WIOA Titles I and III National Performance Summary

Program Year 2020

(July 1, 2020 through June 30, 2021)

The Workforce Innovation and Opportunity Act (WIOA) establishes performance accountability indicators and performance reporting requirements to assess the effectiveness of states and local areas in achieving positive outcomes for individuals served by the workforce development and education systems’ six core programs. These six core programs are the Adult, Dislocated Worker (DW), and Youth programs, authorized under WIOA title I and administered by the Department of Labor (DOL); the Adult Education and Family Literacy Act (AEFLA) program, authorized under WIOA title II and administered by the Department of Education (ED); the Employment Service program authorized under the Wagner-Peyser Act, as amended by WIOA title III and administered by DOL; and the Vocational Rehabilitation (VR) program authorized under title I of the Rehabilitation Act of 1973, as amended by WIOA title IV and administered by ED. WIOA has provided a historic opportunity to align performance-related definitions, streamline performance indicators, integrate reporting, and ensure comparable data collection and reporting across all six of these core programs, while also implementing program-specific requirements related to data collection and reporting.

Program Year (PY) 2020 is the fifth year state grantees reported performance information under the WIOA performance accountability provisions. Title I and title III grantees submitted individual performance records to DOL using the Participant Individual Record Layout (PIRL) (ETA-9172) and states certified the results using the WIOA Statewide Performance Report (ETA-9169). WIOA section 116(d)(2) requires states to report on outcomes achieved on the primary indicators of performance, including outcomes achieved by individuals with barriers to employment, characteristics of participants, and other information such as numbers of participants who received training and/or career services, and the average cost per participant of those services.

PY 2020 is the first year that there was impact from the COVID-19 pandemic. Because of the inherent lags in the WIOA performance indicators, the employment-based metrics were measured during calendar year 2020. The national unemployment rate hit its peak at 14.7 percent in April 2020. Due to the spike in unemployed people during this time, there is a slight decrease in the employment-based performance measures in PY 2020.

This summary reflects the information available from the PY 2020 WIOA title I and title III program reports. PY 2020 reports for WIOA title II and title IV programs are available on the ED website1. The WIOA definition of participant does not include those who used only the self-service system and/or received information-only services. These individuals are referred to as Reportable Individuals and are excluded from counts of participants and from the calculation of primary indicators of performance.

PY 2020 data include information on participant characteristics and the six performance indicators: Employment Rate and Median Earnings in the 2nd Quarter after Exit, Employment Rate in the 4th Quarter after Exit, Credential Attainment, Measurable Skill Gains, and Effectiveness in Serving Employers.

The following key areas and supporting charts represent DOL’s high-level observations of the national WIOA titles I and III PY 2020 performance results.

2nd Quarter after Exit Performance Indicators

Figure 3 shows the PY 2017 to PY 2020 results for the Employment Rate 2nd Quarter after Exit and Median Earnings 2nd Quarter after Exit performance indicators. This is the fourth year that the data are available for these indicators under the WIOA performance accountability provisions. The results for the Employment Rate 2nd Quarter after Exit indicator were fairly stable through PY 2019. PY 2020 is the first program year in which the data reflects the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic. The Employment Rate 2nd Quarter after Exit results are lower for all programs in PY 2020, as the year-to-year changes range from -12.2 to -4.8 percentage points. The Median Earnings 2nd Quarter after Exit results have been increasing since PY 2017, but the rate of improvement slowed in PY 2020.

4th Quarter after Exit Performance Indicators

Figure 4 shows the PY 2018 to PY 2020 results for the Employment Rate 4th Quarter after Exit and Credential Attainment Rate performance indicators. PY 2018 was the first year the results for these performance indicators were reported. Note that the Credential Attainment Rate is not a required performance indicator for Wagner-Peyser. The full impact of the pandemic on 4th quarter performance outcomes are not fully reflected in the data, as these indicators lag by 6 quarters. It is likely these results will continue to drop as 4th quarter outcomes for these individuals become available in PY 2021.

Consistent with previous years, the type of credentials WIOA Adult and Dislocated Worker program participants attained most frequently in PY 2020 were occupational certificates. For WIOA Youth, the most common credentials were secondary school diplomas (or their equivalent) and occupational certifications. The pandemic delayed education and training services while providers adjusted to assisting participants in a virtual environment, but the effect on the Credential Attainment indicator is not clear. Fewer participants received training services, but the Credential Attainment rate marginally increased for the Adult and Dislocated Worker programs.

