Harvard's Smoking Gun: 95% of Job Training Outcomes are Missing

What Harvard Found in 75,000 Programs: Missing Data and Poverty Wages

In March 2023, two months before John Pallasch would shock Congress with his confession about America's failed workforce system, Harvard researchers quietly released a report that should have been front-page news. Instead, it became another academic paper filed away while millions remained trapped in poverty.

Today, I'll show you what Harvard found when they analyzed 75,442 job training programs across America. Their discoveries validate everything I've exposed about the poverty management theater—and reveal how even our most prestigious institutions document catastrophe without demanding change.

The Scale of Engineered Chaos

Harvard's Project on Workforce team spent years analyzing the landscape of federally-funded job training. What they found defies comprehension:

"there are over 7,100 eligible training providers and approximately 75,000 eligible programs in more than 700 occupational fields nationwide."

Seventy-five thousand programs. Yet Harvard discovered:

"the landscape of ETP offerings is vast and hard to navigate... The net result is a highly fragmented system, where strong programs are not differentiated from weak ones."

This isn't accidental complexity. It's designed confusion—a labyrinth that ensures accountability vanishes in the maze.

The 95% That Disappear

Remember when I told you about job seekers searching for training? Harvard explains why they'll never find meaningful information:

"In its first release, the database lacked information on completions, employment rates, median earnings, and credentials for over 75 percent of programs."

But here's where it gets truly unconscionable:

"for earnings metrics in particular, the share missing was over 95 percent."

Ninety-five percent. These aren't just missing numbers—these are missing lives. Behind every vanished data point is someone like Maria, whose outcome will never be counted because the system profits more from darkness than light.

The Poverty Wage Revelation

When Harvard's researchers managed to find actual earnings data, they uncovered the system's true product—permanent poverty:

"Training participants enrolled in the most common (medical assistant) and fourth-most common (nursing assistant) ETP programs make under $6,000 in a quarter, or $24,000 annually. We estimate that over 40 percent of WIOA training participants earn under $25,000 annually."

For comparison, the federal poverty line for a family of four is $30,000. The system's "success" is poverty.

The Arithmetic of Abandonment

While I've shown you the billion-dollar contractors capturing taxpayer funds, Harvard quantified what actually reaches training:

"We estimate that WIOA vouchers fund under $500mn in training annually."

Here's what Harvard's finding reveals about the system's priorities:

• Total WIOA Workforce Funding: ~$3 billion annually

• "Administration and Services" Funds: ~$2.5 billion (83.3%)

• Actual Spent on Training people: ~$500 million (16.7%)

Only 16.7% reaches actual training. The rest disappears into "administration and services"—the machinery of managing poverty rather than ending it.

The Digital Wasteland

When Harvard's researchers tried to navigate the system as a job seeker would, they discovered:

"Most state websites overwhelm potential users with thousands of potential programs and compliance-oriented information, but many do not include accessible information to help inform enrollment decisions, like program price, financial aid, and format."

The technological abandonment is complete:

"For six states, our researchers could only find downloadable spreadsheets or pdf lists."

Imagine trying to find training on your phone with limited data, confronted by a 75,000-row Excel spreadsheet. This is designed discouragement.

The Academic Verdict

After analyzing 75,442 programs, conducting regression analyses, and examining every available data point, Harvard's researchers reached a conclusion that should have triggered Congressional hearings:

"our analysis of the ETP data implies that our public workforce development training dollars do not promote job quality."

They went further:

"it is nearly impossible to gauge relative effectiveness of ETPs or how they have changed over time."

Translation: We spend $500 million annually on a system we can't even measure, funding programs that trap people in poverty, all while maintaining the fiction of "workforce development."

The Unforgivable Pattern

What makes Harvard's report truly damning isn’t what they found—it’s what happened next. Nothing.

Two months after Harvard documented that 95% of earnings data vanishes and 40% of participants remain in poverty, former DOL official John Pallasch testified to Congress about 80% failure rates for Youth.

The response to both? Silence. Inaction. Continuity.

This is how the poverty management theater works:

📚 Document the failure academically.

🎤 Confess it congressionally.

🔒 Preserve it systematically.

If Harvard can expose the collapse in plain terms... If a former Labor official can sound the alarm under oath... If everyone knows—why does nothing change?

The answer to that question is worth $1 trillion annually.

What Happened Next

On June 12, 2024—fifteen months after the Harvard report—Georgetown, Jobs for the Future, and New America testified before Congress—not to demand change, but to defend the very system Harvard just condemned.

Click to read.