by Nathan Boddy
Late last week, the U.S. Department of Labor (DOL) announced a “phased pause” in operations at all 99 contractor-operated Job Corps centers nationwide. In its press release, DOL said the pause will be complete by June 30th of this year. The change will undoubtedly mean job loss for contracted staff and will effectively put 25,000 youth’s lives in limbo as they are returned to their “home of record.” As rationale, the DOL pointed to a recently assembled Job Corps Transparency Report – an analysis of “the most recently available metrics of program year 2023.” According to DOL, the findings of that report indicate a graduation rate of only 38.6%, an average cost per student of $80,384 as well as high levels of inappropriate sexual behavior, assault and violence.
“Job Corps was created to help young adults build a pathway to a better life through education, training, and community,” Secretary Lori Chavez-DeRemer is quoted in the press release. “However, a startling number of serious incident reports and our in-depth fiscal analysis reveal the program is no longer achieving the intended outcomes that students deserve. We remain committed to ensuring all participants are supported through this transition and connected with the resources they need to succeed as we evaluate the program’s possibilities.”
Students from the Trapper Creek Job Corps build sidewalk on the grounds of the Ravalli County Courthouse on May 20th. The Job Corps also assisted in prepping the ground for Arbor Day planting. Photo by Nathan Boddy.
The non-profit National Job Corps Association (NJCA) has taken issue with the methodology DOL used to create the Transparency Report, and flatly says that much of the data within is misleading or false. The report, they say, is based on a small data set from the year 2023, during which many Job Corps centers were still recovering from required Covid-19 restrictions to the programs.
The Trapper Creek Job Corps on the West Fork of the Bitterroot River south of Darby is not one of the contractor-operated Job Corps centers ordered to pause. It, along with 23 other Job Corps centers, falls under a unique arrangement between the USDA (Forest Service) and the Department of Labor. USDA centers are wholly managed by the federal government and do not function on a for-profit basis.
However, the impact of the phased pause, and the insecurity of what could happen at the Trapper Creek center, is causing a stir. The U.S. House of Representatives recently passed its ‘One Big Beautiful Bill’ which very clearly zeroed the funds for the Job Corps from the Department of Labor. Should that bill pass the Senate without amendments to those cuts, Trapper Creek would also be on the chopping block.
Threats to the local Job Corps aren’t new. In 2019, the first Trump Administration announced that it would close or transfer all Forest Service Job Corps centers across the country. That decision, which was deeply unpopular with a bi-partisan group of legislators including Senator Steve Daines and then-Senator Jon Tester, as well as then-Representative Greg Gianforte, was ultimately overturned.
T.J. Running Wolf says that he would not be where he is today without the Job Corps. Running Wolf, a native of Browning, Montana, came to the Trapper Creek Job Corps at the suggestion of his high school counselor.
“I grew up on the Blackfeet Reservation,” said Running Wolf, adding that he had a tough upbringing, and that the transition to the order and regulation required in the Job Corps wasn’t easy. “Going to a place where you’re going to be accountable, you’re going to be expected to be up at a certain time and to do things a certain way—it was culture shock for sure.”
Running Wolf, who began in the industrial painting program, recalled coming to the realization that the authority figures at the center were actually on his side, and has an ongoing appreciation of it. Years later, Running Wolf found himself on a flight with Jesse Casterson, who held multiple roles at Trapper Creek including one as Center Director. The two sat down for a bite in the Salt Lake airport following the flight, with T.J. picking up the tab.
“It was really good to be in a position to give back,” said Running Wolf, adding that what Casterson and the Job Corps had done for him went far beyond picking up a bill.
But the Hamilton City Council was recently briefed on the Trapper Creek Job Corps, hearing statistics from that center and other USDA centers nationwide, and the data showed that the Job Corps may be paying the bill after all. For example, in 2024, Job Corps students from all Montana USDA sites contributed 69,646 hours of work in firefighting and support, with over 600,000 hours from the USDA sites nationwide. The return on investment of those hours is valued at over $21 million for that year. A prior Department of Labor study had asserted that, for every one dollar invested in Job Corps, society gains nearly $2 in benefits.
At 35, Running Wolf now lives in Indiana with his wife and two kids and considers his own story to be a success. He says that shuttering the Job Corps is a spiteful action, especially in a country that is so critically short of qualified workers in the trades. And while he acknowledges that Job Corps, like any program tailored to help disadvantaged youth, may have behavioral problems, doing away with it destroys, “the only avenue that some of us have.”