Federal Reserve and Alabama launch new workforce development tool

In an effort to help Alabamians advance into higher-paying careers and understand how higher income from new careers can establish a path toward self-sufficiency, the state of Alabama and the Federal Reserve Bank of Atlanta have partnered to launch a new career tool. The Dashboard for Alabamians to Visualize Income Determinations (DAVID) is designed to help low-income workers fearful of the benefits cliff (the sudden loss of public assistance as income increases) attain economic self-sufficiency as they plan for future career development. Gov. Kay Ivey said in a release that the tool will help Alabama reach its attainment goal of adding 500,000 credentialed workers to the workforce by 2025.

The governor said Alabama is the first state to take a benefits cliff calculator and merge it with a workforce development career path planner. AlabamaWorks, the state’s workforce development system, outlines the ways in which the tool will help Alabamians. Through DAVID, individuals will be able to understand how much money they will gain through paid employment, map benefits cliffs for in-demand occupations, and visualize how their incomes will increase over time. A video demo of the tool can be found here.