Congress expands apprenticeship access through small business counseling centers
H.R. 9052 — Small Business Workforce Pipeline Act of 2026 · Filed by Jason Crow (D-CO) · 3 cosponsors · Introduced May 29, 2026 · Referred to committee
Your members of Congress
Enter a ZIP to see where your representative and both senators stood on this bill.
Looked up on this device — your ZIP is never stored on our servers.
What it does
This bill amends the Small Business Act to require small business development centers (federally funded counseling and training hubs for small firms) to provide information and assistance on apprenticeship programs, work-based learning, pre-apprenticeship programs, and job training. The bill adds apprenticeship guidance as a new service that these centers must offer, drawing on information from the Department of Labor and other federal agencies.
Why we flagged it
The bill's operative mechanism is a mandate that small business development centers add apprenticeship and work-based learning assistance to their service portfolio. It is a straightforward expansion of a public service, not a tax provision, subsidy carve-out, or deregulation.
What the text implies
- Small business development centers will need to hire or train staff with apprenticeship expertise, creating a compliance and resource burden on federally funded centers; the bill does not appropriate additional funding to cover this expansion.
- The mandate ties small business development to federal apprenticeship standards (National Apprenticeship Act), potentially limiting flexibility for state or local workforce models that diverge from federal registration requirements.
The full analysis lists 3 implications of this text.
Who stands to gain
Small business owners (access to federally supported apprenticeship guidance); Apprenticeship training providers (increased demand signaling through development centers)