Breaking the Cycle
Milwaukee's $2 Million Investment in Justice-Involved Youth Workforce Development
Milwaukee is taking a bold step toward addressing one of its most persistent challenges: connecting justice-involved youth to meaningful career pathways. In September 2025, Employ Milwaukee received a $2 million federal grant from the U.S. Department of Labor to launch Growth Opportunities Milwaukee (GO MKE); a groundbreaking workforce initiative targeting 160 justice-involved youth ages 15–18 with paid work experiences in high-demand sectors including construction, technology, and advanced manufacturing.
This investment positions Milwaukee as both a local innovator and a national model for how to break cycles of poverty and recidivism through workforce development.
The Numbers Behind the Need
Justice-involved youth face some of the steepest employment barriers in America. According to the Urban Institute, young people with justice system involvement encounter multiple obstacles to stable employment: limited educational attainment, lack of work experience, and the stigma of employer discrimination based on criminal records.
In Milwaukee County, these challenges are compounded by geography and demographics. The overall unemployment rate in 2023 was just 3.8%; a figure that suggests stability but hides stark inequities for vulnerable populations. More telling is Milwaukee’s youth apprenticeship participation rate of just 1.4% among 11th–12th graders, compared with a state average of 5.7%. That gap points to a troubling truth: young people in Milwaukee are not accessing career pathways at the same rate as their peers statewide.
Without intentional interventions, these disparities can deepen cycles of exclusion from the workforce, particularly for youth who have already had contact with the justice system. GO MKE arrives at a critical moment.
A National Model with Local Impact
The GO MKE program is part of a broader federal strategy under the Workforce Innovation and Opportunity Act (WIOA) to expand workforce development for underserved populations. The Department of Labor has increasingly recognized justice-involved youth as a priority population, based on research showing that early, supportive interventions can dramatically reduce long-term justice involvement.
What sets GO MKE apart is its alignment with evidence-based practices. National research consistently finds that effective workforce programs for justice-involved youth share certain characteristics:
Individualized approaches that meet young people where they are.
Staff trained in positive youth development.
Collaboration across partners—employers, probation officers, and community organizations all working in sync.
By embedding these practices from the outset, GO MKE is designed to meet the unique needs of Milwaukee’s young people, while also responding to employer demand.
Building Evidence-Based Programming
The program’s structure reflects best practices highlighted by organizations like the Annie E. Casey Foundation. GO MKE incorporates five critical service offerings:
Job Search Assistance – Helping participants learn how to apply, interview, and follow up.
Career Readiness Training – Building soft skills such as teamwork, punctuality, and communication.
Employer Connections – Offering direct work experiences that connect training to real jobs.
Career Planning – Guiding youth to envision long-term opportunities beyond short-term employment.
Job Coaching – Providing ongoing mentorship to support retention and advancement.
Equally important, the program recognizes that young people need supportive infrastructure: housing, food, transportation, and trauma-informed services; without which even the best career training efforts can falter. GO MKE is committed to addressing these barriers head-on.
Why These Sectors Matter
GO MKE’s emphasis on construction, technology, and advanced manufacturing is no accident. These industries reflect both national workforce trends and Wisconsin’s specific labor market needs.
Construction: Driven by federal infrastructure investments and local development projects, demand for skilled trades workers is surging.
Technology: Every sector is becoming tech-enabled, and entry-level IT and digital jobs provide strong pathways without requiring four-year degrees.
Advanced Manufacturing: Long a backbone of Wisconsin’s economy, modern manufacturing offers family-supporting wages and career progression for those with technical training.
These sectors not only provide immediate employment opportunities but also offer career ladders; the type of upward mobility that can disrupt cycles of justice involvement and poverty.
Policy Context: Momentum on Justice-Involved Workforce Development
GO MKE also reflects a shifting national policy landscape. The National Association of State Workforce Agencies has called for expanding WIOA eligibility to include justice-involved individuals seeking meaningful employment. This creates opportunities for programs like GO MKE to access sustainable funding beyond the initial $2 million grant.
As federal policy increasingly emphasizes workforce solutions for justice-impacted populations, Milwaukee’s program is well positioned to secure ongoing support and become a model for replication nationwide.
A Community Partnership Approach
Employ Milwaukee has a long history of convening stakeholders across the workforce ecosystem and GO MKE builds on that foundation. The program draws on partnerships with community-based organizations focused on reentry and youth development, including:
Milwaukee Community Service Corps – Providing credentialed training and hands-on skills development.
My Way Out – Offering reentry workforce readiness and wraparound supports.
United Way of Greater Milwaukee & Waukesha County – Aligning with broader initiatives to reduce employment barriers.
By weaving these partnerships together, GO MKE ensures participants are supported not just during the program, but throughout their transition into the workforce.
Measuring Success
Accountability will be key to the program’s long-term viability. Based on national best practices, GO MKE’s success will likely be measured through:
Program Completion Rates – How many youth finish the program.
Credential Attainment – Industry-recognized certifications earned.
Job Placement & Retention – Employment outcomes tracked for at least 12 months.
Wage Progression – Whether participants move into family-sustaining wages.
Recidivism Reduction – Tracking justice system contact before and after participation.
The CSG Justice Center recommends consistent data collection to track these outcomes. If GO MKE can demonstrate strong results, it will bolster the case for continued investment and replication.
Looking Forward
At its core, Growth Opportunities Milwaukee is about more than job training—it’s about changing life trajectories. By targeting 160 justice-involved youth ages 15–18, the program intervenes at a critical point, offering pathways that can set young people on a different course for decades to come.
The $2 million grant represents a recognition that workforce development is not charity… it’s strategy. Communities thrive when all members have access to opportunity, and employers gain when untapped talent is connected to jobs that need to be filled.
As GO MKE launches its first cohort, Milwaukee joins a national movement proving that investing in justice-involved youth is not just a moral imperative—it’s an economic development strategy. The real measure of success will not just be the number of jobs created, but the number of futures rewritten.