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This is a special paid edition of JOBS THAT WORK about new appropriations developments. My usual free Tuesday newsletter will run on Wednesday this week.
Late last week, House Republicans revealed their 2027 appropriations bill, which, like their never-enacted 2026 appropriations bill, slashes the utter crap out of American workforce spending (to use a technical term or two). A full-committee markup hearing on the bill is scheduled for this morning, which you can watch here.
Let’s be clear: the significant cuts proposed here are very serious. Yet, after working through this bill and the majority’s justifications, I don’t think it’s worth treating this particular group of lawmakers with any seriousness on jobs policy for the remainder of this Congress. If that seems harsh, well, I’ve had this conversation with Republicans on and off the Hill, and between the lines, many of them seem to be thinking the same thing.
The House GOP is fully aware that there is a lot of anxiety about AI-related layoffs—it’s held seven hearings on it—and the last one included a handwaving away of “mass job loss” and joking that some workers don’t want to do their jobs anyway. This spring, Republicans made a doomed party-line effort to redo the Workforce Innovation and Opportunity Act, or WIOA, America’s most consistent source of workforce funding. That redo largely would be defunded by last week’s new spending bill. And for all the House GOP’s complaining about college and jobs, this bill most certainly doesn’t make a serious effort at funding an alternative.
Below, I break down what’s in the bill as well as my thoughts on its chances of becoming law. I also offer up what this says about the dumb place workforce policy is in the House right now and what advocates and stakeholders should take away for 2027, when shifts in power might—with “might” doing a lot of work here—lead to a desperately needed fresh political conversation about American workforce policy.
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