I 
113TH CONGRESS 
1ST SESSION H. R. 1340 
To amend the Workforce Investment Act of 1998 to authorize the Secretary 
of Labor to provide grants for Urban Jobs Programs, and for other purposes. 
IN THE HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES 
MARCH 21, 2013 
Mr. FATTAH (for himself, Mr. GRIJALVA, Ms. CLARKE, Ms. HAHN, Mr. HAS-
TINGS of Florida, Mr. LEWIS, Ms. BROWN of Florida, Mr. SCOTT of Vir-
ginia, Mr. RANGEL, Mr. CONYERS, Mr. PAYNE, Ms. WILSON of Florida, 
Ms. EDDIE BERNICE JOHNSON of Texas, Ms. LEE of California, Mr. AL 
GREEN of Texas, Ms. WATERS, and Mr. ELLISON) introduced the fol-
lowing bill; which was referred to the Committee on Education and the 
Workforce 
A BILL 
To amend the Workforce Investment Act of 1998 to author-
ize the Secretary of Labor to provide grants for Urban 
Jobs Programs, and for other purposes. 
Be it enacted by the Senate and House of Representa-
tives of the United States of America in Congress assembled, 
SECTION 1. SHORT TITLE. 
This Act may be cited as the ‘‘Urban Jobs Act of 
2013’’. 
SEC. 2. FINDINGS AND PURPOSE. 
(a) FINDINGS.—Congress finds the following: 
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(1) Every school day, nearly 7,000 students be-
come dropouts. Annually, that dropout rate results 
in about 1,200,000 students not graduating from 
high school with their peers as scheduled. Lacking a 
high school diploma, those individuals will be far 
more likely than graduates to spend their lives peri-
odically unemployed, on government assistance, or 
cycling in and out of the prison system. 
(2) The average annual income in 2009 was 
$19,540 for a high school dropout, compared to 
$27,380 for a high school graduate, a difference of 
$7,840. 
(3) According to a 2011 report by Diploma 
Counts— 
(A) about 42 percent of Hispanic students, 
43 percent of African-American students, and 
46 percent of American Indian students will not 
graduate on time with a regular high school di-
ploma; and 
(B) by comparison, 17 percent of Asian 
students and 22 percent of White students will 
not graduate as described in subparagraph (A). 
(4) Among all races and ethnicities, males grad-
uate from high school at a lower rate than their fe-
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male peers do. Among all students, 68 percent of 
males and 75 percent of females graduate. 
(5) According to a report by the College Board 
Advocacy & Policy Center, one of the most unfortu-
nate destinations for high school dropouts, students, 
and graduates age 18 to 24 is incarceration in Fed-
eral or State prisons or local jails. Since 2000, the 
number of individuals in the 18 to 24 age group who 
are incarcerated at the Federal, State, and local lev-
els has risen from about 1,400,000 in 2000 to about 
1,600,000 in 2008. Over 475,000 individuals in that 
age group were incarcerated in 2008, with males ac-
counting for 92.4 percent of all those individuals. In 
contrast, only 36,000 women in the same age group 
(7.6 percent) were incarcerated in 2008. 
(6) High school graduation rates are signifi-
cantly lower in school districts with higher percent-
ages of students in poverty, measured as students 
who are eligible for free or reduced price lunches. 
(7) According to a 2010 National Center for 
Education Statistics report, high school students 
from low-income families drop out of high school at 
6 times the rate of their peers from high-income 
families. 
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(8) Over half of State parole entrants are not 
high school graduates, and as many as eleven per-
cent of the entrants have only an eighth grade edu-
cation or less. 
(9) The lowest achieving 25 percent of students 
are 20 times more likely to drop out of high school, 
compared to the highest achieving 25 percent of stu-
dents. 
