Contents

• Program Background
• Data Source, Methods of Tabulation, and Considerations
• State Distribution of Expenditures Between Career Services and Training
• Share of WIOA-AA Participants Receiving Training
• Per-Participant Expenditures for Career Services and Training
• Low-Income Participant Share

Summary

The Workforce Innovation and Opportunity Act of 2014 (WIOA; P.L. 113-128) is the primary federal workforce development statute. The Adult Activities program under Title I of WIOA (WIOA-AA) is a formula grant to states that can support a range of workforce development activities for persons age 18 or older. WIOA-AA is one of three formula grants authorized by Title I of WIOA. In program year (PY) 2023, funding for WIOA-AA grants was approximately $881 million.

WIOA gives states a degree of discretion in how to utilize their WIOA-AA funding to meet their local labor market needs. This report uses Department of Labor (DOL) data from PY2023 to illustrate how states have used their WIOA-AA funding. The report focuses on state data on the utilization of WIOA-AA funding for career services and training, the two primary workforce development activities supported by WIOA. States vary in how they use their funds, though there are also some trends for each metric examined. This report presents data from the PY2023 WIOA National Performance Summary. It generally does not discuss data from other sources or seek explanations for why states may elect to use their WIOA-AA funding in a particular way.

The report presents national average and state-level data on the following indicators:

• Distribution of funds between career services and training. Of nationwide WIOA-AA funds spent on career services and training, approximately 60% supported career services and 40% supported training, though there was substantial variation among the states. For example, 5 states allocated more than 70% to training and 13 states allocated more than 80% to career services.
• Percentages of participants who receive training. This metric can provide an alternative indicator to funding distributions to give a sense of the role of training in state strategies. Nationwide, about 43% of WIOA-AA participants received training. The rate was much higher in some states: in 10, at least 80% of WIOA-AA participants received training services.
• Per-participant expenditures on career services and training. States have discretion to support lower expenditures on a larger number of participants or higher expenditures on a smaller number of participants. Nationwide, the average expenditure on a career services participant was about $1,600 and the average expenditure on a training participant was about $2,400. As with the other indicators, there was significant variation among the states.
• Low-income participants as a share of total WIOA-AA participants. WIOA requires states to prioritize low-income individuals for certain WIOA-AA services, including training. Nationwide, about 60% of WIOA-AA participants were classified as low-income. At the state level, there were 18 states where low-income participants accounted for at least 80% of their WIOA-AA population.

The main text of this report focuses on broader trends and generally does not discuss individual states. The Appendix provides state-level data on the indicators discussed in the main text.

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The Workforce Innovation and Opportunity Act of 2014 (WIOA; P.L. 113-128) is the primary federal workforce development statute.¹ The Adult Activities program under Title I of WIOA (WIOA-AA) is a formula grant to states that can support a range of workforce development activities for persons age 18 or older. WIOA-AA is administered at the federal level by the Employment and Training Administration (ETA) in U.S. Department of Labor (DOL).

This report uses DOL data from program year (PY) 2023 (July 1, 2023–June 30, 2024) to illustrate how states have used their WIOA-AA funding for allowable activities. In particular, the report focuses on state data on the utilization of career services and training, which are the two primary workforce development activities in the WIOA-AA program.² There is broad variation in how states have utilized their funds, though there are also some trends for each metric examined.

This report focuses on using publicly available data from DOL to illustrate the diverse ways that states have utilized a single workforce development funding stream. It generally does not explore why states pursue a particular strategy or how WIOA-AA funding interacts with other funding streams that can support related activities.

Program Background

Title I of WIOA authorizes formula grants to states that support the operation of state workforce systems. These funds are allotted to the states based on their relative shares of specified formula factors.³ States and local areas use the funds to operate a system of One-Stop Career Centers, which facilitate workforce services that are designed to meet local labor market needs. States and One-Stop Career Centers coordinate these activities with other federal funding.⁴

Title I of WIOA authorizes three formula grant programs that support workforce development interventions for specified populations: Adult Activities, Dislocated Worker Activities, and Youth Activities. This report uses program data to illustrate diversity in state approaches; it focuses on the WIOA-AA program, which is the most versatile funding stream in terms of the population it can serve. WIOA-AA also had the most participants in PY2023 among the three WIOA Title I formula programs.⁵

