The bill adds a new Section 172 to the Workforce Innovation and Opportunity Act establishing a Department of Labor program that awards competitive grants to junior/community colleges, area career and technical education (CTE) schools, and approved training providers to create or expand education, outreach, and training for residential construction careers. Grants last up to four years, must prioritize rural areas and underserved populations, and authorize $20 million per fiscal year for 2025–2029.
Why it matters: the measure targets a persistent workforce bottleneck for residential building—especially in rural and hard-to-staff communities—by subsidizing curriculum, instructor hiring, industry partnerships, and supports for students. It ties federal training dollars to labor-law compliance, local wage/benefit assurances, and performance reporting, which shapes who participates and how programs are sustained after grant funding ends.
At a Glance
What It Does
Creates a DOL-administered competitive grant program funding colleges, CTE schools, and training providers to develop or expand programs and outreach for residential construction trades. Grants support core trade curricula, incumbent worker upskilling, employer partnerships, and K–12 outreach, with both required and permissive uses specified in statute.
Who It Affects
Junior and community colleges, area CTE schools, approved training providers, local residential builders/developers who partner with grantees, state and local workforce boards, and learners including incumbent workers, veterans, in-school youth, opportunity youth, and rural residents.
Why It Matters
It channels federal workforce dollars into a sector-specific pipeline designed to increase capacity for homebuilding and skilled labor in underserved geographies, while embedding wage/benefit and compliance conditions that shape employer participation and program sustainability.
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What This Bill Actually Does
The CONSTRUCTS Act inserts a targeted grant program into WIOA that tells the Secretary of Labor, working with the Secretary of Education, to pick colleges, CTE schools, and registered providers to scale training for residential construction. Applicants must explain what new or expanded training they will run, how it fits with existing programs and faculty, the populations they will serve, and how they will partner with local employers and community organizations.
The statute lists specific outcomes applicants must track — credential attainment, course credit or degree — and requires alignment with WIOA’s primary performance indicators.
Applications must describe partnerships and include a plan for sustaining activity after the grant. Notably, applicants must describe how their programs will affect the local housing market and how they will increase the supply of affordable housing.
The law gives priority to proposals serving rural areas or groups identified as underserved by Census or other measures (low-income people, veterans, people with employment barriers, or demographics underrepresented in construction).Use of funds is tightly scoped: grantees must use awards to establish or expand evidence-based programs in a long list of trades (carpentry, framing, masonry, plumbing, electrical, HVAC, construction management, architecture, heavy equipment operation, and others the Department identifies). Grants can also support incumbent worker upskilling, formal partnerships with builders or apprenticeship sponsors, and outreach to K–12 students including dual-enrollment options.
Permissive activities include hiring experienced technical instructors, operating education clinics in unserved rural areas, promotional materials, and merit- or need-based scholarships tied to program retention and certification.Recipients must run flexible schedules, provide job-search and placement supports after program completion, and attest that they and their partners comply with applicable federal, state, and local labor laws and have no pending actions with DOL, EEOC, FLRA, or NLRB. Performance reporting is mandatory: grantees report outcomes within 18 months of award and annually thereafter, and the DOL must compile those reports and send a consolidated account to the relevant Congressional committees.
Finally, the statute authorizes $20 million per year for fiscal years 2025 through 2029 and caps grant periods at four years.
The Five Things You Need to Know
Grants are competitive, limited to a maximum award period of four years, and must prioritize applicants serving rural areas or federally defined underserved populations.
The statute explicitly authorizes $20,000,000 per year to carry out the program for each of fiscal years 2025 through 2029.
Applicants must demonstrate partnerships with local residential construction businesses or developers and include a process to ensure partner wages and benefits are commensurate with local standards.
Recipients must attest that they and any partner are in compliance with applicable federal, state, and local labor laws and are not subject to pending enforcement actions by DOL, EEOC, NLRB, or FLRA.
Performance reporting is required: grantees must submit initial outcomes within 18 months and annually thereafter; DOL must prepare a report to Congress containing each grantee’s outcomes within six months after receiving those initial reports.
Section-by-Section Breakdown
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New Grant Program for Residential Construction Training
This provision creates a standalone Section 172 in WIOA that establishes the program’s architecture: DOL (consulting ED) runs a competitive grant process, defines eligible entities, sets a four-year maximum grant term, and directs priorities. It is the statutory home for program objectives, eligibility, and high-level administration, giving DOL scope to write implementing guidance and solicit applications consistent with WIOA performance rules.
Who counts as rural, underserved, or an incumbent worker
The bill borrows existing definitions where possible: 'incumbent worker' references an administrative regulation; 'junior or community college' uses the Higher Education Act; 'rural area' cites nonmetropolitan and Housing Act definitions. 'Underserved population' is defined broadly and includes demographic underrepresentation in construction, low-income people, those with employment barriers, and veterans. These definitions determine priority status and who programs must target, but they also create thresholds that DOL will need to operationalize in guidance.
