Infrastructure workforce funding needed despite grants

(The Center Square) –– Very little of billions of dollars worth of federal grant money went to infrastructure workforce development, a new report published this month by the Brookings Institute shows. Between 2022 and 2024, $61.5 billion in federal grants awarded to California paid for infrastructure projects that saw work done on roads and bridges, public transit, greenhouse gas emission reduction projects, water quality projects, energy, broadband, urban forestry and other infrastructure areas, according to the report. However, for all the projects the money paid for, very little of it went to workforce development and job training to pay for occupational skills training and job placement, according to the report. “Ensuring that there are enough workers with the right skills to carry out infrastructure projects should be a standard consideration in project development and implementation,” Martha Ross and Zoë Dec, the report’s authors, wrote in the report. “Problems related to quality