Time to Boost Employer Incentives for Skilled Job Training?

Scott Pulsipher, president of Western Governors University, and Michael Horn, a senior strategist at Guild Education, have authored a column urging expanded federal incentives for investment in worker training. The authors write that “an obstacle to employers investing more in their employees’ education is that Section 127 of the tax code has been frozen in time since 1986,” allowing employers to provide up to $5,250 annually for worker education costs that can be tax-deductible and excludable from employee wages.

According to Pulsipher and Horn, increasing the $5,250 limit would expedite the labor market shift toward more middle- and high-skilled jobs that will be needed due to changes ushered by COVID-19. 8/18/2020