Summary

Competent and innovative technologists are crucial to the future of U.S. national security. But the National Security Commission on Artificial Intelligence (NSCAI) warns that a digital-talent deficit at the Department of Defense (DOD) represents the greatest impediment to the U.S. military’s effective embrace of emerging technologies (such as artificial intelligence). Absent radical course correction, demographic factors, including aging populations, stand to exacerbate this problem in coming years.

A new Digital Military Talent Initiative could help address the military’s digital-talent gap by providing an expedited path to U.S. citizenship through military service for noncitizen technologists aligned to NSCAI archetypes. Modernization of an already-existing DoD program, coupled with minor tweaks to the National Defense Authorization Act, could infuse digital talent by providing vetted noncitizens a pathway to accelerated naturalization through military service.

Challenge and Opportunity

A paucity of digital talent threatens the U.S. military’s current and future capability goals, as evidenced by the military’s ongoing inability to staff cyber units or achieve objectives set by the Pentagon’s Chief Data Officer. Global competition for digital talent requires the U.S. to get more creative with recruitment. The Director of the DOD’s Defense Innovation Unit noted that the Pentagon’s efforts to add science and technology talent to its workforce are “insufficient” given competitors’ gains in these arenas. 

If current efforts are insufficient to meet digital-talent needs, future efforts may have to be drastic. Projections suggest the U.S. population is aging, such that fewer working-age persons will be available relative to the broader population in years to come. This trend may have an outsize negative impact on the military’s available talent pool, as the military fills its ranks predominantly with younger workers. Compounding the problem, military-eligible tech talent is often highly sought-after in the private sector, where compensation may be orders of magnitude greater than in the military. Last, lack of lifestyle perks and flexibility may make the military a hard sell, especially for innovative and free-thinking talent.

Even the newest models for bringing private-sector talent into the military, such as the U.S. Digital Corps and cyber direct-hire authorities, only harness talent from existing U.S. citizens. Proposals for training more government technologists (i.e., by creating a federal digital service academy) are limited by the number of citizens who may be willing and able to participate. 

There is a blueprint that may help overcome these challenges. During the Global War on Terror, the U.S. military enlisted over 10,000 foreign volunteers through the Military Acquisitions Vital to the National Interest (MAVNI) program. Under this program, a select group of pre-screened noncitizens was offered the chance to obtain U.S. citizenship in exchange for military service. Notwithstanding an untimely termination that gave rise to a series of lawsuits, MAVNI was widely recognized as a success. However, the program was somewhat limited in scope. Although many MAVNI participants held advanced degrees, the skillsets the program sought were limited to certain foreign languages and medical specialties. Modernizing and expanding MAVNI — with statutory authority commensurate to the realities of modern conflict — may help mitigate digital talent shortages.

Modernizing and expanding MAVNI would also align with the NSCAI’s recommendation for a “comprehensive” legislative strategy to enable “highly skilled immigrants to encourage more AI talent to study, work, and remain in the United States.” Our nation’s inadequate strategies for recruiting foreign digital talent have caused leading companies like Google to appeal for Congressional assistance, even as peer nations like Canada have developed novel, effective policies to support digital immigration. During the Trump administration, Toronto became the fastest-growing location for tech-sector jobs in North America. The upshot is clear: the U.S. military — and the U.S. generally — faces a widening tech talent gap that requires out-of-the-box thinking to address.

Plan of Action

The authors propose a three-part plan of action for launching a national Digital Military Talent Initiative. Part 1 engenders minor modifications to existing law governing U.S. military eligibility. Part 2 involves modernizing the existing MAVNI program by expanding the definition of skills deemed “vital to the national interest”. Part 3 involves piloting and scaling the modernized MAVNI program in line with leading national security and cybersecurity practices. More detail on each of these components is provided below.

Part 1: Amend existing law governing U.S. military eligibility. 

Three sections of the U.S. Code should be modified. First, 10 U.S.C. § 504(b)(2) — which governs military enlistment of individuals who are neither U.S. citizens, permanent residents, nor citizens of Micronesia, the Marshall Islands, or Palau,¹ should be modified to read:

“Notwithstanding paragraph (1), and subject to paragraph (3), the Secretary concerned may authorize enlistment of a person not described in paragraph (1) if the Secretary determines that such person possesses a critical skill or expertise that is vital to the national interest.”

In other words, 10 U.S.C. § 504(b)(2) should be modified by removing provision (B), which currently requires that an enlistee use their referenced “critical skill or expertise” in their “primary daily duties”. This requirement unnecessarily inhibits military commanders at all levels, since critical skills and expertise often include skills and expertise deployed only in moments of the utmost exigency.

Second, 10 U.S.C. § 504(b)(3) should be modified to read: 

“A Secretary concerned may not authorize more than 10,000 enlistments under paragraph (2) per military department in a calendar year until after the Secretary of Defense submits to Congress written notice of the intent of that Secretary concerned to authorize more than 10,000 such enlistments in a calendar year.” 

This language increases the enlistment number at which the Secretary of Defense is statutorily obligated to notify Congress and does away with the 30-day waiting period that the Secretary must wait between notifying Congress and proceeding with the enlistment authorization. These modifications are needed to accommodate anticipated recruitment under an expanded MAVNI and help the Secretary to move quickly on leveraging such a talent pool. It should be noted that over 14,000 individuals expressed interest in the first year that the U.S. Army sought to enlist recruits in the Global War on Terror pursuant to 10 U.S.C. § 504(b)(2)).

Third, 8 U.S.C. § 1440(a) should be modified by adding the following new subsection:

“Any person enlisted pursuant to 10 U.S.C. §504(b)(2) who has served honorably in an active-duty status in the military, during any period which the President by Executive Order designates as a period in which Armed Forces of the United States are or were engaged in nontraditional military operations in preparation for a substantial foreign threat that is new or novel in nature, may be naturalized as provided in this section if (1) at the time of enlistment, reenlistment, extension of enlistment, or induction such person shall have been in the United States, or (2) at any time subsequent to enlistment or induction such person shall have been lawfully admitted to the United States for permanent residence.”

This language increases the President’s authority to authorize expedited naturalization in certain instances of sub-threshold conflict. The included requirement that the President expressly designate such instances via an Executive Order creates political accountability around this authority.

Part 2: Modernize the DOD’s existing MAVNI program by authorizing enlistment for certain vetted noncitizens with critical digital competencies.

The Military Acquisitions Vital to the National Interest program authorizes certain noncitizens to enlist if they possess critical skills limited to certain foreign languages and medical specialties. As the demands of modern conflict have adjusted at the speed of technological advancement, so too should the way the U.S. staffs its military. The DOD should expand the MAVNI program to include skills aligned to the NSCAI’s digital-talent archetypes, the President’s recent Executive Order on improving the nation’s cybersecurity, and the FY2022 National Defense Authorization Act. The DOD should also validate key assumptions to confirm pilot feasibility, including:

• Needs of military service-software factories, as well as operational units and enterprise programs pursuing digital transformations.
• Ability to leverage noncitizen technologists capable of developing and shipping code in zero trust environments.

• Needs related to specific tech applications that can be developed with minimal risk and have potential for significant impact. 

Part 3: Pilot and scale the modernized MAVNI program to grow recruitment numbers and increase impact on military-service missions.

DOD should scale based on need using the following steps:

1. Determine aggregate need for digital talent across the joint services to meet operational and institutional requirements.
2. Define enlistment pathways for recruited digital talent. For instance, a recruit might first enter into a non-classified military occupational specialty — whether a unique specialty for uncleared digital talent or a traditional specialty. After naturalization, the recruit could a) shift to an existing enlisted role in information technology/networking, cyber, and electronic warfare, b) enter a potentially new digital-specialty role, or c) commission as a warrant or officer. 
3. Scale MAVNI program infrastructure in alignment with DOD zero trust principles and architecture requirements.
4. Develop professional-development and career pathways that incentivize recruited digital talent to remain engaged with the military requirements and to communicate about their experiences and successes. 
5. Gather and implement feedback from program alumni and participants on topics including recruitment, retention, training, incentives, community-building, diversity, and inclusion

Conclusion

The DOD’s current digital-talent deficiencies may evolve into an existential vulnerability without significant course correction. The DOD can begin addressing these deficiencies through an integrated Digital Military Talent Initiative. Such an initiative should comprise three parts: (1) amending existing law governing enlistment eligibility; (2) expanding the definition of skills deemed “vital to the national interest;” and (3) piloting and scaling the MAVNI program to recruit tech talent for the military in alignment with leading national security and cybersecurity practices. Together, these actions will dramatically grow the U.S. military’s eligible digital talent pool, thus enabling it to better compete in future sub-threshold and armed conflict.

