Founded 61 years ago in 1964, the U.S. Department of Labor’s Jobs Corps program played an important role in President Lyndon Johnson’s Great Society and the War on Poverty. The idea for Jobs Corps was developed under President John F. Kennedy, but it didn’t launch under after JFK’s assassination in Dallas in 1963. And Johnson championed Job Corps’ goals of job training for youths in the 16-24 range.
Jobs Corps has enjoyed bipartisan support over the years, but under Donald Trump’s second presidency, the program is struggling thanks to major cuts.
In an article published by The Nation on June 10, journalist Deb Vanasse emphasizes that Job Corps cuts are not only hurting large urban centers, but also, the rural areas and small towns where Trump’s MAGA base is especially strong.
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Vanasse reports, “This program termination is targeting young workers-in-training…. in the struggling rural communities that have furnished robust grassroots support for Trump and the MAGA movement over the past decade…. Technically, the Department of Labor is calling the Job Corps shutdown a ‘pause,’ to create the appearance of sober and dispassionate review of the program’s mission and success. But as we’ve seen at scores of other federal agencies, the real agenda here is to kill off key services and government operations before the affected communities can mount any opposition.”
Vanasse adds, “Across the country, shellshocked Job Corps students were told they had to leave campus on June 6 — just eight days after the Labor Department’s directive.”
One of those “shellshocked” Jobs Corps students, according to Vanasse, was Astoria, Oregon resident Autumn Rose, who became homeless at 16 before getting into the program.
“Rose’s life,” Vanasse reports, “abruptly changed for the better” when she got into Jobs Corps.”
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“She had food, shelter, medical care,” Vanasse explains. “She had a goal and the training and support she needed to achieve it. Or at least she did until Donald Trump’s secretary of labor, Lori Chavez DeRemer, announced on May 29 a shutdown of Job Corps programs across the nation. With more than 300 other at-risk students ages 16-24, Rose was told she’d have eight days to exit the campus. She has nowhere to go but back on the streets…. As with other Trumpist drive-by assaults on agencies and programs, the case for shuttering Job Corps campuses rests largely on fabricated data.”
Vanasse continues, “According to the National Job Corps Association, the Department of Labor’s 2025 ‘Transparency Report’ used to justify the shutdown is riddled with incorrect data and misleading assumptions. Alarming statistics involving ‘safety incidents’ come from required reporting of such trivialities as students being late to class and using profanity. In calculating the average salaries of graduates, the report averages in zero dollars for those who go on to college, enlist in the military, or simply fail to complete the survey, dragging the overall earning figures down significantly.”
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Read Deb Vanasse’s full article for The Nation at this link.