(10) According to the Department of Labor, 
each year approximately 650,000 persons are re-
leased from Federal and State prisons. Those ex- 
prisoners do not return to communities evenly dis-
tributed across the United States, but rather return 
disproportionately to high-poverty communities char-
acterized by high rates of joblessness, crime, and 
drug abuse. 
(11) The unemployment rate among ex-pris-
oners has been estimated to be between 25 and 40 
percent. An estimated 19 percent of adults in State 
prisons are functionally illiterate. Over half of State 
parole entrants are not high school graduates, and 
about 11 percent of the entrants have only an eighth 
grade education or less. 
(b) PURPOSE.—It is the purpose of this Act to pro-
vide adequate resources for national or regional nonprofit 
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organizations to prevent and reduce the disproportionate 
incarceration of eligible youth, especially minority youth, 
and to prepare eligible youth for entry into employment, 
or education leading to employment, that places partici-
pants on a path to economic self-sufficiency and provides 
opportunities for advancement, by providing a comprehen-
sive set of services that includes job training, education, 
and support services. 
SEC. 3. URBAN JOBS PROGRAMS. 
(a) IN GENERAL.—Subtitle D of title I of the Work-
force Investment Act of 1998 is amended by inserting 
after section 173A (29 U.S.C. 2918a) the following: 
‘‘SEC. 173B. URBAN JOBS PROGRAMS. 
‘‘(a) PURPOSE.—The purpose of this section is to 
provide, through competitive grants, needed resources for 
the following objectives: 
‘‘(1) To establish a feeder system for youth 
ages 18 through 24, who are out-of-school youth or 
are or have been subject to the criminal justice proc-
ess, in urban communities, into employment, or edu-
cation leading to employment, through national or 
regional intermediaries that have demonstrated ef-
fectiveness in conducting outreach to, and serving, 
eligible youth through a national or regional network 
of community-based affiliates. 
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‘‘(2) To provide a holistic approach for pre-
paring eligible youth in urban communities for entry 
into employment, or education leading to employ-
ment, through a comprehensive set of services. 
‘‘(3) To prevent and reduce the dispropor-
tionate incarceration of eligible youth in urban com-
munities, including minority youth. 
‘‘(b) DEFINITIONS.—In this section: 
‘‘(1) COMMUNITY-BASED AFFILIATE.—The term 
‘community-based affiliate’ means a community- 
based organization that is an affiliate of a national 
or regional intermediary. 
‘‘(2) ELIGIBLE
YOUTH.—The term ‘eligible 
youth’ means individuals ages 18 through 24 who— 
‘‘(A) are not enrolled in secondary or post- 
secondary school; or 
‘‘(B) are or have been subject to any stage 
of the criminal justice process. 
‘‘(3) NATIONAL
INTERMEDIARY.—The term 
‘national,’ with respect to an intermediary, means a 
national private nonprofit community-based organi-
zation that— 
‘‘(A) has an affiliate network comprised of 
community-based organizations in urban com-
munities in more than one State; and 
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‘‘(B) has demonstrated expertise and effec-
tiveness in conducting outreach to eligible youth 
and providing workforce investment activities to 
such youth. 
‘‘(4) 
RECIDIVISM.—The 
term 
‘recidivism’ 
means a tendency to return to criminal behavior. 
‘‘(5) REGIONAL INTERMEDIARY.—The term ‘re-
gional’, used with respect to an intermediary, means 
a private nonprofit community-based organization 
that— 
‘‘(A) has an affiliate network comprised of 
community-based organizations that— 
‘‘(i) have experience conducting multi- 
site projects; and 
‘‘(ii) are in a geographic area defined 
by the Bureau of the Census; and 
‘‘(B) has demonstrated expertise and effec-
tiveness in conducting outreach to eligible youth 
and providing workforce investment activities to 
such youth. 
‘‘(6) UNSUBSIDIZED
JOB.—The term ‘unsub-
sidized job’ means an employment position with an 
employer— 
‘‘(A) that pays the wages for the position; 
and 
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