---

Summary

Overuse of non-disclosure agreements (NDAs) is a pervasive problem in the United States. Companies apply these silencing tools to prevent their workers from sharing critical information with one another and the public. This in turn threatens economic growth, limits competition, and inhibits workplace equity. Workers need reliable information about corporate practices to assess job quality, ensure personal safety, and obtain pay commensurate with their worth. The public needs information about corporate practices to decide how to use their investment and purchasing power. Yet existing laws give companies enormous latitude to designate information as confidential, allowing them to impose NDAs and other contract clauses and internal policies that prevent workers from sharing information with those who need to know.

It is time for government to rein in corporate secrecy. The #MeToo movement revealed how NDAs enable and perpetuate misconduct at work, prompting public outrage and support for legislative action. New empirical evidence has exposed just how widely NDAs are being used in the corporate world: researchers estimate that between 33% and 57% of U.S. workers are constrained by an NDA or similar mechanism.^{1 2} At recent hearings and public events, regulators have signaled their concern about the anti-competitive effects of restrictive employment agreements.³ Policymakers should seize this moment of support to pursue a comprehensive legislative and multi-agency agenda limiting inappropriate use of NDAs. A strong action plan should include proactive enforcement of existing laws governing NDAs; new legislation prohibiting the most harmful uses of NDAs; and interagency collaboration to educate the public, collect data, and support research on impacts of corporate secrecy practices. Together, these efforts to limit NDA abuse will promote market accountability, workplace equity, and fair competition.

Challenge and Opportunity

NDAs are contracts in which parties agree not to disclose any information designated confidential by the agreement. In some cases, NDAs may be used appropriately to protect valuable trade secrets or other intellectual property. But employers often draft these agreements broadly to conceal many other types of information, sometimes in ways that overstep existing legal bounds. For instance, the Weinstein Company required employees to sign NDAs that prohibit disclosure of “any confidential, private, and/or non-public information obtained by Employee during Employee’s employment with the Company concerning the personal, social, or business activities of the Company, the Co-Chairmen, or the executives, principals, officers, directors, agents, employees of, or contracting parties (including, but not limited to artists) with, the Company.”⁴ Some companies require employees to sign non-disparagement agreements. These particularly broad NDAs prohibit employees from disclosing any information that might, as a non-disparagement agreement for employees of Task Rabbit reads, “disparage the Company, and the Company’s officers, directors, employees, investors and agents, in any manner likely to be harmful to them or their business, business reputation or personal reputation.”⁵  NDAs and non-disparagement agreements often purport to apply indefinitely, preventing workers from sharing information long after they have left employment.

NDAs are imposed on workers at various points during the employment relationship. They are regularly included as part of a bundle of mandatory HR forms that new hires must sign as a condition of employment. They can also be imposed and enforced through confidentiality policies contained⁶ in personnel manuals or codes of conduct that prevent employees from sharing information about the company with outsiders and sometimes even with co-workers. They are also routinely included in standardized as well as negotiated severance agreements that workers sign when ending their employment. Lastly, they are also often included in settlement agreements that resolve workplace disputes and in agreements that force employees to arbitrate disputes in secret. By preventing workers from disclosing information on everything from workplace harassment and abuse to compensation practices and safety conditions, NDAs stifle competition, limit the free flow of ideas,⁷ and allow toxic workplace conditions to fester.^{8 9 10}

Prevalence of NDAs

Researchers estimate that between 33% and 57% of U.S. workers are constrained by an NDA or similar mechanism.^{11 12} Yet it is difficult to precisely determine how many employees are silenced by NDAs because NDAs are designed to conceal information. In fact, NDAs often provide that the mere existence of the agreement is itself a secret. Lawyers regularly encourage firms¹³ to use broad NDAs as a condition of employment—not only to protect trade secrets, but also to discourage employees from revealing bad employment experiences.¹⁴ NDA prevalence also varies by sectors.

For instance, 73% of workers in “computer or mathematical jobs” report having an NDA with their employer.^{15 16}

How NDAs Hurt Workers, the Public, and the Economy

The overuse of broad NDAs can have harmful economic and social effects. Depending on how they are drafted and enforced, NDAs may undermine law enforcement and regulatory compliance, distort labor and investment markets, constrain fair competition, allow toxic workplace conditions such as harassment and discrimination to persist, and undercut efforts to make workplaces more diverse and equitable.

Interference with Law Enforcement and Regulatory Compliance

Social, psychological, and economic disincentives already discourage employees from blowing the whistle on harmful and illegal corporate behavior.¹⁷ NDAs add another barrier preventing this critical information from reaching regulators and the public. NDAs have been used by companies to cover up illegal behavior. They have been used to silence whistleblowers who disclose information about products that threaten public health and safety.¹⁸ They have even been used to prevent employees from disclosing illegal conduct to government regulators despite countervailing law. A complaint filed by the California Department of Fair Employment and Housing (DFEH) against gaming company Activision Blizzard alleges that, contrary to law, the company pressured employees to sign contracts waiving their right to speak to investigators and requiring them to notify the company before disclosing information to DFEH.¹⁹ Some companies have required employees to agree to secrecy about corporate pay practices and diversity statistics, thereby depriving regulators of vital information about companies’ compliance with pay equity and anti-discrimination laws.²⁰ The dangers of overly aggressive NDAs have become especially clear during the COVID-19 pandemic, when it is vital for the public to know if companies are disregarding essential health and safety guidelines designed to reduce virus spread.

Market Distortion

NDAs deprive individuals of information they need to assess competing job offers and make informed decisions about where to work. They also degrade the reliability of employer reviews that workers post to online job platforms. This is because workers subject to broad NDAs are more likely to censor themselves and withhold negative information. New research shows that on Glassdoor, workers in states with more stringent limits on NDAs are 16% more likely to give a one-star review, write 8% more about the “cons” of working at the firm, and discuss harassment at work 22% more often.²¹ That same research also shows that states with more stringent limits on NDAs increase reporting of sexual harassment and safety violations to federal agencies. NDAs hence remove an important check on corporate behavior, since companies have been shown to improve their practices in response to negative job reviews and investigations into their practices.²² NDAs thus enable bad employers to hide their flaws and make it difficult for good employers to distinguish themselves in the market.

Accurate information about workplace conditions is also valuable to investors, who have increasingly come to recognize that the ways companies treat their workers impact corporate financial performance.²³ A nonprofit investment group recently called on the Securities and Exchange Commission to develop a standardized set of workplace-practice metrics as part of a comprehensive framework for evaluating socially responsible corporate governance.²⁴ NDAs can hide information about workplace conditions that investors value.

Constraints on Fair Competition

Broad NDAs can impede fair competition. Research has demonstrated that non- compete agreements—which prohibit departing workers from joining competitors— impede worker mobility, economic growth, and new firm entry. Broad NDAs pose some of the same competitive risks as non-competes because they limit workers’ ability to share and apply knowledge gained through on-the-job experience. This in turn diminishes workers’ human capital and makes them less competitive in the labor market.²⁵ Indeed, employers in states that ban non-competes have illegally attempted to use broad NDAs as an alternative mechanism to impede employee mobility.²⁶

Harassment and Discrimination

NDAs conceal harassment, discrimination, and abuse in the workplace. As the #MeToo movement showed, perpetrators of harassment and discrimination are often repeat offenders.^{27 28} NDAs may prevent victims of harassment and discrimination from warning co-workers and prospective employees about a company’s toxic workplace environment, leaving others at risk. NDAs may also prohibit or inhibit employees from disclosing information to government agencies, shielding offenders from outside investigation. By limiting what employees can share, NDAs allow harmful and abusive behavior to persist.

Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion

Restrictions on employee disclosure of harassment and discrimination undermine the goal of achieving diverse and equitable workplaces. Workers of color, women, and LGBTQ+ workers are disproportionately likely to suffer harassment and discrimination in the workplace. Such adverse experiences can have significant psychological and professional consequences, including driving workers out of certain jobs and even out of certain industries.^{29 30} NDAs exacerbate these harms by suppressing information about systemic workplace inequities and by denying workers a forum to expose and discuss harassment and discrimination.

Corporate-secrecy practices shrouding employee compensation similarly undermine efforts of diverse employees to achieve pay equity. Contrary to law, some NDAs and confidentiality policies prohibit employees from discussing their compensation, which makes it challenging for those employees to negotiate fair salary terms commensurate with their value.³¹ Studies have found that states that adopted anti-secrecy pay laws increased gender wage equality relative to states that did not.^{32 33}

National Leadership Is Needed

As described above, overly broad NDAs and the organizational secrecy practices they support pose serious risks to our economy and our society. Yet absent government intervention, these challenges will persist. Individual firms have incentives to maintain their reputations using corporate-secrecy tactics despite the social costs of such behavior. Many of those who value the information concealed by NDAs lack the capacity and power to pressure companies to change. Policymakers have an imperative to use the levers of government to curb NDA abuse.

