Inefficiencies In Federal Job Training Programs

See Biden's 47 Job-Training Flavors: Why not a single program that measures success by workers hired? From the WSJ,2-3-14. Excerpt:

"In 2011 the GAO identified no fewer than 47 training programs across nine agencies that cost $18 billion in 2009. Almost all overlapped with at least one other. Staff at the House Education and Workforce Committee, which has conducted seven hearings on job training since 2011, say the GAO left out nine programs including one that the Obama Administration has since added. And last week the President proposed still another in the form of a grant competition for community colleges.

GAO concluded that only five of the 47 programs it examined "had impact studies that assess whether the program is responsible for improved employment outcomes," and the positive effects of those five "tended to be small, inconclusive, or restricted to short-term impacts." One of the least cost-effective is the Job Corps, which is one of the largest in taxpayer dollars per capita. 

In 2012 Senator Tom Coburn's office examined workforce training in Oklahoma and found that Job Corps spends $76,000 per participant to place youth in jobs that are often minimum-wage and don't require training. Culinary students have been put to work as funeral attendants, tour guides, baggage porters and telemarketers"