employment

The Real Problem With WIOA

/ The Old Crank / 3 Comments

I’m still confused over why the Workforce Innovation and Opportunity Act (WIOA) is already considered an abject failure because it didn’t do anything about the predatory lending practiced by institutions covered by an entirely different piece of legislation, but in the meantime, while watching this, I was pleased to see someone mention, even if somewhat obliquely (and then completely ignored by the host), the one clear aspect of WIOA (and its predecessor, the Workforce Investment Act) that really does work to the advantage of those schools that rip people off: the fact that there isn’t nearly enough funding in WIOA to provide quality training to people who are eligible for the program. If people had better options, maybe they wouldn’t be in a position to be taken advantage of by these terrible schools.

I’ve written about the completely inadequate funding levels for adult education in WIOA here. I’m not an expert by any stretch on the job training programs covered in WIOA, but I gather from what little I do know that the funding for these programs is inadequate as well. If people think that it’s the WIOA-funded one-stops that should be counseling people about higher ed student loans, then in their next breath it night be good to talk a little about whether one-stop staff capacity is sufficient—or sufficiently knowledgable—to do this, and if not, what kind of money it might take to  make that happen.

Again, I’m really interested in how workforce investment advocates might do more to stop the higher education scam artists that prey on the unemployed and unskilled, but most of the discussion over the last week or so hasn’t been very clear about the differences between higher eduction and WIOA, how they actually work together, and how they could work together better, given such a restrictive funding environment. Without such clarity, it’s hard to know which policy choices, if any, will make a difference. This is one area where your comments would be much appreciated!

As Employment Numbers Improve, Part-time and Community College Enrollment Goes Down

/ The Old Crank

Ben Cassleman, writing for FiveThirtyEight, notes the drop in college enrollment among recent high-school graduates and argues that the decline is driven by the improving job market:

The drop in college attendance among recent high school graduates appears concentrated among groups most likely to be deciding between going to school and joining the labor force: Part-time and community college enrollments saw the sharpest decline.

UPDATE: 4/25/14: I took a look at the actual BLS report this morning, and I think it’s worth noting that the new data actually reverses the trend: the college enrollment rate for recent high school graduates in October 2013 (65.9%) was actually only very slightly down from October 2012 (66.2%). Cassleman acknowledges this in his article, but doesn’t think it’s that important since “enrollment rates remain above their pre-recession levels by most measures.” But it seems to me one could argue that the story in the most recent data is that the college enrollment decline over the last few years actually appears to have leveled off in 2013, even as employment prospects improved (at least a little bit) during the same period.

Sequestration Cuts May Be Forcing Some Parents to Quit Their Jobs

/ The Old Crank

This story, from Bloomberg’s William Selway, highlights a really important point about the cuts to Head Start caused by sequestration:

A U.S. preschool program for low-income families allowed single mother Kelly Burford to take a $7.25-an-hour job as a department store clerk in Maryland. Her son, Bradyn, 2, spent the day with friends listening to stories, singing and drawing pictures — at no cost to Burford.

That ended in June, when Bradyn’s school in Taneytown, seventy miles north of Washington, closed after losing $103,000 because of automatic government spending cuts. Without support from the federal Head Start program, Burford, 35, said she had to quit her job and has seen her son’s progress slip. (my emphasis)

I doubt this is the only low-income parent facing the same dilemma. The question is whether anyone is keeping track of this. It’s important that these “hidden” costs of sequestration are taken into account when assessing the impact.

Boxed in on Jobs

/ The Old Crank

This Kathleen Geier post in the Washington Monthly is good, and her argument is pretty compelling. However, regarding the D.C. big box living wage bill, she writes:

[P]oliticians hate the D.C. living wage bill, because they don’t want to drive Walmart away. The politicians want the photo ops at Walmart openings, where they can boast about bringing “good jobs” — um, well, okay, “jobs,” anyway — into the community.

To be fair, it’s not only about the fear of driving Walmart away. As soon as the bill was passed by the Council, other retailers allegedly began re-evaluating their plans to locate in the District. Isn’t it more accurate to say that politicians are afraid of appearing anti-business in general? In my experience that’s an especially sensitive issue for politicians in D.C., a city that faces tough competition for business from neighboring states Virginia and Maryland. Again, the threats from other retailers may turn out to be bogus—and even if they’re not, the long-term net impact on employment/wages might still by a positive one if this bill were to become law—but this notion that D.C. is “anti-business” is something that District politicians legitimately have to grapple with.

None of which is to deny that it’s a big problem when a Walmart ribbon-cutting ceremony serves as a fig leaf for politicians anywhere who are otherwise doing little to nothing to support good jobs, worker training, etc.