The WIOA-AA formula grant can be used to provide services to any person age 18 or older, though it prioritizes low-income workers and other disadvantaged populations.⁶ To receive training services under the WIOA-AA, a participant must demonstrate a need for training to obtain or retain employment that leads to self-sufficiency.⁷

Key principles of the WIOA-AA program (as well as other WIOA formula grants) are local control and state accountability. States and local areas have flexibility in determining the specific activities that WIOA-AA funds will support and, in return, are responsible for meeting certain negotiated performance standards.⁸

The primary services available to participants under WIOA-AA are career services and training.⁹ Career services are typically provided or facilitated by local staff and can include basic career services such as provision of local job postings, or individualized career services such as skill assessment or case management. Training provided under WIOA facilitates the development of human capital through participation in a structured program, which is most frequently carried out through a voucher system.¹⁰ Training under WIOA-AA can include classroom training, on-the-job training, or other approaches.

WIOA-AA funds can be used to support strategic and administrative functions at the statewide and local levels as well as career services and training.¹¹ WIOA does not require states to allocate a certain percentage of WIOA-AA funding to either career services or training.¹² States have used this flexibility to pursue diverse strategies in terms of the distribution of career services and training.

WIOA formula funds are appropriated on a fiscal year basis but support activities that operate on a program-year basis. The program year runs nine months behind the fiscal year. The appropriation for FY2023 funded activities for PY2023, which ran from July 1, 2023, through June 30, 2024. Total funding for state formula grants in FY2023 (October 1, 2022 through September 30, 2023, which supported PY2023 activities) was approximately $881 million.¹³

Data Source, Methods of Tabulation, and Considerations

The data in this report are from PY2023, which ran July 1, 2023, through June 30, 2024, and are the most recent data available.¹⁴ The data are from the PY2023 WIOA National Performance Summary (hereinafter, "PY2023 WIOA Performance Summary").¹⁵

The figures in this report compare data from each of the 52 states as defined by WIOA.¹⁶ This approach treats each state equally, regardless of the state's population or share of WIOA-AA funding. Where applicable, the report also includes national average data, which generally would provide greater weight to more populous states.¹⁷

The figures in this report depict national averages (weighted) and the distribution of individual states (unweighted). The discussion in the main text of the report focuses on general trends among groups of states. The report is designed to provide an overview of how the federal system is implemented through state partners and variation among the state systems. The text de-emphasizes any particular state, especially any state that may be an outlier.¹⁸

In cases where this report discusses program utilization at the individual level, it uses data on program participants during the program year. This is a more inclusive basis for metrics than program exiters, which are used in the performance accountability metrics. The participant-based metric includes individuals who received services during the program year but includes both exiters and individuals who have not yet exited from the program.¹⁹

This report focuses on single indicators, with emphasis on indicators related to states' utilization of WIOA-AA funding for career services and training. It generally does not analyze the relationships between indicators.

While this report did not consider data sources beyond the WIOA-AA content of the PY20203 WIOA Performance Summary, numerous external factors can impact a state's WIOA-AA strategy and associated service data. WIOA-AA grants are a single funding stream in complex systems related to workforce, education, and social policy. For example, states that make larger investments in certain postsecondary education programs may correspondingly use less WIOA-AA funding for training. Within the WIOA system, states may vary in how they coordinate WIOA-AA services with Employment Service (ES) funding under the Wagner-Peyser Act, which is a partner program associated with Title III of WIOA. If a state relied more heavily on ES funding for career services, the state may utilize more WIOA-AA funding for training.

The figures in the report round the individual states' data to facilitate the grouping of states. In cases where the data informing the figures measure a percentage, the data for each state is rounded to the nearest 2.5%. In cases where the data informing the figures is a dollar amount, the data for each state is rounded to the nearest $100. The Appendix presents the unrounded data points for each state as well as each one's ranking among the 52 states.

State Distribution of Expenditures Between Career Services and Training

The PY2023 WIOA Performance Summary includes each state's expenditures on each of career services and training. CRS used these two data points to calculate the percentage of the sum of the two expenditures that went to each function. For each state, the sum of the state's percentage spent on career services and the percentage spent on training equals 100%.²⁰

The purpose of these percentages is to provide an indicator of differences in the relative roles for career services and training in each state. Expenditures on career services and training only account for a portion of state WIOA-AA expenditures, so these percentages should not be seen as the share of a state's total WIOA-AA funding that goes to a particular function. Such a calculation would, among other considerations, require additional data on WIOA-AA funding that supports neither career services nor training (such as administrative costs). Data on funding used for purposes other than career services and training were not included in the source data. Calculating training or career services expenditures as a share of total WIOA-AA funding would in some cases involve a denominator of an amount larger than the sum of expenditures on training and career services, which would result in a reduced percentage of funding going to a specific function. In other words, each state's share of total WIOA-AA funding going to training or career services is likely lower than the percentages discussed in this section.