A minority of states, including California, Illinois, New Jersey, New York and Washington, passed legislation in the wake of #MeToo regulating some uses of NDAs. But these laws comprise an inconsistent and incomplete regulatory patchwork. State laws differ in scope of coverage and impose different compliance standards, making it difficult for employees and companies to determine what employee disclosures are legally protected where. Moreover, the harms caused by NDAs do not stop at state lines. In fact, uneven regulation of NDAs further distorts markets by making it easier for companies to conceal information and restrict competition in some states than in others. Multi-state firms can use choice of law and choice of forum provisions to exploit inter-state legislative discrepancies, i.e., to apply the most lenient state-level secrecy laws to the entirety of a multi-state workforce.

The upshot is clear. National leadership is the only way to support market accountability, workplace equity, and fair competition by reining in non-disclosure agreements.

Plan of Action

Multiple policy interventions could curtail NDA misuse. Select options are presented below.

Better Enforce Existing Laws

Existing laws restrict some of the harmful uses of NDAs. But laws must be enforced to be effective. Research shows that some employers include unlawful non-compete clauses in their employment contracts, capitalizing on workers’ ignorance of the law and fears of being sued. Employers may similarly use NDAs in ways that violate existing law.^{34 35} Ensuring that employers are following laws that protect certain disclosures and forms of communication is a common-sense place to start when it comes to curbing NDA abuse.³⁶

The Federal Trade Commission (FTC) has an important role to play in enforcement. The FTC has broad authority to punish companies engaging in unfair or deceptive practices that harm consumers or competitors, as NDA misuse often does.³⁷ Unfair practices include practices that offend public policy as established by state statutes and common law,³⁸ which already restrict use of overly broad NDAs as well as NDA misuse to silence disclosures of employer wrongdoing. Stronger enforcement by the FTC would give these laws some needed teeth and would help establish norms governing responsible NDA use. The FTC could also work with companies to develop standards and best practices around NDA use and to encourage companies to engage in robust self-regulation and police one another.³⁹

Stronger enforcement of existing laws could also come from the various federal agencies that help oversee labor and employment in the United States. For example, the National Labor Relations Act protects workers who make common cause in seeking to discuss the terms and conditions of their employment. Regional offices of the National Labor Relations Board (NLRB) have the authority to investigate employers’ use of policies that discourage this type of communication, and to file unfair labor practice charges against employers acting unlawfully. The NLRB can and should exercise this authority more forcefully. Similarly, the Occupational Safety and Health Administration (OSHA) could better use its power to enforce whistleblower laws protecting employees who report unlawful behavior. The Equal Employment Opportunity Commission (EEOC) and the Department of Labor (DOL) also receive complaints about unlawful employment practices, including retaliation against employees who report or object to discriminatory behavior, wage theft, and other violations. The EEOC and DOL should actively seek information about NDAs and related practices in the course of their investigations and should make pursuit of retaliation claims a top priority.

In addition to redoubling enforcement efforts in their respective spheres of jurisdiction, the aforementioned agencies should collaboratively develop and implement strategies for amplifying the collective impact of their oversight.

Prohibit the Most Pernicious Uses of NDAs

New federal laws should be enacted to ban employer-imposed secrecy regarding key categories of essential information, including firm diversity, harassment and discrimination, compensation practices, and workplace health and safety. The recently proposed Ending the Monopoly of Power Over Workplace Harassment through Education and Reporting Act (EMPOWER Act) would make it illegal for an employer to require or enforce an NDA or nondisparagement clause related to workplace harassment based on a range of protected characteristics, including sex, race, national origin, disability, age, or religion. The proposed law, which enjoys bipartisan support, would also establish a confidential tip line for reporting systematic workplace harassment.

The EMPOWER Act is a step in the right direction, but federal legislation should go even further. New laws are needed to protect a wider range of disclosures and to ensure that employees know their rights. A section of California’s Silenced No More Act provides one example. It prohibits companies from using NDAs to silence employees not only about harassment, but also about discrimination and other illegal conduct. To ensure that employees know their rights, the act requires employers who use NDAs for lawful purposes to include in these contracts language clarifying that “[n]othing in this agreement prevents you from discussing or disclosing information about unlawful acts in the workplace, such as harassment or discrimination or any other conduct that you have reason to believe is unlawful.”

The federal Defend Trade Secrets Act (DTSA) provides another example of a provision that could be incorporated into new legislation aimed at reining in NDAs.⁴⁰ Signed into law by President Obama in 2016, the DTSA requires employers to include language in all employment contracts notifying employees that they are immune from liability when blowing the whistle on unlawful employer behavior, even if doing so involves revealing trade secrets. This notice requirement could be expanded to cover any discussions about workplace conditions. It could also clarify that the NDAs may cover only technical information that is truly secret and not general skills, know- how, and job-related experience. This would give workers more freedom to leverage their knowledge in competing for quality jobs and market-based terms of employment.

Enacting a reform agenda that impacts the widest possible swath of employers requires Congressional action. However, President Biden could act immediately to limit NDA use by federal contractors. The president has the power to issue an executive order restricting or prohibiting the federal government from entering into contracts with companies that fail to adhere to certain rules. President Biden could issue an executive order requiring that federal contractors adhere to new rules prohibiting use of NDAs to conceal essential information, including information on firm diversity, harassment and discrimination, compensation practices, workplace health and safety, and other areas of regulatory compliance. In addition to the benefits discussed above, such rules could help prevent concealment of fraud by government contractors.

Collect Data and Require Disclosure

Research tells us that NDAs are common in American workplaces. Recent events have shown that some employers use NDAs to cover up unlawful behavior. Yet information on the prevalence and content of NDAs is still relatively scarce. Employers are not currently required to disclose their NDAs to any outside party or government regulator. Employers are also free to prohibit employees who sign NDAs from even revealing that the agreement exists. Without adequate information on the scope and nature of the NDA problem, it is difficult for lawmakers to craft well-tailored policy solutions that account for a variety of stakeholder concerns. Any law limiting NDAs must balance the damage that concealing information from the public imposes against the value of NDAs for employers when used appropriately. Legislation must also consider the personal interests of victims of misconduct who may prefer to keep their experiences secret.

Policymakers should therefore require organizations to disclose their NDAs and related clauses in employment agreements. The FTC should use its investigative authority under Section 6(b) of the FTC Act⁴¹ to gather and study these documents. The SEC should also consider requiring disclosure of companies’ use of NDAs as part of its broader response to investor demand for credible information about human- capital management^{42 43}and environmental, social, and governance performance.⁴⁴

In addition, the various agencies that investigate violations of employment laws should collaborate to conduct more research on the scope and effects of NDAs (as well as other corporate-secrecy practices) across states and industries. For instance, the EEOC already receives annual reports from employers about worker demographics, salary breakdowns by gender and race, and other employment information. A coordinated agency effort could provide insight into how NDAs affect diversity and equity in employment. Developing this type of data will help lawmakers assess the anti-competitive effects of corporate secrecy, balance competing policy interests, and draft effective legislation.

Summary

Graduate students are more likely to persist in their academic decisions if engaged in positive mentoring experiences. Graduate students also cite positive mentoring experiences as the most important factor in completing a Science, Technology, Engineering, Math, or Medicine (STEMM) degree. In the United States, though, these benefits are often undermined by a research ecosystem that ties mentorship and training of graduate students by Principal Investigators (PIs) to funding in the form of research assistantships. Such arrangements often lead to unreasonable work expectations, toxic work environments, and poor mentor-mentee relationships.

To improve research productivity, empower predoctoral researchers to achieve their career goals, and increase the intellectual freedom that young scientists need to pursue productively disruptive scholarship, we recommend that federal science funding agencies:

1. Establish traineeship grant programs at all federal science funding agencies.

2. Require every PI receiving a federal research grant to implement an Individual Development Plan (IDP) for each student funded by that grant.

3. Require every university receiving federal training grants to create a plan for how it will provide mentorship training to faculty, and to actively consider student mentorship as part of faculty promotion, reappointment, and tenure processes.

4. Direct and fund federal science agencies to build professional development networks and create other training opportunities to help more PIs learn best practices for mentorship.

Summary

The cost of college has skyrocketed over the last 20 years, with tuition costs far outpacing wage growth. At the same time, many employers complain that they are unable to find high-quality talent, in part due to excessive focus on the signaling effect conferred by college degrees. Although the last three presidential administrations have expanded and added pathways to high-earning jobs through apprenticeship programs, such programs remain under-utilized and have significant growth potential. To maximize the potential of apprenticeship programs, the federal government should develop a cohesive approach to supporting apprenticeships in key talent-starved industries, including technology and cybersecurity, healthcare, and advanced manufacturing. These apprenticeships are characterized by high pay and upward mobility and are designed to support economic growth and serve vital national interests. To maximize the benefits of expanding high-quality apprenticeships, the federal government should (1) develop a national strategy to coordinate and direct resources, and (2) work with Congress to allocate federal funding for apprenticeships and related programs in nationally strategic areas.