Who can apply and what must applications show
Eligible grantees are junior/community colleges, area CTE schools, and training providers described in WIOA. Applications must describe the program design, alignment with existing offerings, intended participant groups (incumbents, rural residents, in‑school or opportunity youth, underserved groups), faculty resources, partnerships, wages/benefits assurances from partners, sustainability plans, and the anticipated credential, credit, or degree outcomes tied to WIOA’s performance indicators. The statute leaves many procedural details — scoring, award size, and match requirements — to DOL rulemaking or grant solicitations.
Required and permitted grant activities
Lawmakers specify required uses (establish/expand evidence-based programs in a detailed list of trades, incumbent worker training, employer partnerships, and K–12 outreach/dual enrollment). Permissive uses include hiring experienced instructors, running rural education clinics, promotional outreach, and awarding merit- or needs-based scholarships. Grantees must provide flexible scheduling options and post‑completion job search and placement supports meant to improve retention and labor market outcomes.
Labor-law attestation and partner vetting
Recipients and their partner entities must attest to compliance with all applicable federal, state, and local labor laws and certify no pending enforcement actions with DOL, EEOC, NLRB, or FLRA. The statute defines 'Federal, State, and local labor law' by reference to what’s applicable to the recipient as determined by the Secretary of Labor. That creates a legal gate; DOL will need protocols to verify attestations and decide consequences for inaccurate statements.
Monitoring, Congress reporting, and authorized funding
Grantees must report outcomes for WIOA’s primary performance indicators within 18 months and annually thereafter. DOL is required to compile initial reports and submit a consolidated report to the Senate HELP Committee and the House Education and Workforce Committee within six months. The statute authorizes $20 million per fiscal year for 2025–2029 to carry out the program, but it delegates distribution decisions and detailed performance expectations to DOL.
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Explore Education in Codify Search →Who Benefits and Who Bears the Cost
Every bill creates winners and losers. Here's who stands to gain and who bears the cost.
Who Benefits
- Rural and community colleges: receive federal grants to build or scale construction curricula, hire technical instructors, and create dual-enrollment pathways with local K–12 systems.
- Learners from underserved groups: low-income individuals, veterans, in‑school and opportunity youth, and incumbent residential construction workers gain subsidized skills training, credentials, and job-placement supports.
- Local housing markets and developers: communities with shortages of skilled tradespeople may find a larger local pipeline of qualified workers, potentially reducing labor bottlenecks for affordable housing projects.
- Apprenticeship sponsors and workforce boards: gain additional partners and candidate pools as colleges formalize partnerships and align programs with recognized credentials and WIOA performance metrics.
Who Bears the Cost
- Department of Labor: must stand up a new competitive grant program, manage awards, verify compliance attestations, and compile and deliver congressionally required reports.
- Grantee institutions (colleges and CTE schools): must invest administrative capacity to prepare competitive applications, track WIOA performance indicators, meet reporting deadlines, and demonstrate sustainability after grant expiration.
- Employer partners (local builders/developers): must be willing to commit to wage/benefit assurances and meet vetting requirements, which could increase labor costs or discourage smaller contractors from participating.
- Federal budget/taxpayers: $20 million per year is authorized; Congress or DOL may face pressure to expand scale if pilots show success, imposing further fiscal choices.
Key Issues
The Core Tension
The bill aims to accelerate a sectoral training pipeline into rural and underserved communities while protecting workers through wage/benefit assurances and compliance vetting; the central dilemma is that stronger labor protections improve job quality but make employer partnerships harder to form, potentially limiting the program’s ability to scale quickly and to deliver the increased housing supply it targets.
The bill is explicit about what grantees must do but leaves several operational details to DOL guidance and grant solicitations. 'Underserved population' is a broad, Census‑anchored category that may miss local workforce nuances; DOL will need to translate demographic thresholds into applicant scoring and outreach criteria. The statutory requirement that partners provide wages and benefits 'commensurate with local pay' creates an enforcement question: what metric determines commensurability, and who audits compliance?
Without clear standards, the wage-condition could either be toothless or a deterrent to employer participation.
The attestation that recipients and partners have no pending actions with federal enforcement bodies is a blunt instrument. It reduces legal risk but may exclude community employers with minor or contested cases, thereby narrowing the pool of partners.
The program’s $20 million annual authorization is modest relative to nationwide demand for construction training and affordable housing solutions; grant awards will likely be small and concentrated, making long-term sustainability planning and local matching crucial. Finally, linking program success to impact on the local housing market is conceptually sensible but analytically challenging: isolating the training program’s effect on housing supply requires data and timeframes beyond typical grant cycles.
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