SOUTHEASTERN N.C. — The Senior Community Service Employment Program has just been approved for funding after President Trump’s anti-DEI policies stalled its budget for four months. The program will put between 35 and 40 seniors who were furloughed back to work; however, local program directors and national sponsors are uncertain whether SCSEP will exist in summer 2026.
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Senior Community Service Employment Program provides job training and placement for seniors aged 55 and up who fall within the 125% federal poverty line. Locally, it’s overseen by United Way of the Cape Fear Area.
Steve Moore, program director for United Way’s SCSEP, said between 35 and 40 participants are expected to go back to work at host agencies — such as local governments, like the Northwest City Clerk’s office, or nonprofits, like Pender County Christian Services. The number of seniors SCSEP will put back to work are down from the 47 local participants before furlough started four months ago.
Some, Moore explained, were able to find permanent employment outside of the program, one has moved away due to not being able to afford rent in town anymore, and some he can’t get in contact with right now, due to phone lines being disconnected.
“The reality is, this is kind of a last-chance program for people who desperately need help,” Moore said. “Most of our participants, their only source of income is their Social Security check, and I think most people know you can’t live in the United States on just Social Security benefits. These people, they want to work. They’re trying to be self-sufficient, and they face a lot of challenges in finding permanent employment.”
United Way’s sponsor, CWI Works, had a $46-million budget that was not approved in June, and the federal government required CWI, along with the other 19 sponsors that provide funding to local agencies and services to seniors to reapply for the yearly funding. The $46-million was approved Monday, Oct. 27, when United Way of the Cape Fear Area received word the program could resume.
At the beginning of October, the national grant recipients were informed they had to resubmit their Training and Employment Guidance letter, the name of the application to receive the funding, and include a budget proposal and program breakdown from sponsors like CWI Works.
Now with funding back in place, the program is set to start in two to three weeks. United Way Cape Fear will receive 12 months worth of money to cover eight months worth of program run-time, since the employees have been furloughed for four months. Though Moore does not have an exact number yet, he estimates it will be roughly $570,000, similar to last year’s funding.
However, some positive changes will take place with SCSEP in the Cape Fear. Instead of seniors being paid $7.25 an hour, the federal minimum wage, program participants will receive $12 an hour.
“Increasing people’s pay is going to help participants who are facing financial stress,” Moore said. “It should also help us in recruiting new participants as well because our enrollment numbers are down; and we need to get those back up.”
On top of receiving $12 an hour, participants will also be able to work 29 hours a week instead of the 20 hours a week they were previously permitted.
Most participants will be paired up in old placement jobs, though some may have new employers. It could be because their position was filled within their four-month lapse, or, for example, people who worked at NCWorks can’t continue due to it lacking an office currently.
Another part of SCSEP will not start up immediately. The organization provides job and technology training, but it won’t continue now because CWI Works — which provides the training — also had to furlough people due to budget delays. By proxy, it cannot provide the service just yet. Though, Moore did predict that it would begin again in the near future.
But there are more lasting concerns for Moore.
The White House submitted a budget proposal to Congress this past May that would completely cut the $405 million SCSEP funding on a national level for the start of the 2026-2027 program. It nearly happened during the first Trump administration, too, Moore said. At the time, Trump’s administration claimed the program wasn’t effective and enrollment numbers weren’t high enough to justify funding it. The proposed cut didn’t pass.
Now, the reasons have shifted.
Moore said the Trump administration was accusing the sponsors, like CWI, of promoting diversity, equity and inclusion initiatives: “They said the national grantees were a bunch of woke, leftist DEI villains that they didn’t want to continue funding.”
The language from the official budget posted by The White House is as follows:
“SCSEP purports to provide job training and subsidized employment to low-income seniors, but fails at its goal: to move seniors to unsubsidized, gainful employment. In reality, it is effectively an earmark to leftist, DEI-promoting entities like the National Urban League, the Center for Workforce Inclusion, and Easter Seals. It also is duplicative of Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program Employment and Training and DOL’s Workforce Innovation and Opportunity Act funding, including the new MASA grant program. Seniors would be better served by programs operated by State and local governments, with proven track records of increasing wages.”
With the government shutdown still in progress over the federal budget, which includes funding for SCSEP and other programs, Moore remains concerned the senior program will not exist next fiscal year, with Congress and the White House controlled by Republicans.
“It’s still not certain that that automatically means the program is going to be eliminated, but the chances of that are higher now than in the past,” Moore said.
SCSEP was founded in 1965 under the Older Americans Act of 1965 and has been funded on time every year since, until this year’s delay. It will continue for the remainder of the 2025-2026 fiscal year at least.
“People’s perception of government spending is it’s all going to people who don’t deserve it,” Moore said. “This program is not a hand-out. It’s attempting to be a hand-up.”
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