Figure 1 presents the distribution of state allocations between career services and training. The inversely ordered horizontal axes at the bottom of Figure 1 illustrate that the sum of the allocations to career services and training total 100% for each state. The national average of the percentage of career services and training expenditures that went to training was about 40%, meaning that, on average, about 60% of career services and training expenditures went to career services.²¹

In terms of distribution of states, about three-quarters of the states used at least 50% of their career services and training funding for career services. There was, however, a group of states with larger allocations to training: six allocated at least 70% of their career services and training funding to training.

Figure 1. State Distribution of WIOA-AA Expenditures Between Career Services and Training PY2023

Source: Created by CRS, based on data from the PY2023 WIOA Performance Summary. Calculation does not include WIOA-AA funding that was used for purposes other than career services or training. Source data are in the Appendix. Notes: Each dot represents one state. To facilitate the grouping of similar percentages, each state's percentage is rounded to the nearest 2.5%.

Share of WIOA-AA Participants Receiving Training

The PY2023 WIOA Performance Summary includes participant data for each state, including the number of participants in each state that received each of career services and training. Almost all WIOA participants received career services.²² To calculate the share of participants in each state that received training, CRS divided the number of training participants in the state by the total number of WIOA-AA participants served in the state in PY2023.

Compared to the funding distributions described in the prior section, the share of participants who received training can offer an alternative indicator of the role of training in a state's WIOA-AA strategy. As noted previously, higher or lower percentages of participants should not be seen as a reflection of more or less effective state operations, but rather as a reflection of diverse state approaches.

Figure 2 presents states by the share of WIOA-AA participants that received training. Nationwide, approximately 43% of WIOA-AA participants received training through the program.²³ In 31 states, a majority of participants received training. There were 12 states where more than 75% of participants received training and 4 states where less than 20% received training.

Figure 2. State Shares of WIOA-AA Participants Who Received Training PY2023

Source: Created by CRS, based on data from the PY2023 WIOA Performance Summary. Source data are in the Appendix. Notes: Each dot represents one state. To facilitate the grouping of similar percentages, each state's share was rounded to the nearest 2.5%.

Per-Participant Expenditures for Career Services and Training

States have discretion to use WIOA-AA funding to provide lower-cost services to a larger number of participants or higher-cost services to a smaller number of participants. The per-participant expenditure data on each of career services and training published in the PY2023 WIOA Performance Summary can provide indicators of each state's strategy.²⁴

Figure 3 presents states' average career services spending per participant. For the approximately 278,800 WIOA-AA career services participants nationwide, the average expenditure was about $1,600 per participant.²⁵ Among the 52 states, 15 had average per-participant expenditures between $1,000 and $2,000 and another 17 had per-participant expenditures between $2,000 and $3,000. There were seven states that spent at least $4,000 per career services participant and nine states that spent less than $1,000.

Figure 3. Average State Funding per WIOA-AA Career Services Participant PY2023

Source: Created by CRS, based on data from the PY2023 WIOA Performance Summary. Source data are in the Appendix. Notes: Each dot represents one state. Each state's average spending was rounded to the nearest $100. To limit the scale of the figure, state averages were topcoded at $5,000. Actual data points were used to calculate the national average.

Figure 4 presents states' average training spending per training participant. For the approximately 120,000 WIOA-AA participants who received training in PY2023, the average expenditure was about $2,400.²⁶ Among the 52 states, about half had an average training expenditure of between $1,000 and $2,000 per participant. At the higher end, 13 states averaged at least $3,000 per participant, including 6 that averaged $5,000 or more.

Figure 4. Average State Funding per WIOA-AA Training Participant PY2023

Source: Created by CRS, based on data from the PY2023 WIOA Performance Summary. Source data are in the Appendix. Notes: Each dot represents one states. Each state's average spending was rounded to the nearest $100. To limit the scale of the figure, state averages were topcoded at $5,000. Actual data points were used to calculate the national average.