Summary

The Biden-Harris Administration should create a program that incentivizes unique prison-tech innovations by providing resources to help startups working in this space, specifically those that create solutions for individuals during and after their period of incarceration and beyond. The program would be structured as a partnership among several key government agencies, federal and state prison systems, and the private sector. For participating startups, the program would foster technical innovation, provide de-risking measures, connect viable product-market solutions, and establish equity-free funding opportunities. For individuals serving state and federal sentences, the program would improve rehabilitative efforts while in the corrections system, create potential job opportunities, and reduce recidivism rates. For the broader social good, the program would spur economic growth, create stronger communities, and contribute to more equitable outcomes.

Challenge and Opportunity

The United States has the highest number of incarcerated individuals worldwide: the U.S. prison population numbers nearly 1.9 million. Recidivism rates are equally astonishing. Of the over 600,000 individuals released from state and federal prisons each year, more than two-thirds are rearrested within three years of release. Half of those rearrested are subsequently reincarcerated.

The cost of recidivism is extraordinarily high. Recidivism costs taxpayers at least $366 million per year, with a single recidivism incident estimated to impose as much as $150,000 in taxpayer burden. Recidivism also has massive social costs. Continuous reincarceration harms communities, breaks families, and contributes to generational systemic poverty. To break this cycle, we as a nation need to rethink how we approach incarceration and assign more importance to reintegration efforts.

A major contributor to the recidivism cycle is prioritization of punitive measures over rehabilitative ones in U.S. prison systems. Such punitive measures can isolate inmates from friends, family, and even children for years or decades. Moreover, instead of providing access to educational tools that could set them up for meaningful work once released, prisons often shunt incarcerated individuals into low-level menial tasks that pay mere pennies per day. Incarcerated individuals often lack the skills needed to navigate life on the outside as a result. They are left without financial means or dependable job prospects. They are saddled with broken relationships and a lack of coping mechanisms. Coupled with the stigma of being labeled ex-offenders, they are often forced into unproductive behaviors and familiar but societally unacceptable actions. And inevitably, many fall into the same patterns and reoffend.

It is also worth considering the economic benefits our nation is failing to capture from formerly incarcerated individuals. According to the U.S. Chamber of Commerce, an estimated $78–87 billion in GDP annually is lost due to exclusion of formerly incarcerated job seekers from the workforce simply because of their ex-offender status, exclusion based on these individuals being “unskilled and unemployed” as a result of poor training and job opportunities while in prison. 

We can do better. Research shows that when incarcerated individuals are given access to tools that allow them to connect to people and resources who can help them, those individuals are better equipped to reenter society. Such tools include regular video and voice calls plus texts and emails with friends and loved ones. They include the ability to participate in physical, mental, and spiritual programs and community-led activities, including programs and activities offered through digital services. And importantly, they include access to online educational programs and learning platforms administered through hardware designed to make learning easier, more robust, and aligned with modern approaches to digital upskilling.

Indeed, there is a growing market for hardware, software, and other digital innovations designed to work within U.S. carceral systems. Startups focused on the prison-tech space have the knowledge and will to replace archaic, ineffective approaches to rehabilitation with more meaningful products and services. Unfortunately, prison-tech startups also face challenges not encountered by startups in other tech subsectors. 

First, many prison-tech startups are creating products and solutions that are extremely targeted towards smaller markets. For these players, finding customers means aligning with state and federal prison systems — something that is unfamiliar to a budding tech company.

Second, prison-tech startups, like all startups, often struggle to find funding. But while other startups can woo private funders with promises of equity, board seats, and concrete financial returns, success for these startups often includes bettering lives and fostering meaningful experiences, measures that cannot be quantified through revenue alone. Many investment firms have little interest in funding such “tech for social good” enterprises.
Third, prison-tech startups invest substantial time and money into including equality, accessibility and safety in their offerings. As such, access to this type of beneficial technology should not be limited to only carceral institutions with larger budgets to purchase them. At the same time, too many existing goods and services purport to serve incarcerated individuals equally and justly but are actually designed to maximize revenue generation. For example, systems like TRULINCS and JPay are pay-per-use services (for communication, money transfer, and other purposes) provided at extraordinarily high costs to incarcerated individuals and their networks on the outside — often at costs so high that the critical opportunities for connection they provide are simply unaffordable for those who need them most. Prison-tech products and services must be designed and used in ways that do not exploit, harm, or otherwise jeopardize the health and safety of incarcerated individuals and their families nor unduly burden individuals and their families with exorbitant costs per use.

Plan of Action

The Biden-Harris Administration should launch a cross-agency initiative to support prison-tech startups. The initiative would offer federal grants to fund private companies and nongovernmental organizations (NGOs) providing beneficial prison-tech goods and services: e.g., carceral learning platforms and tools that can prepare incarcerated individuals to reenter society. The initiative should also provide incentives for prison-tech startups to hire formerly incarcerated individuals. Such incentives will create self-sustaining ecosystems that provide meaningful, long-term employment to former inmates, drive bottom-line success for prison-tech startups, and better communities in which startups are based.

Relevant agencies

Key agencies to include in initiative design, management, and administration include the following:

• Given its close ties to the current administration and track record of policy and initiative management, the White House Office of Science and Technology Policy (OSTP) would be well-suited to administer the initiative. OSTP helps lead science and technology (S&T) efforts as they relate to budget alignment and policy implementation across the federal government. OSTP also works with the White House Office of Management and Budget (OMB) to ensure that S&T efforts are being actively measured and evaluated. Finally, OSTP has experience working with state and local governments as well as with the private sector. For this initiative, OSTP would be specifically tasked with:
  • Coordination across partner agencies.
  • Collecting and reporting data evaluating initiative effectiveness.
  • Outreach, including hosting business roundtables and other events to encourage private-sector and state participation.
  • Crafting guidance for participating states and startups, including participation requirements, sample frameworks, and best practices.
  • General program management, oversight, and monitoring.

• Grant-funding agencies such as the National Science Foundation (NSF) and the Department of Education (ED). Both NSF and ED have previously provided seed funding for several carceralinitiatives. As recently as 2020, NSF supported a Small Business Innovation Research (SBIR) grant aimed at providing digital learning for incarcerated individuals. NSF also has the technical background and expertise needed to support tech development in a specific area, experience coupling S&T with social science and welfare issues, and a large research and development (R&D) budget that could be tapped for this initiative. ED has conducted research into effective reentry practices — most recently in 2015 through its Promoting Reentry Success Through Continuity of Educational Opportunities (PRSCEO) study. Experience and insight from studies like this position ED to serve as a high-level partner to NSF in both advising on and co-creating learning materials, particularly materials that help incarcerated individuals earn their GEDs and acquire in-demand skills that will increase post-release employment opportunities. 

• The Small Business Administration (SBA) helps NSF and ED implement the SBIR program by reviewing agency progress and assisting with grants and solicitation announcements. Grant solicitations for this initiative could be issued through SBIR. In addition, the SBA’s 7(j) Management and Technical Assistance Program helps small businesses win local, state, and federal contracts. The 7(j) Program guides small businesses through the complexities of government-contracting guidelines. This program could be leveraged to support new businesses in winning federal support for their prison-tech products and services. 

• The Department of Labor (DOL), through its Work Opportunity Tax Credit (WOTC) and Federal Bonding Program, can provide later-stage financial incentives for prison-tech startups. The 2014 Workforce Innovation and Opportunity Act (WIOA) also set DOL up well to support formerly incarcerated job seekers by helping with resume writing, interview skills, job placement, and ongoing skill development post-release.

• The Department of Justice (DOJ) should be involved in setting guidelines relating to how prison-tech services handle inmate privacy, accessibility, and other issues related to civil rights. DOJ’s Civil Rights Team (CRT), in particular, can ensure that products and services funded through this initiative do not exploit vulnerable prison populations. DOJ is also well suited to provide input on current trends and needs within the American prison ecosystem. DOJ should closely advise OSTP on initiative management and should assist in shaping calls for grant proposals. 

Program structure

As explained above, the proposed initiative comprises two pillars. The first pillar focuses on federal grant funding to help prison-tech startups launch. The second pillar focuses on later-stage financial incentives and market support that help prison-tech startups scale and achieve long-term financial sustainability, and that encourage prison-tech startups to provide good jobs to previously incarcerated individuals. 

Pillar 1: Federal grant funding

Making federal grant funding (i.e., non-equity funding) available will encourage innovative startups to explore needed prison-tech solutions while minimizing risk associated with investing in such a specific market segment. The best option for funding the grant portion of the initiative is a combined approach that makes use of multiple existing federal funding vehicles.

