Today, the Biden-Harris Administration announced new actions to connect Americans to the good-paying jobs created by the President’s Investing in America agenda. White House Domestic Policy Advisor Neera Tanden and Acting Secretary Julie Su will travel to Williamsport, Pennsylvania to announce more than $244 million to help modernize, diversify and expand the Registered Apprenticeship system in growing U.S. industries. This announcement marks the largest federal investment in US history in Registered Apprenticeships—the gold-standard earn-and-learn training pathway. Then, Director Tanden, Acting Secretary Su, and officials from the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) and the Department of Transportation (DOT) will also travel to Philadelphia, Pennsylvania to hold the inaugural convening of the city’s Investing in America Workforce Hub and announce new policies and partnerships to ensure all workers – including women, people of color, veterans, and those that have been historically left behind–have equitable access to good-paying jobs across nearly one billion dollars in investments from President Biden’s Investing in America agenda.
The Biden-Harris Administration is laser-focused on creating training pipelines that ensure all Americans can access the hundreds of thousands of good-paying jobs created by the President’s Investing in America agenda—whether they went to college or not. To do that, the Administration launched nine Investing in America Workforce Hubs across the country that are bringing together unions, local governments, employers, training providers, schools, community colleges, and other stakeholders to facilitate partnerships to train and connect workers to jobs in high-demand sectors. First Lady Jill Biden launched five Workforce Hubs last year—Columbus, Baltimore, Pittsburgh, Augusta, and Phoenix—which generated dozens of actions to expand pre-apprenticeships and Registered Apprenticeships, train thousands of workers for good-paying union jobs, and expand community college programs. Building on that success, President Biden announced four new Workforce Hubs this year—upstate New York, Michigan, Milwaukee, and Philadelphia.
Across the state of Pennsylvania, the Administration has announced more than $17 billion in federal investments in clean energy, infrastructure, and manufacturing, which have catalyzed an additional $2.6 billion in related private-sector investments. In Philadelphia alone, the President’s Investing in America agenda is delivering over a billion dollars in projects to rebuild public infrastructure, including investing in transit, reconnecting neighborhoods, and replacing lead pipes. These investments are generating demand for skilled workers in the construction and related trades by creating good-paying jobs that will support working families in the Philadelphia area.
To deliver on the promise of these investments, the Administration—led by the White House, DOT, and EPA—has partnered with the City of Philadelphia to ensure the City has strong and diverse workforce pipelines to support the hundreds of millions of dollars in public infrastructure investments. Today, the City and the Administration are announcing the following commitments to expand pathways into these good-paying jobs:
New Policies to Promote Equitable Workforce Development
Today, the City of Philadelphia is announcing new efforts to build workforce development pipelines that attract all Americans and spur economic development through hiring preferences on City public works projects for economically disadvantaged communities. The Geographic and Economic Hiring Preference (GEHP) pilot program establishes goals for hiring 50% of apprentices and 20% of journeypersons on select public works projects from economically disadvantaged neighborhoods in Philadelphia. The new pilot program will apply to nearly $1 billion in projects and ensure that approximately 200 new apprentices are created in historically underserved communities. The hiring preference was made possible by President Biden’s Bipartisan Infrastructure Law, which changed the law to authorize such preferences for federally funded projects as further highlighted in DOT’s Best Practices to Expand Access to Jobs and Economic Opportunity Through Transportation Infrastructure Investments workforce report.
The new policy will apply to:
- Approximately $165 million in Streets Department projects in the first year and $605 million if the pilot becomes permanent policy.
- Approximately $369 million for the Philadelphia International Airport over the next 18 months.
- Approximately $432 million in Water Department projects over the next year and $770 million in projects under a permanent policy.
Expanding Pre-Apprenticeship and Apprenticeship Programs
New investments in high-quality pre-apprenticeship programs will double the current number of people moving into Registered Apprenticeships in Philadelphia, and additional investments will increase the supports and retention rates for apprentices:
- Today, the Department of Labor announced the largest single federal investment in Registered Apprenticeships in US history. These investments will reach communities across the country through 52 grantees located in 32 states. A companion formula grant program will also fund workforce development projects across Pennsylvania.
- Everybody Builds, a nonprofit created in partnership with developers, contractors, and unions focused on diversifying Philadelphia’s construction industry, will launch a new Construction Trades Career Fund. The Construction Trades Career Fund will support new apprentices from Philadelphia with supportive services like transportation, childcare, and hardship assistance. For major projects funded by the DOT, Everybody Builds and the City of Philadelphia will partner to support apprentices with federal funding. In 2023 JPMorganChase became an early supporter of Everybody Builds with a $500,000 philanthropic investment. JPMorganChase will continue to lend support to Everybody Builds as part of the financial institution’s commitment to creating a sustainable solution to diversifying this growing industry.
- The Department of Transportation has awarded the City of Philadelphia $2.9 million for workforce development and supportive services as part of major discretionary DOT grants.
- The Department of Commerce awarded a $22 million grant through the Good Jobs Challenge to Philadelphia Works. Philadelphia Works will announce that $8 million of this funding will be set aside for infrastructure training and supportive services, on top of the over 100 pre-apprentices currently supported by federal funds through Philadelphia Works.
- Already, Philadelphia Works, backbone organizations, and Southeast Pennsylvania partners awarded more than $22 million to connect over 3,000 job seekers to good jobs across healthcare, energy and infrastructure sector.
Investing in the City’s Leadership and Partnerships
The City of Philadelphia will anchor the workforce hub moving forward, taking accountability for making sure that there is a strong system of pre-apprenticeship and apprenticeship supports for construction careers. This leadership role will be supported by strong investments from philanthropy:
- The William Penn Foundation also recently announced additional investments in workforce development as part of a $5 million RFP to help remove barriers to accessing and completing training programs in Philadelphia.
- The City of Philadelphia is collaborating with Governor Josh Shapiro’s administration, including PennDOT and PENNVEST, to coordinate the implementation of federally funded infrastructure projects in Philadelphia and will continue to collaborate and explore workforce initiatives, including the GEHP pilot across various projects.
New Workforce Development Investments
During the Biden-Harris Administration, more than 900,000 people have entered apprenticeship programs that lead to good-paying, middle-class jobs. While extreme Republicans in Congress have proposed gutting the Department of Labor’s discretionary grant funding for registered apprenticeships, today’s announcements come in the same week as the Biden-Harris Administration announces the largest-ever investment in Registered Apprenticeships:
- Nearly $195 million from the Apprenticeship Building America Program, which supports public-private partnerships to expand the use of Registered Apprenticeships across in-demand fields, such as clean energy, advanced manufacturing, IT and cybersecurity, K-12 education, and more. These investments will reach communities across the country through 43 grantees in 26 states.
- $49 million from the competitive portion of State Apprenticeship Expansion Formula (SAEF) grants to 9 states, supporting these states to adopt proven and innovative strategies to expand Registered Apprenticeship opportunities.
- $39 million in base funding from SAEF grants to 46 states and territories to increase the capacity of Registered Apprenticeship Programs across key industries that give workers access to the good-paying jobs created by President Biden’s Investing in America agenda.
- $20 million in Innovative Water Workforce grants from the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency to 13 regional and national recipients, including nearly $5 million to Pennsylvania, to cultivate pre-apprenticeship, Registered Apprenticeship, and leadership development and mentorship programs to diversify and ensure the sustainability of the nation’s water utility workforce
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