If the United States is serious about infrastructure, housing, domestic manufacturing, grid resilience, and energy expansion, the federal government needs to get serious about the tradespeople who actually build, install, maintain, and repair those systems.

For years, the country has sidelined skilled labor as if it were a narrow workforce issue. In reality, the trades are critical to a long list of national priorities: replacing aging water systems, modernizing the grid, building homes, upgrading schools and hospitals, expanding domestic energy production, and keeping existing buildings and equipment working.

These projects are massive, yet there aren’t nearly enough skilled tradespeople to answer the need. That’s why bolstering the trades must be a national project.

The country’s big goals all depend on  skilled trades capacity

Take infrastructure first. The American Society of Civil Engineers gave U.S. infrastructure an overall “C” in its 2025 report card, indicating some improvement, but stressing that sustained investment is still needed to support economic growth and improve long-term performance. 

The situation is similar for housing. A 2025 Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD) report to Congress shows how many households are hard-pressed to afford homes, and how many homes are in dire need of major repairs. 

That report is focused on renters, but the broader message is clear: there is a critical shortage of quality housing. Meeting that need requires not only financing and zoning reform, but a strong force of skilled tradespeople.

Energy needs are even more urgent. The Department of Energy (DOE) says a skilled workforce is the foundation of a secure, clean, and resilient energy system—a system that’s increasingly under strain.  A 2025 DOE report tracks 8.35 million energy jobs across the economy. 

Moreover, the DOE warns that the U.S. will likely need millions more skilled workers to build, operate, manufacture, and maintain a 21st-century energy system. The rapid rise of AI data centers only exacerbates that shortage.

In other words, if the U.S. is going to achieve its ambitions, the government will need to make a much deeper commitment to the workforce that delivers them.

We already have the skeleton of a national strategy.

The good news is that there are already some federal programs that support skilled trades education, apprenticeship, and workforce development.

Department of Labor (DOL)

The DOL’s Registered Apprenticeship system is one of the best examples. DOL describes it as an industry-driven model that combines paid on-the-job learning, related instruction, progressive wage increases, and a portable credential. 

Apprenticeship.gov, run by the DOL, provides data dashboards, a national tracking program and apprentice information. The department is continuing to push expansion funding this year with the goal of reaching and surpassing 1 million active apprentices nationwide. 

The DOL provided more than $244 million in apprenticeship-related grants in 2024 and nearly $84 million more to states and territories in 2025 to expand the program. The Apprenticeship Building America initiative and state formula grants are designed to help employers, intermediaries, and public partners grow apprenticeship pipelines in high-demand sectors. 

Department of Education (ED)

This department administers Perkins V, the main federal law supporting career and technical education. ED says Congress appropriates roughly $1.3 billion annually in Perkins Title I basic state grants for the development and implementation of career and technical education programs. That funding helps states support technical education that feeds directly into skilled trades and apprenticeship pipelines. 

Department of Energy (DOE)

The DOE concentrates on energy deployment, manufacturing, and efficiency work. Its Energy Workforce and Apprenticeships and Workforce Development programs emphasize that workforce development is now central to energy policy.

A crucial element is still missing.

While there are different programs, there’s no higher level of coordination.

A national trades project would treat workforce development the way the country treats other strategic capacity questions. It would connect federal funding, state Career and Technical Education (CTE) systems, employers, unions, community colleges, manufacturers, workforce boards, and K-12 outreach more closely.

It would make apprenticeship expansion easier for employers to navigate. It would elevate the public story around skilled careers instead of leaving that work to scattered local champions.

Most importantly, it would stop framing the trades as a secondary career option while depending on them for first-order national goals.

Canada might serve as an example.

Faced with its own shortage of skilled workers, the Canadian government is proposing a new national program, called Team Canada Strong. It  would pump C$6 billion into training over the next five years, with a goal of training up to 100,000 new trades workers by 2031. It would also streamline the process of earning Red Seal certification, which qualifies tradespeople to work in every Canadian province or territory. 

Why this matters for the next decade.

If the United States wants to build more, upgrade more and manufacture more, we need more people entering skilled careers and more companies capable of training them well.

Any national conversation about skilled tradespeople should recognize the scale of what the country is asking from them. Infrastructure, housing, energy, and economic resilience all depend on the trades.

A country that wants big outcomes needs a bigger commitment to the workforce that turns plans into reality. And the trades deserve to be treated that way.