Help NSC hold the president to the promises he made in the State of the Union

Last night, President Trump talked about workforce development in his State of the Union Address, promoting career and technical education, job training, and vocational schools.

Usually, NSC would be ecstatic to hear a president talk about workforce development in the SOTU. Hopefully, our coalition can work with the president and Congress to make his call for a greater national investment in workforce development, job training, and vocational schools a reality. Unfortunately, in the past, it’s been hard to square the president’s lofty words with his deeds:

• There’s no sign of the million new apprentices he promised last June.
• In last year’s proposed budget, he called for deep cuts to workforce, apprenticeship, and CTE programs.
• He talked a lot about rebuilding crumbling infrastructure – but didn’t connect those calls with the critical need to build a pipeline of skilled, trained people who can actually do the work.

Let’s be clear – the reason workforce development is even on the President’s radar is because of our coalition’s advocacy. And believe it or not, there’s a whole range of bipartisan workforce development legislation that’s on the move in Congress: from ending the bias against working people in federal financial aid by extending Pell grants to career-oriented people who want to enroll in short-term training programs, to policies that will finally take apprenticeship to scale, to ensuring any DREAM Act includes a middle-skill pathway.

The president has just put our most important issues on blast – but we need your help to hold the president to his promises. Hundreds of you will be on Capitol Hill next week during our Skills Summit, talking with your representatives about these very issues. If you can’t be with us, will you help lift our voices with a donation to National Skills Coalition today?

Click here to read NSC’s full response to the President’s State of the Union Address.