Don’t START Now

The Chair of the Senate Health, Education, Labor, and Pensions (HELP) Committee celebrated National Apprenticeship Week 2026 (NAW 2026) by introducing a bill that would make a few sensible, praise-worthy reforms to improve Registered Apprenticeship. Sensible is great—heaven knows we need more of it in Washington, DC—but the bill misses the moment. What apprenticeship needs now is a system-building investment, not tinkering and half-measures. 

The Streamlining Timely Apprenticeship Registration and Transparency Act (START Act) introduced by HELP Chair Bill Cassidy (R-La.) and Senator Jim Banks (R-Ind.) would require the Department of Labor (DOL) to give sponsors submitting complete applications for apprenticeship registration a final determination within 90 days, which is similar to a policy on timeliness that DOL adopted on its own in April 2026. Kudos to the senators for recognizing that apprenticeship will never become the talent development system of choice if we keep employers waiting, but, if the State Department can issue new passports in 6 weeks and states must act on applications for Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program benefits in 30 days, perhaps it’s worth considering a tighter timeline.

The START Act also wisely seeks to invest $150 million in annual formula grants to states to support outreach and technical assistance to prospective sponsors, apprentice training, and incentives to employers. Since 2016, DOL has been periodically awarding a mix of formula and competitive grants to states, but states need a sustained funding commitment they can count on every year. START would offer that. 

But beyond barring states from delegating decision-making to advisory committees—something DOL has already said cannot be done under its regulations—and tacking on a few other housekeeping items, START stops there. 

It’s not enough.

Apprenticeship excites people alarmed by economic inequality and our bad jobs economy because of its time-proven, research-tested power to increase employment and earnings. The most recent impact study by the Urban Institute found that, two years after participants enrolled, Registered Apprenticeship raised their employment rates by 8 to 9 percentage points and boosted their earnings by the equivalent of about $13,000 to $19,000 per year. Importantly, Registered Apprenticeship had strong, positive earnings impacts for men, women, white workers, Hispanic workers, Black workers, young people, prime-age workers, and older adults. When you get results like that, you don’t put the program on the state Eligible Training Provider List and hope someone notices. You build a national system to replicate it.

We know what system-building legislation might look like because the House of Representatives passed something like it five years ago in a bipartisan vote of 247-173. Written by Representative Bobby Scott (D-Va.), then-Chair of the House Education and Labor Committee and now ranking member, the $3.5 billion National Apprenticeship Act of 2021 would have codified many of the building blocks of Registered Apprenticeship and authorized new grant programs to improve and expand it. Rep. Scott reintroduced it in 2023 with some tweaks. Senators Tammy Baldwin (D-Wis.) and Lisa Murkowski (R-Alaska) put a similar bill in the hopper that year as well. 

These earlier bills provide a jumping-off point for system-building legislation in the next Congress. In addition to enacting the useful provisions on timeliness and state grants in the START Act, Congress should:  

• Define in law the contours of the system and how it should operate. As it was enacted in 1937, the National Apprenticeship Act is two pages long. Most of our current system is written in regulation or standard operating procedures that could be upended by a future president, as we have seen with so many programs and institutions in President Trump’s second term. Legislators should establish in law processes for determining occupations suitable for apprenticeship and the registration of apprentices—setting a consistent national framework while preserving meaningful room for state leadership and innovation.
• Provide for strong federal leadership while preserving state flexibility to customize and innovate. We need strong federal leadership to establish nationwide quality standards for apprenticeship and pre-apprenticeship so that programs deliver on apprenticeship’s promise to workers and employers. We also need a well-funded, fully-staffed Office of Apprenticeship to coordinate the system. Additionally, Congress should direct DOL to build on the Urban Institute’s Registered Apprenticeship Standards Library and the Competency-Based Education Network’s National Project on Apprenticeship Standards and Interoperability by establishing a voluntary, easy-to-use, technology-enabled menu of skill standards and competencies that will make apprenticeship design and registration a breeze for employers.  
• Drive equity throughout the system. Women and Black people are underrepresented in Registered Apprenticeship relative to their shares of the U.S. labor force, and they earn lower wages than male and white apprentices. Persons with disabilities are also severely underserved by apprenticeship. Codifying and enforcing pre-Trump equal opportunity and affirmative action regulations is essential to creating an apprenticeship system that serves all workers, as are investments to increase representation and close earnings gaps through pre-apprenticeships, improving mentoring and worksite culture, new models for inclusion, and focused recruitment activities by intermediaries that demonstrate results.   
• Invest in innovation and problem-solving. Sporadic DOL competitive grants have created innovations like the first degree apprenticeships and advanced apprenticeship into new industries and occupations. Congress should authorize annual funding to support efforts to push the boundaries of apprenticeship, improve its effectiveness, and address challenges like launching apprenticeships in rural communities. 
• Grow youth apprenticeship. Unlike Germany and other peer nations where apprenticeship is a popular pathway for young people, apprenticeship here is predominantly an adult workforce development program, something people find only after they have been in the job market (and, sometimes, stumbled) for several years. We’ve learned important lessons and identified new models for engaging young people through the Partnership for Advancing Youth Apprenticeship. A reliable infusion of resources, like the Youth Apprenticeship Readiness Grant program in 2024’s bipartisan A Stronger Workforce for America Act, would enable states and communities to capitalize on what we’ve learned and begin to make apprenticeship a first-choice system for youth. States are already doing the hard work of building the infrastructure to make this possible. Federal investment would accelerate that progress, strengthen state capacity to lead, and give young people the boost they need to turn a promising pathway into a reliable one.   

Excluding funding for Pell Grants and other student aid programs, we spend about $3.2 billion annually on grants that invest in improving and expanding the infrastructure of postsecondary education under various titles of the Higher Education Act. This is support for important college access programs like TRIO and GEAR UP, aid for institutional development at under-resourced and minority-serving colleges and universities, and programs that address student needs like child care and other priorities. If we are serious about wanting apprenticeship to be a more accessible, mainstream postsecondary training option for Americans, Congress should invest an amount that is no less than one-third of that $3.2 billion in improving and expanding the apprenticeship system every year. 

Congratulations to HELP Committee Chair Cassidy and Sen. Banks for launching a new Congressional conversation on what’s next for apprenticeship. But START is just a start—and we should not waste the moment on housekeeping and a relatively small-scale investment. Let’s continue the conversation for the remainder of 2026, with the goal of supporting real system-building legislation in 2027 that can make apprenticeship a mainstream option for workers and employers. Let’s double down on President Trump’s ambitions and aim higher than one million new active apprentices. We’ve been waiting nearly 90 years for Congress to return to the National Apprenticeship Act. Waiting a few months more, for the 120th Congress to convene in January 2027, will fly right by.