The White House released and sent to Congress its Fiscal Year (FY) 2025 Budget Proposal on March 11 detailing the Biden-Harris Administration’s plan for federal spending beginning on October 1, 2024. Workforce programs cross multiple federal agencies, including the Department of Homeland Security, the Department of Labor, the Department of Education, and the Department of Health and Human Services (HHS). This article is a deeper dive into HHS’s proposed $380 million investment in the health care and aging services workforce through three critical programs:

Nursing Workforce Development: Nursing Workforce Programs are included with $320 million, an increase of $20 million above FY 2023 (HHS’s fiscal year 2024 funding has not yet been enacted). The budget request includes an additional $10 million to train more nurses and strengthen workforce capacity in education, practice, and retention. In addition to increasing the number of nurses, this also increases the number of nurse faculty and clinical preceptors, which are critical to expanding the nursing and direct care infrastructure.

Health Care Workforce Innovation Program: The proposed budget would invest $10 million for a new program to jumpstart strategies to grow the health care workforce and address shortages across health care disciplines, such as physicians, nurses, and behavioral health professionals. This new program would invest in innovative approaches to accelerate the transformation of healthcare workforce training to support a modern, robust, and diverse workforce training pipeline.

Medical Student Education: The request includes a $51 million investment to support the health workforce through scholarships and loan repayments in return for service in underserved and rural communities.

For a round-up of all the aging services-related elements in the Administration’s FY25 budget proposal, see this LeadingAge article.