Target Population

The failure to find jobs undermines the efforts of Americans to support themselves and their families and generates high costs (both direct and indirect) for jurisdictions. Recent trends make clear that the struggle to find employment is widespread and that people at the low-wage and less educated end of the employment spectrum face an increasingly uphill battle to find jobs that pay adequately. As the growth of the economy has slowed, job growth is concentrated in positions requiring skills that are hard to find among the unemployed. According to the Bureau of Labor Statistics, the overall unemployment rate in 2004 hovered at or about 5.5 percent; but for people over 25 who have less than a high school diploma (a description matching the majority of returning prisoners), the rate was more than 8.5 percent. ^[1]  , ^[2]   The overall unemployment rates for African-Americans and Latinos were even higher (10.25 and 7.05 percent, respectively). ^[3]  , ^[4]  

Earlier policy statements have articulated ways to link people who are in prison or jail to employment services while they are behind bars, immediately after their release, and during their period of community supervision. (See Policy Statement 21, Creation of Employment Opportunities for more on the employment of individuals released from prison and jails.) People re-entering the community after being in prison or jail are more likely to succeed when they find work and earn a wage on which they can live. Research has shown that well-run employment programs that serve people who are incarcerated (or recently released) can dramatically cut recidivism rates. An evaluation of Project RIO, for instance, a Texas program designed to help released prisoners find and maintain employment, revealed that 23 percent of program participants were reincarcerated, compared to 38 percent of the comparison group. ^[5]   The three-year return-to-prison rate for participants in the employment program at St. Leonard's Ministries in Chicago is 20 percent, compared to a 54 percent return rate for all state prisoners.

Despite the value of such programs, their availability is extremely limited, and less than half of released prisoners had a job lined up upon their return to the community. ^[6]   Further, a recent analysis of data collected from parole and probation violators returned to prison in Illinois in 2001-02 found that 43 percent were unemployed at the time of their violation. ^[7]  

This policy statement focuses on the nation's workforce development system as a whole, not just those aspects that relate to re-entering individuals, and the strategies being implemented to support people entering or returning to the labor market. The success of these efforts carries the broadest of implications: individual communities and the national economy can thrive when the workforce system responds quickly and effectively to ever-changing economic conditions to develop job opportunities and to prepare and match people to these opportunities.

Key Issues

Many people seeking employment have settled for jobs for which they are overqualified and underpaid. The underemployment rate, which was calculated in June 2004 at 9.6 percent, adds three categories of people not captured by unemployment rates: (1) those who have accepted part-time jobs after failing to find time work; (2) those "discouraged job seekers" who were not looking for work specifically because they believed no jobs were available for them; and (3) those "marginally attached" to the job system because they wanted a job and had actively looked for one sometime in the most recent 12 months, but not in the most recent four weeks. ^[8]   In 1997, when the unemployment rate was significantly lower than it is currently, more than four million workers were forced to work part-time because time jobs were not available to them. ^[9]  

For those with poor education backgrounds and other barriers to employment, the types of jobs available are often very low-paying. The shift from a goods-producing economy (with jobs like mining and manufacturing) to a service-producing economy has resulted in a growth in low-paying jobs. In fact, the largest amount of job growth has been in the two lowest-paying service sectors, the retail trade and the services industries. ^[10]   People who have left welfare rolls (whose education and job experience is often akin to that of returning prisoners) are concentrated in the three sectors that offer the lowest average hourly pay of all nonfarm industries; retail, the industry in which this population is over-represented, offers the lowest pay of all. ^[11]   These jobs tend to pay minimum wage, which at its current level is insufficient to keep a time worker with one child above the poverty line. ^[12]  

Working even a low-paying job may disqualify individuals from receiving government subsidies or participating in income-based benefit programs, and may cause them to endure hardships without any safety net. 29.9 percent of individuals who left federal welfare rolls in 1997, and who were working time, year, faced at least one critical hardship (such as skipping meals or necessary medical care, being evicted, or having utilities shut off), while 76.8 percent had faced at least one serious hardship (such as not being able to make housing payments, worrying about food or having telephone service disconnected). ^[13]   Those who left welfare rolls and were working part-time experienced hardships at even higher rates. (See sidebar, "Welfare-to-Work" for more on the relationship between welfare reform and workforce issues.) In addition, low-paid workers may struggle to meet costs associated with work, such as transportation and child care.

System Organization and Funding

The national workforce system comprises a vast array of organizations and agencies, often working independently of each other, at the local, state, and federal level, to provide income supports to current and potential workers; to develop jobs and employment opportunities; and to provide job training and placement services.

Temporary Assistance to Need Families (TANF), which replaced the nation's welfare system and its cash benefits in 1996, is a federal program that provides some support to low-income workers, especially those entering or re-entering the job market. In accordance with its design to move people from "welfare to work," the 1996 welfare law requires that at least half of those receiving TANF benefits participate in work or work-related activities and sets a five-year lifetime limit for welfare benefits in most cases. (See sidebar, "Welfare-to-Work" for more on the relationship between welfare reform and workforce issues.)

