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Expanding Cybersecurity Workforce Act of 2025

Introduced 2025-12-04
H.R. 6429 (119th)Stage: In Committee
3
Show progress & status
55/100 · Moderate Contention50/100 · PassageLeans Left
Status: Referred to the House Committee on Homeland Security.

Summary & Impact

This bill directs the Director of the Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency (CISA) to establish, within CISA’s Cybersecurity Education and Training Assistance Program, a program to promote cybersecurity careers to specified disadvantaged and underrepresented groups. It requires targeted outreach (to educators, unions, chambers of commerce, workforce offices, community colleges, parents, private sector entities, and others), regional tailoring, and annual reports to the House and Senate homeland security committees on program efficacy. The bill authorizes $20,000,000 per year from FY2026 through FY2031 for the program and defines several key terms (including specific meanings of “disability,” “geographically diverse,” “nontraditional educational path,” “older,” “racial and ethnic minority,” and “socioeconomically diverse”). The program must be established within 180 days of enactment and report annually thereafter.
Perspective snapshot
Left85%
Center70%
Right30%
Where people disagree: Scope and role of federal government: liberals and centrists accept a federal program to address workforce gaps; conservatives worry about federal overreach. More
Risk snapshot
ScopeLOW
ComplexityLOW
SalienceLOW
Fiscal/RegLOW
✓ Potential Benefits
  • Provides federal coordination and targeted outreach (to educators, unions, workforce offices, community colleges, etc.), which may leverage existing local programs and employers to accelerate…HIGH
  • Authorizes a dedicated funding stream ($20 million/year through 2031) to support program activities, creating predictable federal resources for outreach, training facilitation, and e…HIGH
  • May increase recruitment, training, and entry into cybersecurity roles for underrepresented groups (older workers, racial/ethnic minorities, people with disabilities, veterans, formerly…MEDIUM
  • Could strengthen national cyber resilience by enlarging the pool of qualified professionals available to government and private-sector employers defending critical infrastructure.MEDIUM
  • May generate economic mobility and jobs for participants by connecting them to training and employment in a high-demand field; depending on program design this could yield dozens…LOW
⚠ Potential Concerns
  • The authorized funding level ($20 million/year) may be modest relative to nationwide cybersecurity workforce gaps and could limit the scale, depth, or geographic reach of training and pla…HIGH
  • Implementation will create administrative and reporting burdens for CISA and partner institutions (community colleges, workforce offices, employers) and may duplicate or overlap existing federal,…HIGH
  • Outcomes are uncertain because the bill sets program goals and reporting requirements but leaves key design details (participant selection, training models, job-placement guarante…HIGH
  • Annual data collection and reporting on participant characteristics could raise privacy or data‑security concerns if personally identifiable information is collected or shared wit…MEDIUM
  • Targeting resources to specific demographic and institutional groups could raise concerns about fairness or legal challenges in some contexts, or could be perceived as preferential by tho…LOW
What this means for you
  • On content alone, this is a narrowly tailored, low-controversy workforce development bill with modest budgetary impact and built-in oversight. Those characteristics in…
  • Content is programmatic and low-controversy with a modest authorization; such narrow workforce bills typically attract bipartisan support in committee and on the floor. Passage difficulty…
  • In the Senate, even noncontroversial bills can face procedural hurdles (e.g., need for unanimous consent or time for debate) and competition for floor consideration. The program’s mo…
More detail
Caveats & assumptions (5)
  • The program will be funded at the authorized level by appropriations acts; actual appropriations could be lower or not provided.
  • Program design details (scope of training, grants vs. direct services, participant support like stipends or placement services) are unspecified and will materially affect outcomes.
  • Existing federal, state, and private cybersecurity workforce efforts remain in place and may be complementary or overlapping; the bill does not resolve coordination mechanisms beyond outreach.
  • Estimates about jobs or placements depend on per‑participant funding and cost of training models, which are not defined in the bill (hence low confidence for numerical estimates).
  • Privacy protections and data-sharing rules for the required annual reports are not specified and will depend on CISA implementation and applicable federal privacy law.
Analyzed Dec 18, 2025•Based on: Introduced in House