Measurable Skill Gains

Figure 5 shows the PY 2016 to PY 2020 results for the Measurable Skill Gains indicator. This is the fifth year states reported results for this indicator under the WIOA performance accountability provisions. Note that Measurable Skill Gains is not a required performance indicator for Wagner-Peyser.

The significant increases from PY 2016 to PY 2019 are primarily due to the positive strides made by state grantees in collecting and reporting data on this indicator. This was a new performance indicator for title I programs and DOL has provided substantial technical assistance to support states with meeting the reporting requirements for Measurable Skill Gains. Also, DOL and ED (the Departments) made adjustments to the calculation specifications for Measurable Skill Gains so that states could more accurately report the results for the indicator. These adjustments became effective July 1, 2018 (PY 2018) and are reflected in the PY 2018 through PY 2020 results. Similar to the Credential Attainment results, the PY 2020 Measurable Skill Gains results are not conclusive. Overall, fewer participants were enrolled in education or training services, however those enrolled are making measurable skill gains at a higher rate than previously observed.

Effectiveness in Serving Employers

The Effectiveness in Serving Employers (ESE) indicator is a statewide aggregate indicator that represents the work done on behalf of employers by all WIOA core programs. The Departments are engaged in rulemaking to define this indicator. In PY 2020, the Departments required states to report data for two of three pilot indicators: Retention with Same Employer Rate, Employer Penetration Rate, and Repeat Business Customers Rate.

Figure 6 shows the number of states that reported on each of the three pilot indicators in PY 2020.

Figure 7 shows the results for the ESE indicators that states reported in PY 2020.

Types of Barriers to Employment

Figure 10 shows the number of participants with select types of barriers to employment for the WIOA title I programs as defined in section 3 of WIOA.

Low-income is the most common barrier, followed by Single Parenting for Adult participants and English Language Learners/Low Levels of Literacy/Cultural Barriers for Dislocated Worker, Youth, and Wagner-Peyser participants. In the Adult program, which had a total of 264,869 participants in PY 2020, 64.1% of participants reported a Low-income barrier.

Figure 11 shows the number of participants with select types of barriers to employment for the Wagner-Peyser program.

Reportable Individuals

Figure 12 shows the total count of Reportable Individuals from PY 2018 to PY 2020. Reportable Individuals are individuals who engaged with the workforce development system by accessing self-services, received information-only services or activities, or who did not complete program requirements for eligibility or participation.

DOL clarified the definition of Reportable Individuals and added codes in the reporting specifications to better identify Reportable Individuals for each program. These adjustments became effective July 1, 2018 (PY 2018) and are reflected in the reporting beginning in PY 2018. This change to the reporting specifications for Reportable Individuals makes comparisons to program years before PY 2018 irrelevant. The number of Reportable Individuals more than doubled across all title I and III programs from PY 2018 to PY 2019 as the workforce system responded to a surge in individuals seeking assistance. While the number of Reportable Individuals in the WIOA title I programs has decreased significantly in the past year, the number of Reportable Individuals served by the Wagner-Peyser programs increased.

Performance Data Availability

WIOA Primary Indicator of Performance First Program Year of Complete Performance Data:

  • Employment Rate 2nd Quarter after Exit - PY 2017
  • Median Earnings 2nd Quarter after Exit - PY 2017
  • Employment Rate 4th Quarter after Exit - PY 2018
  • Credential Attainment Rate - PY 2018
  • Measurable Skill Gains - PY 2016
  • Effectiveness in Serving Employers - TBD (Subject to final definition of indicator)

Data Sources

Sources:

  1. PY 2020 Q4 WIOA State Performance Records
  2. PY 2019 Q4 WIOA State Performance Records
  3. PY 2018 Q4 WIOA State Performance Records
  4. PY 2017 Q4 WIOA State Performance Records
  5. PY 2016 Q4 WIOA State Performance Records

  1. PY 2020 performance information for WIOA titles II and IV can be found at the following links:
    Title II: https://www2.ed.gov/about/offices/list/ovae/pi/AdultEd/accountability-reporting.html#spr
    Title IV: https://rsa.ed.gov/wioa-resources/wioa-annual-reports↩︎