The primary vehicle would be the Small Business Innovation Research (SBIR) program. Under SBIR, companies are generally awarded up to $150,000 for a Phase I (P1) grant that runs for up to six months. Companies who successfully complete P1 and show favorable outcomes and market opportunities can become eligible for Phase II (P2) funding, which has a cap of $1 million for a two-year period of performance. This staggered approach requires companies to measure and demonstrate positive outcomes in order to be eligible for follow-on investments. We propose creating a specific prison-tech topic code for SBIR, which would allow NSF and ED to use this program to allocate prison-tech startup grants. Though SBIR funding generally does not go beyond P2, the federal government could consider adding Phase III (P3) funding opportunities for particularly promising prison-tech startups. In P3, companies would be eligible for awards of $5–10 million to scale up products and services to meet the needs of prisons nationwide. A summary of proposed SBIR award numbers and funding levels for this initiative is proposed below.

Award numbers

Phase	Period of Performance	Max. awards disbursed per cycle
1	6 months — 1 year	10
2	2 years	5
3	Est. 3 years	2

Estimated funding levels (first five years)

Year	Funding per phase	Total funding
1	P1: $1,500,000	$1,500,000
2	P1: $1,500,000 P2: $2,500,000	$4,000,000
3	P1: $1,500,000 P2: $2,500,000	$4,000,000
4	P1: $1,500,000 P2: $2,500,000 P3: $5,000,000	$9,000,000
5	P1: $1,500,000 P2: $2,500,000 P3: $5,000,000	$9,000,000

Additionally, the Digital Equity Act — part of the recently passed bipartisan infrastructure bill—includes a total of $2.75 billion over five years to provide digital training and skill-development opportunities to low-income and disadvantaged populations, which includes those formerly incarcerated. Through this act (and specifically through its “Spurring Targeted Action through Competitive Grants” arm) the National Telecommunications and Information Administration (NTIA) will create an annual $125 million competitive grant program to support digital-inclusion projects undertaken by individual groups, coalitions, and/or communities of interest. The Biden-Harris administration should explore options for including the NTIA grants in the prison-tech startup initiative. 

Pillar 2: Later-stage financial incentives and market support

The goal of this pillar is to support prison-tech startups through the crucial period in between business launch and long-term fiscal sustainability — the period when many startups fail. Providing funding, markets and overall business support during this crucial time period ensures continuity of offering for the institution as well as ensuring small business thrives. 

The SBA and DOL should partner to provide continued financial incentives — e.g., extended tax credits and bonding programs — for prison-tech startups, particularly startups that hire previously incarcerated individuals. As part of this pillar, the DOL’s WOTC should be doubled to $19,600 per individual per year for employees making at least $65,000 per year.¹ DOL’s Federal Bonding program should also be extended to cover the first 12 months or more of employment. Finally, the Biden-Harris administration should explore opportunities for retention bonuses or additional tax credits that encourage prison-tech startups to retain formerly incarcerated individuals beyond the first 12 months of employment.

The SBA and DOL should also help craft a business-to-prison product-matching service. This service will (1) allow prison-tech startups to focus on building the right solutions without worrying about customer acquisition, and (2) give prison management confidence that the prison-tech products and services they are purchasing are credible and tested. As part of this service, the SBA and DOL should assist businesses with understanding institutional needs and with understanding how to navigate federal and state contracting processes. The SBA and DOL could also try to help prison-tech startups identify supplementary customer bases among institutions such as city and county jails, juvenile-detention facilities, and state-sponsored healthcare facilities and hospitals in an effort to provide additional market opportunities for participating startups beyond the prison system. This ensures continued financial support for business and expanded product support through larger customer bases, something all startups need.

Summary

The Biden-Harris Administration is confronting multiple challenges that require a coordinated, innovative, and flexible response by the federal government. The recently released FY22 President’s budget sets a solid foundation for leveraging the capacity of the federal workforce, along with necessary science, technology and innovation expertise from the private sector, to meet the challenges ahead.

However, hollowed out agencies and technical skills gaps mean agencies lack the capacity to implement needed programs. Agencies have to rapidly scale up personnel, ensure they have the necessary skills, and implement underutilized hiring mechanisms to fill out talent gaps.

While the goals laid out in the budget will allow agencies to address climate, continue to fight the COVID-19 pandemic, rebuild the economy, and increase equity across government programs and services, it requires a sustained focus on building and hiring diverse expertise to accelerate progress on these initiatives – which increasingly rely on modernized IT infrastructure and equitable delivery of services.

This is an historic opportunity, driven by critical need, to focus on driving systemic change across government to equip all federal agencies with the capacity required to build back better while bolstering and reinvigorating the federal talent pipeline.

The following proposals are offered as ways to tackle hiring challenges, build a diverse technical talent pipeline, and continue to rebuild the public trust in government and interest in serving. The Day One Project and its partners stand ready to assist in fleshing out and supporting the proposals below.

Summary

Existing technology could automate nearly half of all work activities today. As society continues to embrace artificial intelligence (AI), robotics, and automation, companies will need fewer workers or workers with new skills, leading to displacement. The government must assist the American workforce with acquiring skills demanded by the modern workplace and support workers in transitioning to the new economy. To do so, the Biden-Harris administration should push Congress to evolve the Trade Adjustment Assistance (TAA) program into the Trade and Technology Adjustment Assistance program (TTAA) to help workers displaced not just by trade but also by advancements in emerging technologies, such as AI and robotics.

The expanded TAA program should include (1) a centralized administrative infrastructure, (2) a cutting-edge and comprehensive upskilling platform, and (3) “rainy day” funds for temporary worker assistance. The comprehensive upskilling platform, in particular, sets the proposal outlined in this memo apart from other proposals to update TAA, such as the TAA for Automation Act of 2019. The TAA for Automation Act aims to include workers displaced by automation as a group eligible for TAA services. TTAA proposed herein goes further, seeking to rethink TAA’s upskilling and training component from the ground up.

Summary

The Department of Labor (DOL) should update CareerOneStop’s “mySkills myFuture” website and other web properties to provide prospective career changers with comparative information on job-related pollution and safety metrics.

As the United States transitions towards a clean energy economy, a majority of workers in traditional fossil fuel industries will need to find new employment. In its January 27, 2021 Executive Order “Tackling the Climate Crisis at Home and Abroad”, the Biden-Harris Administration called for revitalizing “energy communities” — that is, communities whose economies have traditionally been based on the energy industry. Revitalization includes creating good and sustainable opportunities for labor. DOL is a member of the Interagency Working Group on Coal and Power Plant Communities and Economic Revitalization authorized by the January 27th Executive Order, which has been tasked with providing federal leadership to support coal, oil and gas communities during the energy transition. DOL’s “mySkills myFuture” interactive web portal guides experienced job seekers to discover new careers that match their existing skill sets. However, information presented on the portal lacks key quantitative factors that support worker well-being. To enable transitioning workers in declining fields to make more informed choices about future jobs, the DOL should update its career guidance tools to include data on health and safety risks associated with different job options.

Summary

To address the critical challenges of lifelong learning, evolving skills gaps, and continuous labor market transformation and automation, all Americans need to have access to agile and effective jobs training. Artificial intelligence (AI) and virtual reality/augmented reality (VR/AR) capabilities can deliver training tailored to the unique backgrounds, preferences, and needs of every individual. In this memo, we propose a two-stage approach that the Biden-Harris administration can adopt to help prepare Americans for the jobs of the future through responsible use of AI and VR/AR.

Stage 1 would launch a one to three pilot programs that leverage AI and VR/AR technologies to provide targeted training to specific communities.

Stage 2 would establish a national prize competition soliciting proposals to build and deliver a federal lifelong learning platform for the nation.

The H-1B visa for “specialty occupation” workers has become a significant element of the U.S. employment-based immigration system. Less well-known is that employers of H-1B workers annually pay hundreds of millions of dollars for domestic education and training programs in science, technology, engineering, and mathematics (STEM), administered by the Department of Labor (DOL) and the National Science Foundation (NSF). This fee-based funding stream was created in the late 1990s and has not been meaningfully updated by Congress in the succeeding decades. It is mandatory funding, tied to a continuous flow of H-1B filing fees rather than the annual congressional appropriations process. Both the Obama and Trump administrations seized on this unique pot of money for advancing education and training priorities for Americans without new legislation or appropriations.

The Biden administration can take even greater advantage of this funding to launch innovative programs that advance U.S. economic competitiveness and diversify the STEM talent pipeline—two mutually reinforcing goals. Specifically, in this paper we recommend:

• Reestablishing the TechHire Initiative to rapidly train U.S. workers for in-demand technology jobs
• Establishing a new Advanced Research Projects Agency—Labor (ARPA-L) to conduct high-impact R&D programs that create breakthroughs to meet America’s workforce challenges
• Significantly increasing the number of graduate research fellowships dedicated to students in STEM fields who completed their undergraduate education at non-R1 universities
• Significantly increasing the number of faculty training grants in STEM fields where a dearth of professors has created a bottleneck for graduate education (e.g. artificial intelligence)

In addition, Congress should increase the fees paid by H-1B employers to reflect (a) the increase in inflation over the past two decades, as well as (b) the ability of major corporations, which are often the most prolific sponsors of H-1B workers, to pay more than small businesses.

