Iowa and Massachusetts: Creating the Conditions to Leverage All Talent
Inside State Advocates’ Fight to Strengthen Our Workforce
This is the third post in our series highlighting how state workforce advocates across NSC’s SkillSPAN network are responding to an unprecedented policy environment and the strategies they’re using to drive progress. In the first two installments, we explored how advocates in Georgia and California are protecting access to healthcare and food assistance and how advocates in Illinois and Connecticut are defending investments in workforce and adult education programs. This post examines how advocates in Iowa and Massachusetts are strengthening their state workforces by expanding access to child care and English language learning.
For more than five years, NSC’s SkillSPAN network has actively protected workforce investments, organized responses to funding threats, and made the case for policymakers to deliver on their commitments to support workers, families, and businesses. This year is no different. Despite a more challenging economic and policy environment, SkillSPAN coalitions from coast-to-coast advanced campaigns to address the broader conditions that enable people to participate in training, education, and employment. In doing so, lawmakers are expanding investments and policies that unlock workers’ full talents, meet employer labor needs, and strengthen state economic competitiveness. Recent efforts in Iowa and Massachusetts illustrate how advocates are strengthening their state’s workforces by removing barriers to employment, expanding opportunity, and helping employers access the talent they need.
In 2023, the United Way of Central Iowa (UWCI) successfully championed a pilot program allowing childcare providers to qualify for state childcare assistance regardless of household income. The policy addressed a persistent workforce challenge: many childcare workers earned too much to qualify for assistance, but too little to afford childcare themselves. This contributed to high turnover across the sector and instability for all workers who rely on childcare outside of the home. Since then, UWCI and its key partners have continued to build support for making the program permanent.
With over two decades of leadership on childcare advocacy in the state, UWCI established itself as a key leader on the topic, developing a strong coalition made up of workforce, education, and human service stakeholders. Together, the group has shifted how policymakers and workforce leaders think about childcare, reframing it from an optional benefit to a key part of the infrastructure people need to train and work. This includes legislative wins that smoothed out the benefits cliff and increased the Childcare Assistance Provider reimbursement rates to as much as 80% of market rate value.
These successes lent credibility to the coalition as it continued to urge lawmakers to permanently extend the pilot, using traditional tactics like an advocacy day, as well as modern tactics like podcasts to educate and build buy-in from the public. These efforts, and the coalition’s ongoing campaign over the years, led to the Governor’s recognition of the pilot as the “single most effective way to reduce staff turnover in childcare centers” and gave lawmakers a clear win during a challenging political climate ahead of the mid-term elections.
Iowa’s experience demonstrates the value of long-term narrative change. By consistently connecting childcare policy to workforce participation and economic competitiveness, advocates transformed a targeted pilot into a lasting state investment that strengthens workers, employers, and families alike
The English for a Strong Economy Coalition launched in 2023 with a goal of helping Massachusetts better leverage the talents of immigrants and English Language Learners. Recognizing that thousands of skilled immigrants remain underemployed because of language barriers, advocates conducted research documenting growing employer demand for English language instruction and vocational ESOL (English for Speakers of Other Languages) while highlighting the role these programs play in strengthening the state’s workforce.
That research became the foundation for legislation introduced in 2025 to establish a dedicated ESOL for Economic Mobility position within the Executive Office of Labor and Workforce Development. The legislation would also launch a vocational ESOL pilot program that integrates English language instruction with workforce training for newly arrived, unemployed, and underemployed English language learners in high-demand industries.
The coalition framed these proposals as an economic imperative, leveraging research showing 140,000 immigrant workers in Massachusetts are unemployed or underemployed due, in large part, to limited English proficiency. Combined with the state’s aging workforce and second-lowest native-born birth rate in the nation, this evidence underscored the need to better leverage immigrant talent to meet employer demand in sectors such as healthcare and technology.
As the legislation advances, advocates have already secured meaningful progress, including a $10M gubernatorial investment that will provide workforce training for over 3,000 individuals on the state’s ESOL services waiting list. Local philanthropic investments have also contributed to the effort through supporting meaningful implementation including curriculum development, teacher training, and community partnerships.
Massachusetts illustrates how workforce advocates can pair with research, coalition-building, and strategic policy development to address labor shortages while expanding economic opportunity. Rather than viewing English language learning as a standalone education issue, advocates have successfully positioned it as a cornerstone of the state’s long-term workforce strategy. NSC continues to provide the Coalition with technical assistance, messaging support, and peer learning to strengthen its efforts.
