“To amend the Workforce Innovation and Opportunity Act to add the Workforce data quality initiative.”
No CRS summary available for this bill.
This section amends the Workforce Innovation and Opportunity Act (WIOA) to (1) modify reservations of funds for statewide activities under section 132(a)(2)(A) by striking the sole reference to dislocated worker projects under section 169(c) and inserting references to both section 169(c) and a new section 169(d) for workforce data quality initiatives; and (2) add a new section 169(d) establishing a grant program under which the Secretary of Labor must reserve not less than 5% and not more than 10% of such statewide activity funds for any program year—and may use funds appropriated under section 172(d)—to award competitive grants to eligible entities (e.g., State agencies or consortia) for developing workforce longitudinal data systems and related resources. Grants support strengthening WIOA program quality, State evidence-building capacity, performance reporting under section 116, privacy protections, and transparency, including by improving data standardization, real-time skills and occupational data, and linkages to elementary, secondary, and postsecondary education data systems. Applications must describe proposed activities, outcomes, performance support, privacy measures, and post-grant sustainability; award priority goes to new recipients or consortia with data infrastructure needs, and to projects expanding credential registries or navigation tools, multistate data collaboratives for cross-State outcomes, private-sector partnerships, non-Federal leveraging, or existing statewide longitudinal data systems funded under the Statewide Data Systems Grants program (20 U.S.C. 9607) (i.e., competitive grants to State educational agencies for managing and analyzing individual student data to meet Elementary and Secondary Education Act requirements). (Thus, grantees may link workforce data to education records for better tracking of employment outcomes.) Grant funds may also support replicating proven data practices across States, piloting scalable labor market research, creating interoperable learning and employment records, and developing data policies and security measures.