Background 

A Brief History of the ACWIA Fee Account for STEM training 

In the 1990s, the technology sector was growing rapidly and the demand for high-skill workers was quickly  outpacing supply. The H-1B visa, first enacted at the beginning of the decade, was becoming a popular  option to bring in such skilled workers. In 1997, the number of applications for H-1Bs exceeded the established cap of 65,000 visas for the first time. The next year, demand was so high that the cap was reached within days of the opening date for new filings—and this has been the case nearly every year since. 

Congress considered legislation to increase the H-1B cap, but faced strong bipartisan opposition, as well  as pushback from labor unions and professional associations. As a compromise, along with raising the  caps for three years, Congress established a special fee for sponsors (“petitioners”) of H-1B workers which  would be deposited into a new fund called the “H-1B Nonimmigrant Petitioner Account.” Because these  provisions were included in the American Competitiveness and Workforce Improvement Act of 1998,  immigration practitioners often refer to “ACWIA fees” and the “ACWIA fund.”  

Originally, the ACWIA fee amounted to $500 per qualifying petition. The fee was increased twice since its  creation: once in 2000 (to $1,000) and once in 2004 (to its current level of $1,500). The 2004 adjustment also specified for the first time that employers with 25 employees or fewer would pay a lower rate of $750  per qualifying petition. Congress mandated that the funds be distributed primarily to DOL and NSF to  support domestic STEM education and technical skills training programs. The current distribution of funds  is as follows (see the Appendix for full statutory details): 

• 50 percent to the Secretary of Labor for job training programs; 
• 30 percent to the Director of NSF for scholarships for low-income students enrolled in STEM  programs; 
• 10 percent to the Director of NSF for a direct matching grant program that funds public-private  partnerships in K-12 education; 
• 5 percent to the Secretary of Homeland Security to improve processing employment-based  temporary visa and green card petitions; and 
• 5 percent to the Secretary of Labor to decrease the processing time for labor certification  applications. 

With this money, DOL has relatively wide latitude to make competitive grants to businesses, business related nonprofit organizations, education and training providers (such as community colleges), “entities  involved in administering the workforce development system,” and economic development agencies.  These grants are intended to support job training programs that help both unemployed and employed  workers learn new skills to obtain a job or promotion, especially in industries experiencing significant  growth. To determine these in-demand industries, the Secretary of Labor must consult with state  workforce investment boards and take into account sectors that are “projected to add substantial  numbers of new jobs”; “are being transformed by technology and innovation requiring new skill sets for  workers”; “are new and emerging businesses that are projected to grow”; or “have a significant impact  on the economy overall or on the growth of other industries and economic sectors.”

NSF, on the other hand, has more statutory restrictions on how it can use its allocated ACWIA fees.  Scholarships for low-income individuals pursuing associate, undergraduate, or graduate STEM degrees  cannot exceed $10,000 per year for up to four years, although up to 50% of this funding stream (15% of  the total ACWIA fund) may be used for “undergraduate programs for curriculum development,  professional and workforce development, and to advance technological education.” 

NSF’s K-12 STEM education grants (10% of the total H-1B fund) must be awarded to public-private  partnerships that serve one or more of the following purposes specified by Congress: 

• Support the development and implementation of standards-based instructional materials,  models, and related student assessments that enable K–12 students to acquire an understanding  of STEM, and to develop critical thinking skills;  
• Provide systemic improvement in training K–12 teachers and education for students in STEM; 
• Support the professional development of K–12 STEM teachers in the use of technology in the  classroom;  
• Stimulate system-wide K–12 reform of STEM in rural, economically disadvantaged regions;
• Provide externships and other opportunities for students to increase their appreciation and  understanding of STEM, including summer institutes sponsored by an institution of higher  education for students in grades 7–12;  
• Foster partnerships of industry, educational institutions, and community organizations to address  the educational needs of disadvantaged communities;  
• Provide college preparatory support to expose and prepare students for careers in STEM; and 
• Provide for carrying out certain NSF systemic reform activities. 

Programs currently funded by ACWIA fees 

Both NSF and DOL provide publicly-available data on the ACWIA fees that are spent on the agencies’  programs. Table 1 includes the total amount of funding received by NSF and DOL from fiscal years (FY)  2010 to 2021 as noted in the agencies’ annual budget requests.

Table 1. Total ACWIA fee receipts received by NSF and DOL, FY 2010-2021

Fiscal Year	Department of Labor Receipts	National Science Foundation Receipts	Total Funding
2010	$114,026,000	$91,220,000	$205,246,000
2011	$130,975,000	$106,110,000	$237,085,000
2012	$161,232,000	$128,990,000	$290,222,000
2013	$143,466,000	$120,940,000	$264,406,000
2014	$161,401,000	$132,490,000	$293,891,000
2015	$175,029,000	$143,000,000	$318,029,000
2016	$139,644,000	$138,800,000	$278,444,000
2017	$160,200,000	$141,070,000	$301,270,000
2018	$150,000,000	$155,990,000	$305,990,000
2019	$195,899,000	$156,720,000	$352,619,000
2020, estimated	$194,000,000	$157,000,000	$351,000,000
2021, request	$194,000,000	$157,000,000	$351,000,000

NSF currently uses its money from ACWIA fees to fund two programs: Scholarships in Science, Technology,  Engineering, and Mathematics (S-STEM) and Innovative Technology Experiences for Students and Teachers (ITEST). By the end of FY 2018, the agency had received almost $2 billion in cumulative ACWIA fees to support scholarships, as well as K-12 students and teachers. 

NSF must allocate three-quarters of its ACWIA receipts (30 percent of the total account) to scholarships  for lower-income students pursuing associate’s, bachelor’s, and advanced STEM degrees. Through the S STEM program, NSF makes grants to higher education institutions (about 90 in FY 2019) which then award  scholarships of $10,000 per year for up to 4 years. Between FY 1999 and 2018, the S-STEM program resulted in 87,890 scholarships for U.S. students (including both citizens and permanent residents).

Table 2. Funding of NSF’s S-STEM and ITEST programs, FY 2010-2019

Year	S-STEM funding	ITEST funding
2010	$75,960,000	$20,850,000
2011	$77,670,000	$18,620,000
2012	$72,570,000	$21,590,000
2013	$83,980,000	$31,510,000
2014	$92,180,000	$37,230,000
2015	$109,340,000	$29,830,000
2016	$140,540,000	$44,350,000
2017	$84,380,000	$35,110,000
2018	$156,400,000	$35,860,000
2019	$114,760,000	$34,240,000

Although the nature and amount of these scholarships are fixed in statute, Congress does provide the NSF  Director wide discretion to spend up to 50 percent of the current S-STEM funds “for undergraduate  programs for curriculum development, professional and workforce development, and to advance  technological education,” all of which “may be used for purposes other than scholarships.” This means  that an annual amount of around $50 million is available for such supporting programs. 

Department of Labor 

Over the past decade, DOL has used its ACWIA fee receipts to fund a series of job training initiatives,  usually tied to a presidential priority. DOL has cumulatively received about $2.5 billion in ACWIA fees to  train professionals in the United States. The Secretary of Labor has wide discretion to designate “high  growth industries and economic sectors” as targets for this funding, based on the following factors: 

• The sectors are projected to add substantial numbers of new jobs to the economy;
• The sectors are being transformed by technology and innovation requiring new skill sets for  workers; 
• The sectors include new and emerging businesses that are projected to grow; or
• The sectors in question have a significant impact on the economy overall or on the growth of  other industries and economic sectors. 

Using ACWIA fees, the Obama administration issued funding opportunity announcements for programs  to support job training for the long-term unemployed (“Ready to Work”), coding bootcamps (“TechHire”),  and apprenticeship programs, among other priorities. The Trump administration also used these funds to support its efforts to expand apprenticeship programs (“Closing the Skills Gap”). 

The Ready to Work program (RTW) was launched in 2014 as a response to those who lost their jobs during  the Great Recession and remained under- or unemployed as the economy recovered. DOL is in the middle  of evaluating the success of this program and is expected to complete its study by May 2022. In 2017, the agency released an interim report that examined the first year of grantees’ operations in Maryland,  California, New York, and Washington. The programs provided specialized, one-on-one counseling to the  participants and coordinated with local occupational training programs and employers in relevant sectors. 

TechHire was established in 2015 and has aimed to build talent pipelines in technology sectors throughout  the country. Initial funding for the program amounted to $100 million in grants to support partnerships  that train young adults and other disadvantaged groups, such as people with disabilities, individuals with  limited proficiency in English, and those with criminal records. A full evaluation on the benefits of the  program is expected from DOL in September 2021. 

Closing the Skills Gap awarded grants to 28 public-private partnerships in early 2020 that amounted to  almost $100 million. The program aims to achieve “large-scale expansions of apprenticeships in industries  including advanced manufacturing, healthcare, and information technology.” Likely because the Closing the Skills Gap program is still so new, there are no studies announced to evaluate its impact yet.

