BridgeWorks
April is Second Chance Month. Recognized annually by federal proclamation and a long list of state and local governments, it is the closest thing the reentry field has to a national moment. As the month wraps, we want to step back from the proclamations and look at what the 2026 data is actually showing about fair-chance hiring, reentry employment, and the broader workforce ecosystem we operate in.
The headline numbers, for once, are reasonably encouraging. The harder questions sit underneath them.
What the numbers say
A few signals from the past few weeks worth pulling out.
Los Angeles County's Department of Economic Opportunity announced in mid-April that it had now placed 2,594 justice-impacted individuals into jobs with 1,086 employers since the launch of its Fair Chance Hiring Campaign in July 2022. That is roughly four years of work, and the numbers are at the kind of scale that starts to register as systemic. The DEO announcement deliberately framed the work as ecosystem-building rather than transactional placement: the goal was not just to get people into jobs, but to build a regional employer base willing to consider justice-impacted candidates as a routine matter.
In Philadelphia, the city's Commerce Department announced its 2026 Fair Chance Hiring Employer of Choice recognition during Second Chance Month. The 2026 honoree was Triple Bottom Brewing, a fair-chance employer running an apprenticeship program with what we would consider an unusually serious wraparound services package: monthly transit passes, daily meals, financial literacy workshops, expungement clinics, mental health and de-escalation training, and a dedicated job coach on every shift. That is not the typical fair-chance program. It is what the field looks like when an employer takes the work seriously.
The Council of State Governments Justice Center convened the seven states participating in the Reentry 2030 initiative during April for a session focused specifically on employment-related collateral consequences — the legal and policy barriers that continue to make it harder for justice-impacted job seekers to enter certain fields, hold certain licenses, or qualify for certain certifications. The state-level conversation is moving, slowly, in the direction of removing those barriers.
And the Twin Cities R!SE Coming Home Re-entry Resource Fair in mid-April connected more than 150 formerly incarcerated individuals with fair-chance employers, legal services, expungement support, and workshops in a single day. The model — a one-day, multi-service, dignity-forward resource fair — is being copied in several other cities for similar events later this year.
What is genuinely improving
A few things are working better in 2026 than they were three years ago.
Employer base is broadening. A decade ago, "fair-chance employer" usually meant a single committed CEO running an entrepreneurial business. Today, the employer base includes regional employers, mid-sized manufacturers, healthcare systems, and a growing number of national chains with formal fair-chance hiring policies. The federal Work Opportunity Tax Credit, available for hiring qualified justice-impacted candidates, continues to operate, and an increasing number of employers are actually claiming it.
State policy is moving. Several states have meaningfully reformed occupational licensing rules over the past three years, removing categorical bars to fields like cosmetology, real estate, and certain healthcare-adjacent licenses. The licensing reforms are unglamorous and have happened state-by-state, but they have opened up real career pathways that were closed five years ago.
Outcomes data is getting better. The field used to operate on anecdotal evidence and short-term placement numbers. Increasingly, programs are tracking longer-horizon outcomes — 12-month retention, wage growth, career advancement — that better reflect what successful reentry actually looks like. Our own 12-month retention rate is above 80%, which is a credible number against any reasonable benchmark.
What is not improving as fast as it should
A few harder pieces.
The pipeline is still thinner than it should be. Most employers do not yet have a structured way to source justice-impacted candidates, even when they are open to hiring them. Workforce development programs like ours fill some of that gap, but the gap is larger than the field can fill.
Wraparound services remain underfunded. What Triple Bottom Brewing is doing — transit passes, daily meals, financial counseling, expungement support — is what actually makes the difference between a placement that holds and a placement that does not. Most fair-chance employers cannot afford that package, and most workforce programs cannot fund it for them. The infrastructure does not yet match the appetite.
Federal funding remains uncertain. The pandemic-era federal supports that helped expand workforce programs through 2024 are winding down. The Department of Labor's Reentry Employment Opportunities funding continues, but at levels that constrain how aggressively the field can grow.
What our own 2026 looks like
A few specific updates from BridgeWorks for context.
We are on pace to surpass 350 placements for the calendar year, which would be our highest annual placement number in our 11-year history. Our employer partner base, currently at 152, is on track to clear 175 by year-end with several active conversations in late stages.
The new Logistics & Warehousing track, launched earlier this year, has filled its first two cohorts and has a waitlist. We will say more about why next week.
We continue to push for what we call "second-mile" support — the wraparound work that happens after placement. Eighteen months ago we hired our first dedicated Retention Specialist; she is the reason our 12-month retention numbers are where they are. We expect to add a second Retention Specialist before the end of 2026, contingent on funding.
A small ask
If you are an employer in our region considering becoming a fair-chance employer, Second Chance Month is a useful moment to start. We are happy to talk through what the process actually looks like, what the legal and HR considerations are, and what a realistic first hire might look like. The first conversation takes about 45 minutes. Most employers walk out of it with a clearer sense of what they would and would not be comfortable with — and that clarity, in our experience, is the foundation of everything that follows.
April ends in a few days. The work that the month is meant to spotlight continues all year. We will keep showing up.
