Assistance program
WIOA Youth Activities
$9.6 Billion committed in FY2018–FY2026
- Agency
- Employment and Training Administration, Labor, Department of
- Assistance
- Formula Grants
- CFDA number
- 17.259
- What it does
- To help low income youth, between the ages of 14 and 24, acquire the educational and occupational skills, training, and support needed to achieve academic and employment success and successfully transition into careers and productive adulthood.
- Who benefits
- To be eligible, an individual must be an Out-of-School Youth or an In-School Youth. Under WIOA, an out-of-school youth is an individual who is: (a) Not attending any school (as defined under State law); (b) Not younger than age 16 or older than age 24 at time of enrollment; and (c) One or more of the following: (1) A school dropout; (2) A youth who is within the age of compulsory school attendance, but has not attended school for at least the most recent complete school year calendar quarter; (3) A recipient of a secondary school diploma or its recognized equivalent who is a low-income individual and is either basic skills deficient or an English language learner; (4) An offender; (5) A homeless individual or a runaway; (6) In foster care or aged out; (7) An individual who is pregnant or parenting; (8) An individual with a disability; or (9) A low-income individual who requires additional assistance to enter or complete an educational program or to secure or hold employment. Under WIOA, An in-school youth (ISY) is an individual who is: (a) Attending school (as defined by State law), including secondary and postsecondary school; (b) Not younger than age 14 or (unless an individual with a disability who is attending school under State law) older than age 21 at time of enrollment; (c) A low-income individual; and (d) One or more of the following: (1) Basic skills deficient; (2) An English language learner; (3) An offender; (4) A homeless individual or a runaway; (5) In foster care or aged out; (6) An individual who is pregnant or parenting; (7) An individual with a disability; or (8) An individual who requires additional assistance to complete an educational program or to secure or hold employment.
- Who applies
- Under WIOA, 50 states, Puerto Rico, the District of Columbia, and the outlying areas are identified as the recipients of youth training activities funds. For a state to be eligible to receive youth funds, the governor of the state will submit a Unified or Combined State Plan to the Secretary of DOL that outlines a 4-year strategy for the State’s workforce development system.
- Authorized by
- Workforce Innovation and Opportunity Act (WIOA) of 2014 The Workforce Innovation and Opportunity Act (WIOA), Public Law 113-128, was signed into law on July 22, 2014. It supersedes the Workforce Investment Act of 1998, and amends the Wagner-Peyser Act and the Rehabilitation Act o…
- Program site
- https://www.dol.gov/agencies/eta/youth ↗
Committed by fiscal year
* FY2026 is year-to-date — the fiscal year is still in progress, so its total is still filling in. The striped band and dashed line mark that provisional stretch.
How the money flows
Committed dollars by how this program's money is paid out.
Direct payments
$2.6M
<1%
Grants
$9.6B
100%
Top recipients
By dollars committed.
Administering agencies
By dollars committed.
How to read these numbers
- Committed through this program
Money committed under this assistance listing (its CFDA program), counted in the year each action happened.
- How it's paid
Most programs pay out one way — a grant, or a direct payment to individuals; the flow bar only appears when a program genuinely mixes types.
- Some recipients aren't itemized
For entitlement programs like Social Security and Medicare, the government reports one aggregate instead of naming tens of millions of people, so the recipient roster isn't part of the public record.
- Awards, counted once
An award count is the number of distinct awards with at least one action that year — each counted once, however many times it was amended.
- The colored bars
Every bar on this page splits by how the money moves:
Direct payments