Table 3. Funding levels of ACWIA programs at DOL, 2011-2020

Year	Program	Purpose	Amount
2011	H-1B Technical Skills Training Grants	“To provide education, training, and job placement assistance in the occupations and industries for which employers are using H-1B visas to hire foreign workers, and the related activities necessary to support such training”	$240,000,000
2011	Jobs and Innovation Accelerator Challenge	“To support the development of approximately 20 high-growth industry clusters” and help them achieve “outcomes such as commercialization, business formation, expansion of existing businesses, job creation, and exports”	$20,000,000
2012	N/A	N/A	N/A
2013	Make it in America Challenge	“To support the development and implementation of a regionally driven economic development strategy that accelerates job creation by encouraging re-shoring of productive activity by U.S. firms, fostering increased Foreign Direct Investment, encouraging U.S. companies to keep or expand their businesses and jobs – in the United States, and training local workers to meet the needs of those businesses”	$20,000,000
2013	Youth CareerConnect Program	“To provide high school students with education and training that combines rigorous academic and technical curricula focused on specific in-demand occupations and industries for which employers are using H-1B visas to hire foreign workers as well as the related activities necessary to support such training to increase participants’ employability in H-1B in-demand industries and occupations”	$100,000,000
2014	H-1B Ready to Work Partnership Grants	“To provide long-term unemployed workers with individualized counseling, training and supportive and specialized services leading to rapid employment in occupations and industries for which employers use H-1B visas to hire foreign workers”	$150,000,000
2015	American Apprenticeship Initiative	“To provide a catalyst in supporting a uniquely American Apprenticeship system that meets our country’s particular economic, industry and workforce needs”	$100,000,000
2016	America’s Promise Job Driven Grant Program	“To develop and expand regional partnerships and training opportunities particularly for middle- to high-skilled H-1B industries and occupations, ensuring that communities fully maximize their Federal, state and local funds to build a competitive workforce”	$100,000,000
2016	Strengthening Working Families Initiative	“To support evidence-based strategies or innovations based on these models that remove a range of barriers to training, including child care and other needs that working families face, by investing in education and skills training in combination with customized participant supportive services”	$25,000,000
2016	TechHire Partnership Grants	“To equip individuals with the skills they need through innovative approaches that can rapidly train workers for and connect them to well-paying, middle- and high-skilled, and high-growth jobs across a diversity of H-1B industries such as Information Technology (IT), healthcare, advanced manufacturing, financial services, and broadband”	$100,000,000
2017	N/A	N/A	N/A
2018	Scaling Apprenticeship Through Sector Based Strategies	“To accelerate the expansion of apprenticeships to new industry sectors reliant on H-1B visas, to promote the large-scale expansion of apprenticeships across the nation, and to increase apprenticeship opportunities for all Americans”	$150,000,000
2019	Apprenticeships: Closing the Skills Gap	“To promote apprenticeships as a significant workforce solution in filling current middle- and high-skilled job vacancies and closing the skills gap between employer workforce needs and the skills of the current workforce”	$100,000,000
2020	H-1B One Workforce Grant Program	To fill critical shortages in economic regions by encouraging “states and economic regions to work with industry stakeholders to develop dynamic workforce strategies that train workers and jobseekers for middle- to high skilled H-1B occupations in key industry sectors,” such as “Information Technology (IT), advanced manufacturing, and transportation that are being transformed by technological advancements and automation,” as well as “other industries of the future that include artificial intelligence (AI), quantum information sciences (QIS), 5G/advanced communications, and biotechnology”	$150,000,000
2020	H-1B Rural Healthcare Grant Program	“To alleviate healthcare workforce shortages by creating sustainable employment and training programs in healthcare occupations (including behavioral and mental healthcare) serving rural populations”	$40,000,000

Plan of Action 

Recommendations for High-impact STEM Education and Training Programs 

As currently authorized by Congress, the ACWIA fees yield an approximately $350 million annual fund for  STEM education and training that is essentially on autopilot, funded by employers rather than taxpayers.  The Biden administration has an opportunity to focus DOL and NSF on using these funds to advance its  top priorities of economic recovery and racial equity. 

Specifically, DOL can ramp up the TechHire initiative for in-demand technology jobs and establish a new  Advanced Research Projects Agency—Labor (ARPA-L) to conduct high-impact R&D programs that create  breakthroughs to meet America’s workforce challenges. NSF can significantly increase both the number  of graduate STEM research fellowships dedicated to underserved students as well as the number of faculty  training grants in fields where a dearth of professors has created a bottleneck for graduate education  (e.g., artificial intelligence). 

Reestablish the TechHire Initiative 

The TechHire initiative, described in more detail above, has already demonstrated the value of involving  technology companies in rapid STEM training programs. One of the first TechHire grants was awarded to  LaGuardia Community College and helped them form a partnership with state and federal agencies, along  with software development and training companies. The goal was to provide intensive training in tech  skills to low-income young adults and as of 2019, over 80 percent of students in the bootcamp graduated.  Retention was over 90 percent. This is just one of the 39 partnerships established by the program, which  serves communities in 25 states.  

No further DOL funds have been awarded to the TechHire initiative since its inception in 2015, however.  Especially as our country embraces an increasingly tech-focused work environment, further tech skills  training will be essential. We recommend allocating $50 million per year to the TechHire initiative to  sustain it and establish new public-private partnerships across the country. To encourage high-impact  outcomes, the revitalized TechHire initiative could make grants above a certain award amount (e.g., $2  million) contingent on demonstration of wage gains following training, and could allow non-profits (not  only workforce boards) to serve as the lead applicant. 

Establish a new Advanced Research Projects Agency—Labor (ARPA-L) 

With the nature of work changing rapidly, one federal initiative that could significantly boost the United  States’ long-term competitiveness in high-impact industries would be the development of an Advanced  Research Projects Agency for the Department of Labor (ARPA-L). According to a Day One proposal  developed by former Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA) Director Arati Prabhakar and Coursera executive Jeff Kaplan, ARPA-L would drive innovation in workforce training and labor market  outcomes, where major research efforts are currently lacking. By weaving research advances together with lessons from the real world, ARPA-L aims to catalyze high-impact R&D focused on creating powerful, scalable approaches to pressing workforce issues including unemployment and market disruption. With the support of Congress and the White House, this new organization should be housed within the Department of Labor in order to best deliver bold advances that ultimately change what’s possible for America’s workers. 

The ARPA model is known for its success in creating radically better approaches to hard problems by  conducting solutions-oriented R&D. DOD’s DARPA, now in its seventh decade, conducted the pivotal R&D  for new military capabilities such as stealth and precision strike and, more broadly, for new information  technologies from the internet to artificial intelligence. DARPA’s track record inspired the establishment  of the Department of Energy’s ARPA-E and the Office of the Director of National Intelligence’s IARPA. Both of these ARPAs are well underway, with robust portfolios of R&D programs and encouraging results. They  demonstrate that it is possible to adapt the DARPA model for different public purposes.  

Though this ARPA model has been highly successful for national security and energy research, it has not  yet been implemented for the improvement of workforce training and education programs. ARPA-L would  be an innovative addition to DOL, particularly because the agency’s current budget does not include any funding for workforce training research and development. Some potential research and development  areas to close the skills gap include: 

• Develop and validate diagnostic systems to improve skills assessment and enable workers to  better understand how their skill set matches the needs of employers. 
• Demonstrate accelerated skill development that uses information about an individual (e.g., age,  initial skill level, and prior experience) to devise an individualized training regimen for interest and  expertise.  
• Explore and evaluate new ways to personalize and accelerate the training process by building on  advances in learning science and neuroscience. 
• Advance and test the effectiveness of emerging innovations like human-computer interaction and  mixed reality for training for complex tasks. 
• Experiment with and assess alternative certifications and micro-credentialing programs to train  and upskill youth and displaced adult workers around the country while connecting participants  directly to employers. 

In addition, ARPA-L would support timely labor market data collection and analysis to evaluate the  research and training programs. Conducting labor market analysis with ARPA-L would help with the  development of innovative training programs, as well as allowing employers, employees, and the federal  government to respond to economic changes. Some examples of useful analyses include: 

• Experimenting with and testing data tools for each worker, combining information on local job  postings, wages, and training requirements with information about credentialing and training  services to offer workers the most meaningful and actionable information for their career goals  in real time. 
• Assembling data from public and private sources on regional labor trends and testing their  effectiveness in enabling employers to make more impactful, targeted, and timely investments in  local workforce development opportunities.
• Collecting and analyzing diverse datasets to identify targeted, effective leverage points for innovative labor policy interventions.

Allocating $100 million per year from the ACWIA fund to kickstart ARPA-L would put the United States on a much better path to supporting U.S. workers and sustained wage growth in our changing national and global economy. This can be accomplished administratively in the immediate term, with Congress  authorizing and appropriating a larger program after a strong track record has been established.

