Policy Strategies to Improve Job Quality for Black Workers in Sector Partnership Programs

This issue brief, Policy Strategies to Improve Job Quality for Black Workers in Sector Partnership Programs, examines the intersection of sector partnerships in the Workforce Innovation and Opportunity Act and Black workers’ outcomes, calls for more data to understand the efficacy of sector partnerships for Black workers, and shares a six-state sector partnership landscape analysis and policy recommendations.

Black workers experience inequitable employment and wage outcomes in the U.S. labor market. The public workforce system, which relies on standalone training programs, exacerbates these disparities by steering Black workers into low-wage opportunities with minimal career advancement and economic mobility. Sector partnership programs respond to employers’ needs by training workers to fill high-quality, in-demand positions. Evaluations of sector partnership programs find that the model can have positive impacts for Black workers. As Congress acts to reauthorize the Workforce Innovation and Opportunity Act (WIOA) and agencies implement the federal government’s Investing in America agenda, more data and information are needed to understand the efficacy of sector partnerships for Black workers.

Read the report here.

Watch our explainer video below.