The guiding philosophy of WIA is that employment, training, and jobs programs funded through the US Department of Labor should be driven as much by the demand side of the workforce equation (businesses) as they are by the supply side (jobseekers). (See sidebar, "Key Principles of the Workforce Investment Act of 1998.") Regardless of training or skills, individuals should be able to obtain job training and placement services from career centers run by states and localities. The WIA statute recognizes that finding opportunities in the workforce for hard-to-place employees, including the disabled, immigrants, and the elderly, can be particularly challenging. It specifically includes among individuals who should be targeted to receive workforce services adults and juveniles involved with the criminal justice system. ^[20]   The statute also authorizes funds to be used for educating individuals in correctional facilities. ^[21]  

The US Department of Commerce's Economic Development Administration is the federal entity charged with generating new jobs, retaining existing jobs, and stimulating industrial and commercial growth in economically distressed areas of the United States. In addition, each state has its own economic development authority, and local communities may have from one to several such authorities. Understanding where jobs may be lost or created is complicated, and WIB members may look to these agencies for information and partnership in fostering employment opportunities and preparing potential workers to fill them.

In general, federal funding for workforce development initiatives flows from the Employment and Training Administration (ETA), the Department of Labor office charged with administering federal government job training and worker dislocation programs, federal grants to states for public employment service programs, and unemployment insurance benefits. ETA distributes hundreds of millions of dollars in grants and contracts each year. ^[22]  

While the Labor Department provides oversight, evaluation, and leadership towards the implementation of WIA through special projects and initiatives, each state has established both state and local Workforce Investment Boards (WIBs) to manage the nation's workforce system on a day-to-day basis. The WIBs are given broad responsibilities over the spending of their allocated funds, the design of workforce services and outreach, the selection of approved providers within the system, and the creation of a local workforce system that includes stakeholders in economic development, education, and labor, as well as community leaders, elected officials, and others. WIBs are chaired by local business leaders and must be comprised of a majority of business representatives. Fiscal accountability for the boards rests with the chief local elected officials in the various jurisdictions.

WIA is designed to create a workforce system with universal, locally based access points: governors designate local "workforce investment areas," each of which must establish at least one physical service One-Stop Career Center, which may be supplemented by other centers, electronic access points, or networks at affiliated sites. One-Stop Career Centers provide three tiers of services for adults, dislocated workers, and youth: core, intensive, and training services. Core services include labor market information, initial assessment of an individual's skill levels, and job search and placement assistance. Eligible unemployed individuals who have completed at least one core service program may receive intensive services, which essentially consist of one-on-one job counseling. Employed individuals who need additional services to obtain or keep employment that will lead to self-sufficiency are also eligible for intensive services. Finally, training services are available to those who have met the requirements for intensive services but have been unable to obtain or keep employment.

In the summer of 2004, about 1,900 One-Stops were operating across the country. As indicated above, local WIBs enjoy a great deal of flexibility in designing the One-Stop service system for their area and coordinating with wide variety of providers, programs, and employers. Many, for instance, have begun to integrate their systems with the federal TANF program by helping jobseekers meet the requirements for work and work-related activities set forth in the statute. Others have formed partnerships with state and local economic development authorities to share information about employment trends and to implement job creation strategies, or with community-based providers, including local faith-based organizations, to increase outreach to both workers and employers.

As is the case with any national initiative, implementation of WIA varies greatly among investment areas across the country. Some jurisdictions have transformed their public workforce systems and operate in concert with WIA principles, while others have evolved more slowly and may not yet have adopted the locally based, customer-focused priorities of WIA. While Congress is in the process of reauthorizing the WIA statute, which may lead to significant changes, the effective and efficient growth of the workforce development system in its current structure depends greatly on the ability of advanced WIBs to solidify and extend their progress, and on other the ability of other WIBs to strengthen their performance.

In addition to these WIA-related workforce development providers, a vast constellation of public and private organizations, programs and policies provide job training to potential and current workers, training the former to enter the workforce, and helping the latter to upgrade their skills to meet the demands of an increasingly technological society. The United States boasts a robust network of post-secondary educational institutions, including public and private two- and four-year colleges and universities, proprietary trade schools, and community-based providers. In addition, private and public sector employers each spend an estimated 2.5 percent of payroll on training their employees. ^[23]  

The following set of recommendations outlines top priorities for moving the national workforce system forward. Policymakers and workforce practitioners can meet the employment needs of businesses and jobseekers by serving as nexuses of collaboration; by understanding the market and using that knowledge to inform the workforce development system; by addressing the full spectrum of needs of individuals seeking employment or career services; and by monitoring and evaluating the performance of workforce development programs to ensure that effective practices are identified and proliferated.