Heading the Wrong Way

Federal investments designed to upgrade in the skills and productivity of working adults long have been modest ones. In 2007, the federal government spent $3 billion on the Workforce Investment Act, the nation's largest single source of workforce funding. While this amount may sound large, it actually accounted for just 0.1% of total federal spending. And that meager amount is slated to be reduced in the budget recently passed by Congress. 

This decades-long funding decline, ironically, has occurred alongside a growing awareness of the importance of skills and education to workforce productivity, firm competitiveness and individual economic advancement. Moreover, a variety of studies have documented potential worker shortages in occupations that require individuals with "middle skills," meaning people who possess more than a high school diploma but less than a baccalaureate degree. The NC Commission on Workforce Development, for instance, projects significant annual shortages in middle-skill workers over the period 2007-17. 

Unless the trend of federal disinvestment in workforce activities is reversed, it seems unlikely that American skills levels will be of the quality and level needed to sustain or fuel future economic growth.