The Fiscal Responsibility Act of 2023 introduced changes that require states to report on specific employment and education outcomes for people after they stop receiving TANF cash assistance.  Mirroring the Department of Labor's Workforce Innovation and Opportunity Act programs, these measures cover employment, employment retention, employment earnings, and attainment of a high school degree. This Urban Institute fact sheet is a resource for states, federal staff, and agency leaders implementing the new law.  Drawing insights from the 2018 report called Measuring Employment Outcomes in TANF, the fact sheet helps explain the challenges and opportunities of measuring and interpreting employment outcomes.

Northwest Wisconsin Workforce Investment Board (NWWIB) serves 10 counties across 10,000 square miles in northern Wisconsin, and administers WIOA and discretionary grant programs. Since NWWIB serves a rural region, the staff like to stay innovative on their outreach strategies, such as adopting social media campaigns on TikTok, YouTube Shorts, Instagram, and Facebook. This Workforce GPS blogpost highlights a Q&A with NWWIB, exploring their innovative and fun social media outreach strategy and why innovation is important to the organization.

The merging of WIOA and TANF services has the potential to provide substantial benefits to those most in need. This brief highlights four key strategies states can implement to bolster their integration efforts. The four strategies range from least intensive to the most intensive to reflect shared learning, collaborative activities, joint service delivery, and shared resources and the research references findings from the 2019 OFA TANF/WIOA Collaboration briefs.

The capacity to plan for, design, and conduct evaluations takes appropriately allocated resources, expertise, technical assistance, and tools to create over time. WorkforceGPS will host a virtual session on July 26, 2023, from 3:00 p.m. to 4:30 p.m. ET that will highlight the U.S. Department of Labor, Employment and Training Administration’s efforts and those of two state workforce agencies to expand or build evidence and implement evaluations as required by the Workforce Innovation and Opportunity Act of 2014. Along with representatives from Washington State and North Carolina, presenters will share insights about the evaluation and research community of practice, describe lessons learned from past Evaluation Peer Learning Cohorts (EvalPLC), and provide information about the next round of applications for the 2023 EvalPLC.

This report overviews the design and implementation of the New Start Career Network, a statewide program that assists older, long-term unemployed New Jerseyans. The report examines the rationale behind the program and its design, notes the collaborators involved, and discusses the program’s services, including a website, webinars, online tools, and career coaching. It also reviews approaches to engaging employers as well as recruiting members and coaches. In addition, lessons learned, recommendations, and key elements for serving long-term, unemployed job seekers are identified.

This scan describes recent and long-term economic and policy developments with relevance for the public workforce system. It focuses primarily on topics and trends related to the changing world of work and their implications for the public workforce system. Topics include broad economic trends and recent changes in employment and wages; changes to industries and occupations due to technology, automation, and the rise of the gig economy; growth in remote workforce system services; and Federal policy trends related to the public workforce system.

These 2020 National Indian and Native American Employment and Training Conference Western Regional Peer-to-Peer Training Conference presentations cover several areas which are relevant to tribal workforce development programs and operations. Topics included: DOL ETA 9130 Reports; Enhancing Participant Outcome under WIOA Performance Indicators; Stackable Credentials; SMART Training; Tribal Workforce Development, Self-Determination, Innovation, Policy Recommendations; and Your Money, Your Goals: New Financial Empowerment Tools for Workforce Development. The presentations also include profiles of the U.S. Department of Labor’s Office of Indian and Native American Programs and the Cook Inlet Tribal Council.

This toolkit offers steps on how the juvenile justice and workforce development systems can collaborate to serve youth with justice involvement. The toolkit includes a review of evidence-based practices in youth workforce development, an examination of how the public workforce system is funded under the Workforce Innovation and Opportunity Act (WIOA), examples of how to utilize WIOA-funded services for better outcomes for youth with justice involvement, and steps that could be taken to form interagency partnerships between the juvenile justice and workforce development systems.