Optimize STEM graduate fellowships for students from emerging research universities 

Higher education R&D funding is scarce, and is not distributed equitably. The American Physical Society  found that in 2018, out of more than 600 colleges and universities that received federal science funding,  22 percent received over 90 percent of the funds. These institutions serve only 43 percent of all students  and only 34 percent of underrepresented minority students in the United States. This distribution of funds  means that two thirds of underrepresented minority students and almost 70 percent of students who  receive Pell grant funding have significantly fewer opportunities to engage in cutting-edge scientific  research. 

Without undergraduate research experiences afforded by federal R&D funding, students at emerging  research universities are then less competitive for future NSF-funded opportunities at any university, such  as graduate fellowships. “Emerging research institution” (i.e., non-R1) is a category that includes  geographically diverse state schools and nearly all minority-serving institutions. 

NSF already uses the ACWIA fund to address this problem in part, through the S-STEM program described  above. Colleges and universities apply for competitive grants to “increase the number of low-income  students who graduate and contribute to the American innovation economy with their STEM knowledge,” for example through innovative curricula. While these institution-level awards have merit, they create a  patchwork of programs for which the lion’s share of low-income STEM students are ineligible at any given  point in time. 

In contrast, consider the prestigious NSF Graduate Research Fellowship program, where individual  students directly apply for three years of financial support, with an annual stipend of $34,000 plus $12,000  to the university where they pursue their graduate-level STEM education. Based on an increase in  appropriations, Congress doubled the total number of such fellowships over the past decade (from around  1,000 to 2,000).  

To lower barriers to graduate STEM education for outstanding students of all backgrounds, NSF should  consider allocating $50 million of its ACWIA funds to an individual-level scholarship program—like the NSF Graduate Research Fellowships—open to students who obtained their undergraduate degree from an  emerging research institution. To be clear, these fellows could pursue their graduate degree at any  research university, whether R1 or emerging. 

For its part, Congress should lift the statutory cap of $10,000 for such scholarships, which gets smaller in  real terms with each passing year.

Increase the number of faculty training grants in critical STEM fields 

The demand for faculty in cutting-edge fields, such as AI, is rising rapidly. According to a report by the  Center for Security and Emerging Technology (CSET), the number of bachelor’s degrees in computer  science and engineering almost tripled between 2009 and 2017. In addition, the enrollment for  introductory courses in AI in 2017 was three to five times higher than in 2012. The flow of faculty moving  from institutions of higher education to industry has also increased dramatically, so it has become quite  difficult to properly support the rising number of U.S. students interested in an education in AI. 

This dearth of qualified professors represents a major long-term constraint on AI education in the United  States, and will no doubt constrain U.S. competitiveness in other advanced fields as they develop in  unexpected directions in the future. 

Therefore, NSF should consider allocating another $25 million from its ACWIA funding stream to  incentivize universities to create new faculty positions in STEM fields where there is a teaching bottleneck. To that end, NSF could expand and adapt its Faculty Early Career Development (CAREER) Program, which provides awards of up to $400,000 over five years to promising faculty members.  

Recommendations for Congress: Growing the Pie 

As described above, the ACWIA fund can significantly advance STEM education and training priorities in  the United States, without any further action by Congress, through optimal use of the existing $350 million annual funding flow. 

But the size of that flow is somewhat arbitrary, and ought to grow. This is especially important now that  experts are warning that China has the resources to surpass the United States in AI and other STEM fields  over the next few years. Congress should therefore increase the size of the pie by raising H-1B fees in an  equitable way. 

Currently, the ACWIA fee structure has two tiers based on the size of the employer filing the petition.  Congress set the fees at $750 for employers with at most 25 U.S. employees and $1,500 for employers  with more than 25 U.S. employees. However, this fee structure has not changed since 2004—during which time inflation has increased by over 30 percent—and it also does not take into account the financial resources of major corporations that hire the great majority of H-1B workers. 

Congress should update the fee structure so that (a) the two current fee tiers are increased 30% to account  for past inflation; (b) a new fee tier is added for companies larger than the Small Business Administration’s  500-employee threshold for a “small business”; and c) all fees are automatically indexed to inflation in the  future.

Table 4. Recommendations for modernized ACWIA fee structure

Employer size	Current fee	Proposed fee
Up to 25 employees	$750	$1,000
Between 26 and 500 employees	$1,500	$2,000
Above 500 employees	$1,500	$5,000

Higher fees for large companies were recommended by Microsoft in 2012, when it published a proposal for Congress to allocate additional 20,000 H-1B visas for professionals in STEM fields and to require large  companies to pay a fee of $10,000 for each petition. Microsoft also proposed recapturing unused green  cards and allocating 20,000 of them annually for STEM professionals. Sponsors for these green cards  would pay $15,000. These new funds, which would amount to about $500 million per year, would then  be dedicated to domestic STEM education programs. 

It is important to note that H-1B petitions in certain circumstances are exempt from ACWIA fees. These  exemptions include petitions from: 

• Institutions of higher education; 
• Nonprofit entities related to or affiliated with institutions of higher education;
• Nonprofit research organizations or governmental research organizations; 
• Primary or secondary educational institutions; or 
• Nonprofit entities that engage in “an established curriculum-related clinical training program for  students.” 

Fees are also not required for most H-1B extensions under any kind of employer. 

With these details in mind, we calculated the estimated revenue that would be generated by the  modernized fee structure proposed above. We referred to USCIS data on current H-1B employers, annual  rates of the submission of petitions, as well as USCIS’s analysis of petitions from small entities (at most  500 employees) and “non-small” entities (above 500 employees).  

We estimate that a modernized ACWIA fee structure could bring in around $1 billion per year, or about  triple the current revenue level. The data and our estimates can be found in Table 5 and Table 6 below.

Table 5. Calculation of current ACWIA fee revenue and estimated increases from recommended policy changes (FY 2020 data)

Petitions filed	Estimated number of petitions submitted	Average fee paid	Total fees
Petitions without fee exemptions (63.5%)	271,141	$1,475.25	~$400,000,000
Petitions with a fee exemption (36.5%)	156,104
Total number of petitions files	427,245

Table 6. Estimated increases in ACWIA fee revenue from recommended policy changes

Petitions by employer size	Estimated number of petitions submitted	Proposed fee	Estimated total revenue
25 or fewer employees	19,912	$1,000	$19,912,041
26-500 employees	85,948	$2,000	$171,895,782
More than 500 employees	161,681	$5,000	$808,406,892
Total	267,541	N/A	$1,000,214,715

Conclusion

As China and other countries ramp up spending to boost their own domestic research and development  capabilities, the United States must act to maintain its global scientific and technological leadership.

Since its creation two decades ago, the ACWIA fund has been a valuable and reliable resource to support  STEM workforce training and education programs at DOL and NSF. Congress should grow this annual  funding stream to $1 billion—at no cost to taxpayers—by modernizing the ACWIA fee structure to keep  up with inflation and reflect the size of the large corporations petitioning for most H-1B professionals. 

Even before Congress takes these overdue actions, the administration should allocate the existing annual  flow of ACWIA funds to expand the TechHire initiative, institutionalize a new ARPA–L, support a new  generation of underserved STEM graduate students, and eliminate faculty bottlenecks in critical STEM  fields. 

The time is ripe to seize this opportunity to harness America’s home-grown STEM talent to accelerate  innovation and power the nation’s inclusive economic growth.

The authors would like to thank Amy Nice, Ryan Burke, Remco Zwetsloot, Diana Gehlhaus, and Mark Elsesser for their insightful recommendations during the drafting of this report.

In 2014, then-Secretary of the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) Jeh Johnson issued a memo (The 2014 memo) recommending “policies supporting U.S. high-skilled businesses and workers.” DHS offered a range of policies for updating the employment-based immigration system to encourage economic development. We propose that DHS issue a follow-up memo now focused specifically on international entrepreneurs to help the U.S. economy recover from the pandemic.

Read the full report at Brookings

Summary

The Biden-Harris Administration should establish a national initiative to develop a workforce pipeline for the new and emerging quantum ecosystem – call it the “Quorkforce.” Due to the rapid growth in the fields of quantum computing and technology along with fears of losing competitiveness, both the public and private sectors are struggling to find skilled employees. Quantum skills are derived from a mixture of many disciplines such as physics, computer science, applied mathematics and engineering, and there is no unique path to enter the quantum sphere. Through partnerships between the National Science Foundation (NSF), the Department of Education, the Department of Energy, and the private quantum industry, the Biden-Harris Administration should establish an educational plan to train the next quantum generation across K-12, undergraduate, graduate and postgraduate levels. The Administration should initiate an open call to create ten national quantum education centers with a baseline funding of $300M over a period of 10-12 years. The short-term goal would be to train the existing workforce with adequate quantum skills, while the long-term goal would be to provide a steady flow of quantum-literate graduates capable of advancing the field and fulfilling the needs of this growing industry.