The White House released President Biden’s detailed fiscal year (FY) 2022 budget on May 28, 2021. Under President Biden’s FY 2022 budget request, the U.S. Department of Labor will receive approximately $3.6 billion in funding for training and employment services under the Workforce Investment and Opportunity Act (WIOA). Of that funding, the Job Corps program is appropriated a total budget of approximately $1.755 billion in FY 2022, a slight increase from $1.749 billion the prior year. The $6 million increase is dedicated toward the administration account for additional full-time staff. This is in juxtaposition to NJCA’s FY22 request for Job Corps which requests additional funds for the operations and construction, rehabilitation and acquisition (CRA) accounts to go towards center staff compensation, trade offerings, equipment, and curricula updates, IT modernization and the CRA backlog.

In its Congressional Budget Justification, the Employment and Training Administration responded to a number of questions and NJCA member priorities that were posed by Congress at NJCA’s request during the FY 2021 appropriations process. This includes an analysis of Job Corps’ marketing investments, the cost to modernizing Job Corps trade offerings and equipment, and performance-based incentives in fixed-price contracts. 

The NJCA is now turning its focus to the FY 2022 appropriations process and working with policymakers to ensure the Job Corps program is fully funded in the annual Labor, Health and Human Services, Education, and Related Agencies Appropriations bill.