Low-Income Participant Share

WIOA requires that local recipients of WIOA-AA funding prioritize low-income participants and other specified priority populations.²⁷ Guidance from DOL has clarified that states are not expected to exclusively serve low-income participants and other priority populations with WIOA-AA funding.²⁸ The WIOA-AA program is also subject to the priority of service policy for veterans that applies across DOL programs.²⁹

The PY2023 WIOA Performance Summary provides data on low-income participants in each state. It does not provide data on other priority populations, but other data sources suggest that the large majority of priority populations served under WIOA-AA are low income.³⁰ To estimate the share of each state's WIOA-AA population that was low income, CRS divided the number of low-income participants in state reports by the total number of participants.

Figure 5 presents the share of WIOA-AA participants in each state who were low income. Nationwide, about 69% of participants were classified as low income. State-level data were diverse. In 19 states, at least 80% of participants were low income. In about eight states, less than 60% of participants were low income, including four states with less than 50%.

Figure 5. State Percentages of WIOA-AA Participants Who Were Low Income PY2023

Source: Created by CRS, based on data from the PY2023 WIOA Performance Summary. Source data are in the Appendix. Notes: Each dot represents one state. To facilitate the grouping of similar percentages, each state's share was rounded to the nearest 2.5%.

Appendix. State Data and State Rankings

Table A-1 provides the underlying unrounded data points for each state that are displayed in the figures in the main body of this report. Table A-1 also provides each state's ranking (1 through 52) for each of the five indicators depicted in the figures. Rankings should not be seen as a reflection of quality or efficiency, but rather as a reflection of diverse state strategies. The purpose of these rankings is to easily compare states' relative strategies across the indicators.

The lowest numerical rankings reflect the highest percentages or highest dollar amounts associated with each indicator. For example, Alaska allocated 98% of its career services and training funding to training. This was the highest percentage among the states and therefore Alaska is ranked 1 in this indicator. Similarly, the training expenditures per training participant in Kansas were $8,878, which was the highest among the states, and Kansas is ranked 1 in this category.

Joe Angert, CRS Research Assistant, developed the graphics in this report.

