure of execution, but a failure of standards and incentives.
State policymakers can change this within their existing authority — even without new federal legislation or increased appropriations. The tools exist. What remains is the decision to fund what pays.
This brief identifies five ways to do so:
- Use the Governor’s Reserve to scale evidence-based sectoral training
- Publish both wage and wage-growth outcomes for Eligible Training Providers
- Require and incentivize living-wage outcomes with tiered reimbursement for providers
- Screen low-wage unemployment insurance (UI) claimants for higher-wage training pathways
- Test and scale Integrated Education and Training for adult learners
