; (15) many infrastructure jobs provide competitive wages with low barriers to entry, many of which require on-the-job training in lieu of formal 4-year degree higher education programs; (16) in spite of rising income inequality, infrastructure jobs paid approximately 30 percent more to low income individuals than other occupations in 2018; (17) women, people of color, and particularly women of color are underrepresented in construction jobs; (18) while women across all occupations currently make up about 50 percent of the workforce, women in construction and extraction occupations has hovered around 3 percent for the last 3 decades; (19) while Black Americans make up about 12 percent of the overall workforce, Black Americans only represent 7 percent of construction and extraction occupations; (20) by focusing on improving workforce development systems through targeted employment strategies, the Federal Government can improve the quality of future projects and better ensure that all communities benefit from investments that— (A) protect workers; (B) expand opportunities for advancement; (C) establish strong labor standards; and (D) redress discriminatory policies that have unfairly burdened low-income communities and communities of color with pollution of geographic isolation; and (21) the Federal Government should make concerted efforts to close the workforce gap, through coordination with States and units of local government, workforce development agencies, national and regional nonprofit intermediaries, labor organizations, and institutions of higher education and other educational institutions, including historically Black colleges and universities and Hispanic-serving institutions, to recruit, train, and retain the next generation of infrastructure workers in the United States, with a focus on— (A) achieving gender, ethnic, racial, and ability diversity