Footnotes

1.	For more information on WIOA, see CRS Report R44252, The Workforce Innovation and Opportunity Act and the One-Stop Delivery System.
2.	In many cases, a state's spending on career services and/or training is the sum of such spending by local areas in the state. States report aggregated data to DOL.
3.	The formula for WIOA-AA is established in statute at WIOA Section 132(b)(1)(B)(ii) and its implementation is summarized by DOL at https://www.dol.gov/sites/dolgov/files/ETA/budget/pdfs/FormDesc23.pdf.
4.	See WIOA Section 121(b) for required and optional partner programs.
5.	In PY2023, the Adult Activities program had about 279,000 participants, compared to about 185,000 participants in the Dislocated Worker Activities program and about 131,000 in the Youth Activities program. See National Performance Reports for each program at https://www.dol.gov/sites/dolgov/files/ETA/Performance/pdfs/PY2023/PY%202023%20WIOA%20National%20Performance%20Summary.pdf. Total funding for state formula grants in the Adult Activities program (about $881 million) was less than the total funding for state formula grants in the Dislocated Worker Activities program (about $1.1 billion) and the Youth Activities program (about $927 million); see https://www.dol.gov/agencies/eta/budget/formula/state.
6.	See WIOA Section 134(c)(3)(E) and the "Low-Income Participant" section of this report.
7.	WIOA §134(c)(3)(A).
8.	For more information on state workforce systems funded by WIOA Title I funding and the associated performance accountability system, see CRS Report R44252, The Workforce Innovation and Opportunity Act and the One-Stop Delivery System.
9.	WIOA §134(c)(2)-(3).
10.	Training is typically administered through individual training accounts. For more information, see CRS Report R44252, The Workforce Innovation and Opportunity Act and the One-Stop Delivery System.
11.	WIOA §134.
12.	Some states have established state-level requirements that certain percentages of WIOA formula funding be utilized for training.
13.	For total state grant funding for PY2023 and PY2024, see https://www.dol.gov/sites/dolgov/files/ETA/budget/pdfs/24adu%24.pdf. Total funding for formula grants may be slightly lower than the total appropriation for WIOA-AA due to allowable set-asides for evaluation and other purposes. See U.S. Department of Labor Training and Employment Letter 15-22 for more details on the relationship between FY2023 appropriations and PY2023 formula grants (https://www.dol.gov/agencies/eta/advisories/tegl-15-22).
14.	The data in this report were reported by states to DOL using form ETA-9169. For instructions on how states completed this form, see https://www.dol.gov/sites/dolgov/files/ETA/Performance/pdfs/ICR/ETA_9169%20PY21%2B.pdf.
15.	The data in this report reflect the spreadsheet labeled "PY2023 Annual Report Accessible File" posted at https://www.dol.gov/sites/dolgov/files/ETA/Performance/pdfs/PY2023/PY2023%20Annual%20Report%20Accessible%20File.xlsx, and accessible via https://www.dol.gov/agencies/eta/performance/results/national on March 20, 2025. The spreadsheet is permanently archived at https://perma.cc/4BVP-H5H7 and the associated web page is permanently archived at https://perma.cc/926G-74W8. In a number of cases, individual states' data in the National Annual Performance Summaries file that is the primary source for this report were verified against State WIOA Performance Reports at https://www.dol.gov/agencies/eta/performance/results/states.
16.	WIOA Section 3(56) of defines "state" as "each of the several States of the United States, the District of Columbia, and the Commonwealth of Puerto Rico." The data sources used in this report correspondingly disaggregate data for 52 states.
17.	"National total" and "National average" data in this report are taken from DOL sources that include the 52 states as well as outlying areas. Participants from the outlying areas were less than 0.5% of published national data, so averages with or without the outlying areas will typically be very similar.
18.	The text also deemphasizes specific states due to potential year-to-year fluctuations for some data categories for some states. CRS compared each state's PY2023 data in this report to similar metrics for PY2022. In most instances, a state's PY2022 and PY2023 data were similar, though there were some exceptions.
19.	WIOA regulations define a "participant" as an individual who has received services other than the self-service and informational services specified in 20 C.F.R. §677.150(a)(3). "Exiter" is defined at 20 C.F.R. §677.150(c) and generally applies to a Title I participant who has not received WIOA services for 90 days.
20.	For example, Ohio reported $19,385,963 in career services expenditures and $20,887,156 in training expenditures. Each expenditure category was divided by the sum of the two categories ($40,273,119) to determine that the state's allocation to career services was 48.1% and its share to training was 51.9%.
21.	Among the 52 states, the unweighted, unrounded median allocation to career services was approximately 66%.
22.	In PY2023, there were 31 states that reported equal numbers of total participants and career services participants. An additional 17 states had a number of career services participants that equaled more than 99% (but less than 100%) of their total participants.
23.	Among the 52 states, the median percentage of WIOA-AA participants who received training was about 55%. The difference between the mean and median is influenced by several higher-population states with lower percentages of participants receiving training.
24.	The per-participant expenditures for career services and training are calculated by dividing the number of participants in each activity by the total expenditures on each activity. Because most training recipients also receive career services, spending on these individuals is spread over both expenditure categories.
25.	Among the 52 states, the median average career services expenditure was about $2,100 per career services participant.
26.	Among the 52 states, the median average expenditure on training was about $1,900 per training participant.
27.	WIOA Section 134(c)(3)(E) establishes the priority policy. WIOA Section 3(36) defines "low-income individual" for the purposes of the law. An individual can qualify as low-income by being in a family with a total family income that does not exceed the poverty line, by receiving certain public benefits, or by meeting other specified criteria.
28.	Guidance from DOL established a goal that 75% of individuals receiving training and individualized career services under WIOA-AA would be members of a priority group, and stated that DOL "expects this rate will be no lower than 50.1 percent in any state." See DOL, Training and Employment Guidance Letter 7-20, https://www.dol.gov/agencies/eta/advisories/training-and-employment-guidance-letter-no-07-20.
29.	For more details on veterans priority of service, see DOL, Training and Employment Notice 15-10, https://www.dol.gov/agencies/eta/advisories/training-and-employment-notice-no-15-10.
30.	For example, the PY2023 WIOA and Wagner-Peyser Data Book, which reports WIOA data slightly differently than the National Performance Report that informs this report, reports that about 90% of WIOA-AA exiters who were a member of a priority groups were low income. See Table II-1 at https://www.dol.gov/sites/dolgov/files/ETA/Performance/pdfs/PY2023/Annual/PY%202023%20WIOA%20and%20Wagner-Peyser%20Data%20Book.pdf.