S. 500 — CAREER Act of 2025

This section reauthorizes the CAREER Act grants (i.e., grants to consortia of employers, treatment organizations, and workforce agencies to promote employment for individuals recovering from substance use disorders) at $12 million for each of FY2026 through 2030 (from $5 million for FY2019 through 2023) and makes the following changes: (1) revises priority criteria for grant awards to the highest average age-adjusted drug overdose death rates (using CDC data), highest unemployment rates, and lowest labor force participation rates for calendar years 2018 through 2022 (using BLS data); (2) permits grantees to use up to 5% of funds for transportation to or from work, vocational education or job training, or substance use disorder treatment or recovery services; (3) prohibits the HHS Secretary from requiring grantees to use funds—or prioritizing applicants planning to use funds—for activities not specified in the grant statute; (4) requires grantee performance reports to include Workforce Innovation and Opportunity Act (WIOA) primary indicators on the percentage of participants in unsubsidized employment in the second post-exit quarter and median second-quarter earnings; and (5) sets the final report due date as September 30, 2030 (from two years after the preliminary report).

This section reauthorizes the CAREER Act (i.e., Comprehensive Addiction Recovery through Effective Employment and Reentry Act) and Recovery Housing Pilot Program through 2030 (from 2023); (1) updates grantee selection criteria in subsection (b) to use data for calendar years 2018 through 2022 (from 2013 through 2017) on rates of unemployment and labor force participation, and adds as a criterion the highest age-adjusted average rates of drug overdose deaths based on Centers for Disease Control and Prevention data; (2) revises the notification deadline in subsection (b)(1) to 60 days after enactment of the Comprehensive Addiction Recovery through Effective Employment and Reentry Act of 2025; (3) removes the two-year limitation on funding in subsection (f), making it ongoing; and (4) makes conforming changes to the section and subtitle headings and clerical amendments to the table of contents of the SUPPORT for Patients and Communities Act. (The CAREER Act authorizes a pilot program to provide recovery housing stability and employment/reentry services to individuals in recovery from substance use disorders in high-need communities.)