As nearly 13 million Americans look for a job – federal funding to retrain Americans workers and prepare them for the jobs of the 21st century are drying up. Funding for job-training programs across the country is down 18% from 2006 – even though there are six million more unemployed Americans today. Funding for counseling for the unemployed – like resume guidance and job interview coaching – is down 13%. In fact – funding for job retraining for Americans is roughly half of what it used to be more than a decade ago.

So now – even though the economy is slightly improving – business are having difficulty finding Americans workers who are trained and qualified to handle the new job. President Obama’s budget proposal called for a massive increase in job retraining programs – increasing funding to nearly $3 billion a year. Studies show this is a good economic investment, as every dollar spent on retraining unemployed Americans for new jobs yields as much as eight dollars for the local community.

However – multi-millionaire Congressman Paul Ryan’s Republican trickle-down austerity budget once again slashes funding for federal job retraining programs. Under their proposal – it’s far more important to give $3 trillion in tax breaks to the super-rich than give working Americans new job skills.