Today, CLASP submitted comments to the U.S. Department of Education (ED) and the U.S. Department of Labor (DOL) on three Notices of Proposed Rulemaking (NPRMs), each of which addressed different aspects of the Workforce Innovation and Opportunity Act (WIOA). The proposed regulations mark an important milestone in WIOA implementation, and the Departments plan to analyze all the public comments and anticipate issuing Final Rules implementing WIOA in early 2016. 

CLASP’s comments to the Departments, highlighting ways to improve services for low-income and lower-skilled youth and adults through WIOA, can be found here:

• Unified and Combined State Plans, Performance Accountability, and the One-Stop System Joint Provisions (Joint DOL/ED)
• Workforce Innovation and Opportunity Act provisions administered by DOL
• Title II Adult Education and Literacy administered by ED

Passed by an overwhelming bipartisan majority in Congress, WIOA is the first update to the nation’s core workforce training programs since the Workforce Investment Act (WIA) of 1998. Low-skilled and low-income workers face more barriers than ever to securing an education and getting a good job. The updated law improves connections to employment and training opportunities that lead to economic prosperity for workers and their families while strengthening existing workforce development and adult education programs to enable better service to adults and youth with barriers to economic success.

Our recommendations for improvements to the proposed federal regulations can also be used as guidance and suggestions for state and local policymakers, practitioners, and advocates to build better systems and connections as WIOA is implemented in communities across the country. For more information on leveraging WIOA to improve economic outcomes for low-income people, please visit CLASP’s WIOA Game Plan for Low-Income People, which includes webinars on a broad range of WIOA-related topics as well as helpful fact sheets and policy papers. We will continue to add resources to this page in the comings months as the Departments release guidance for the field. Be on the lookout for new resources and webinars.