Congressional Digest

Excerpt

The Federal Government provides a wide array of services to unemployed workers, including skills training, career counseling, and job-search assistance. Collectively known as “workforce development,” these activities cost taxpayers about $18 billion a year and have grown into what President Obama termed “a maze of confusing programs.” There is general agreement that the system is convoluted; the controversy is over how to fix it.

The forerunner of today’s Federal job training programs was the Wagner–Peyser Act of 1933, which created a nationwide system of employment offices to match workers with jo…