High Road to the Middle Class

President Biden’s Investing in America agenda is growing the economy from the middle out and bottom up, creating jobs and opportunity in towns, cities, and states across the country. The Biden-Harris Administration is committed to ensuring American workers and families have access to these good jobs, and the training, skills, and resources needed to secure them.

The High Road to the Middle Class (HRMC) map is designed to spotlight high road training programs (HRTPs) – programs that implement demand-driven workforce strategies advancing job quality, equity, and worker voice – that can train America’s infrastructure, clean energy, and manufacturing workforce. By leveraging partnerships with both employers and labor, these programs deliver worker-centered and industry-driven training that is connected to employer needs and regional labor market demands for a skilled workforce. This map can serve as an important resource for employers, labor unions, federal grant recipients, public workforce system stakeholders, job seekers, and state, local, Tribal, territorial, and federal government partners to help them meet their workforce needs and develop new equitable pathways to quality jobs. We encourage users to leverage this map to develop and scale partnerships with high road training programs as they apply for federal funding and implement projects mobilized by President Biden’s Investing in America agenda.

This resource is not intended to provide a comprehensive or exhaustive list of high road training programs—or high-quality training programs more generally—and is an evolving resource that the Department will expand over time. In particular, this map is also not intended to be relied upon to identify training programs that meet the apprenticeship standards or approved occupation listings for the purposes of compliance with the Davis Bacon Act and related statutes or for the purposes of meeting the Inflation Reduction Act prevailing wage and Registered Apprenticeship tax credit requirements.

You can find more details about the high road training programs featured on this map in the documentation section below. To access information on HRTPs in a tabular format please click here.*

For detailed instructions on how to use the High Road to the Middle Class map, please refer to the user guide.

*The tabular data file currently only contains information on HRTPs that are active DOL discretionary grantees, RAPs, and Job Corps centers.

High Road Training Program Documentation

This tool highlights training programs that may meet the workforce needs of Investing in America projects and have characteristics associated with high road training models. It is not intended to be exhaustive and does not imply an endorsement by the U.S. Department of Labor of any specific program or a determination that a training program meets performance or other quality standards.

Specifically, programs included on this map meet the following criteria:

  • They provide training in an occupational skill or industry relevant to the workforce needs of Investing in America projects;
  • They leverage one or more of the following evidence-backed training models: Registered Apprenticeship, pre-apprenticeship, sector-based strategies, labor-management training partnerships, or community college-based workforce training programs; and
  • They have a partnership with an employer, multiple employers, or industry consortia and organized labor or a worker organization.

Providers were selected from the following data sources: DOL regulated Registered Apprenticeship Programs (RAPs), active DOL discretionary grantees, and recipients of discretionary state and federal workforce development grants. This resource is not intended to be a comprehensive or exhaustive list of high road training programs or training programs more generally. Non-inclusion should not be interpreted as a determination that a specific training program is not a high road training program. The U.S. Department of Labor recognizes that many high road training programs do not receive discretionary federal or state funding. We encourage users to leverage this tool in combination with other resources such as CareerOneStop, TrainingProviderResults.gov, and the Registered Apprenticeship Partner Finder. We also encourage users to contact their local Workforce Development Board for additional assistance.

The information included in the tool represents the best information available at the time of the last update. Information on training models and partnerships may be derived from grant applications or project descriptions and may differ from actual grant performance. State grantee data is collected from public sources and determinations are based on available information; DOL cannot guarantee the accuracy of this information.

The completeness of RAPs is limited by several factors. Information on RAPs is not currently available in Minnesota, Washington, and the District of Columbia. Furthermore, RAPs that do not report Standard Occupational Classification (SOC) codes for the training programs that they offer are not included in this tool. This significantly reduces the number of RAPs shown in Oregon, Wisconsin, Connecticut, and New York, and to a lesser extent the number of programs shown in Massachusetts, North Carolina, and New Mexico. The Department expects to resolve these issues in subsequent iterations and add more programs to the map in the future.

Where training providers have reported street addresses, they are mapped at that geographic level. If a training provider does not have a street address, either the city or county is used, depending on which is available. Providers are placed on the map using the calculated centroid of the city or county; however, to prevent marks from overlapping we use a technique called jittering, which slightly alters their mapped location. If a training provider does not have geographic information at the street address, city, or county level, they are excluded from the map. Users should note that the point location of a training program does not necessarily indicate the geographic limitations of training provided – programs that are located in one city may serve a broader region.

Any links to non-federal websites on this page provide additional information that is consistent with the intended purpose of this federal site, but linking to such sites does not constitute an endorsement by the U.S. Department of Labor of the information or organization providing such information. For more information, please visit https://www.dol.gov/general/disclaim.

Investing In America (IIA) Award Data Documentation

The Investing in America (IIA) project data reflected on this site is currently limited to announced Bipartisan Infrastructure Law (BIL) discretionary funding. This represents a small subset of what IIA programs will fund and is not intended to be comprehensive. In the future, the Department intends to include additional projects funded by IIA programs, including BIL formula programs, as well as CHIPS and IRA programs.

Data on announced projects and select awards represented on these maps, including award and project locations and funding amounts, is preliminary and non-binding. Awards may be contingent on meeting certain requirements. Information on project awards is derived from “Bipartisan Infrastructure Law (BIL) Maps Dashboard”. If a project award does not have a reported street address, city, or county, it is excluded from this map.

IIA project locations indicated on the “High Road Training Partner Finder” do not necessarily represent the primary place of performance or recipient location. In most cases, the location shown on the map is the centroid of the city or county in which the funding is located. Additionally, in the case where multiple awards are in the same location, a technique called ‘jittering’ is used to separate overlapping marks. Further, announcements and/or award data does not always equal a project, as a single announcement or award can cover multiple projects in multiple locations. Likewise, a project may be funded by multiple awards. Government-wide reporting standards for awards require agencies to report the primary place where work is being done or where the awardee is located. As a result, one dot on this map may represent multiple projects in multiple locations.

Please refer to the White House Office of Science and Technology Policy’s “Bipartisan Infrastructure Law (BIL) Maps Dashboard” documentation for more information.

Data Sources — Dates of Last Update

  • Registered Apprenticeship Data – 5/15/23
  • DOL Funded Grantees and Job Corps Centers — 5/8/23
  • Other Federally Funded Grantees — 5/9/23
  • State Funded Grantees — 5/3/23
  • BIL Announced Projects – 4/20/2023

The U.S. Department of Labor (DOL) is committed to providing access to all individuals who are seeking information from our High Road to the Middle Class map and to comply with Section 508 of the Rehabilitation Act of 1973, as amended. Section 508 requires that all individuals with disabilities (whether they are federal government employees or members of the general public) have access to, and use of information and data, comparable to that provided to individuals without disabilities, unless an undue burden would be imposed on DOL.

Any individual with a disability who has difficulty accessing documents and materials related to High Road to the Middle Class map should contact U.S. DOL staff at HighRoadMap@dol.gov.

This request should include:

  • nature of the accessibility problem encountered,
  • specific information sought, and
  • contact email address or phone number for a response.

U.S. DOL staff will respond promptly and work to provide the information being sought.