Integrating Entrepreneurship Services into Local Workforce Development Systems: Who is Doing It and How

ABSTRACT

Entrepreneurship has been touted as a potential tool for reducing inequities and poverty in urban areas. This study examines how public workforce funds are being used to support entrepreneurship based on survey responses from administrators in four states. Results suggest that few workforce funds are being used to support entrepreneurship and when they are, it is more likely affluent communities than disadvantaged ones. This could mean that important opportunities for the most disadvantaged residents and communities are being overlooked. Universal access to the entrepreneurship option can play an important role in helping some of the unemployed achieve self-sufficiency.

KEYWORDS:

• Entrepreneurship
• job training
• public policy
• WIA
• workforce development

Acknowledgments

The authors wish to thank Liana Kleeman and Eva Hutchinson for research assistance; and the editors and reviewers for the Journal of Poverty for comments on earlier versions of this article.

Funding

The authors wish to thank the L. Douglas Wilder School of Government and Public Affairs, Virginia Commonwealth University for providing research funding.

Notes

^1. Since the initial writing of this article, The Workforce Investment Act of 1998 has been reauthorized (July 2014) as The Workforce Innovation and Opportunity Act (WIOA).

^2. The ETA (USDOL, 2010a) goes on to address the role of entrepreneurs in diversifying the economy, particularly in disadvantaged communities, and their potential to create jobs, which may be especially relevant for individuals facing barriers to employment, for those in rural areas and for those with disabilities (see pp. 2–3). The ETA has also mentioned entrepreneurship in other recent advisories and program letters (USDOL, 2009b, 2009c, 2010b, 2010c, 2010d), and the USDOL (2012).

^3. This program encourages unemployed workers to create their own jobs by starting their own businesses and becoming self-sufficient. The program allows states to pay an allowance in lieu of regular unemployment benefits, to help unemployed workers establish their businesses.

Additional information

Funding

The authors wish to thank the L. Douglas Wilder School of Government and Public Affairs, Virginia Commonwealth University for providing research funding.