Some experts say that eradicating the LLC particularly harms workers who have been told that the key to success in the labor market is learning new skills. The LLC, according to Kim Rueben of the nonpartisan Tax Policy Center, is the only real option for workers who have or need more than five years of schooling, or who are enrolled in school less than half-time. And that’s many of the workers whose jobs are at risk.

The House tax plan also would repeal the tax exclusion for employer-provided education assistance, which allows employers to offer up to $5,250 to an employee for educational needs, tax-free. In a letter to the Hartford Courant regarding the potential repeal, the president of Sacred Heart University, John Petillo, and the president of the Connecticut State Colleges and Universities system, Mark Ojakan, wrote that the “tax-excluded benefit is an important tool in any workforce strategy.”

Cutting that tax exclusion and the LLC could make it more expensive for workers to gain new skills or higher degrees. “Workers going back to school part-time or in non-degree programs wouldn’t be eligible for a tax credit and others would have to pay tax on the value of schooling paid for by their employers,” wrote Rueben and her Tax Policy Center colleague Gordon Mermin.

When asked about how the planned education-credit cuts will affect workers, a House Ways and Means Committee spokesperson touted estimates from the right-leaning Tax Foundation, which indicate that nearly 1 million new jobs will be created because of the bill, due to the proposed lowering of the corporate income tax.

If the tax bill passes in its current form, nontraditional workers who were hoping to retrain may face yet another blow. “It all feels like it is all part and parcel of decreasing federal support for individual workers and for having employers invest in workers or human capital,” says Rueben. The U.S. has funded employment and training programs since the 1930s, but that funding has consistently dwindled. Resources for employment and training programs peaked in the 1970s, according to the economists Burt Barnow and Jeffrey Smith, when funding was equivalent to about 0.64 percent of the U.S.’s GDP. In 2015, funding for these programs was equivalent to only 0.03 percent of GDP. The funding pales in comparison to what other nations spend on these programs: In 2015, Germany’s expenditures on training programs were equivalent to 0.22 percent of its GDP, and in France, expenditures were closer to around 0.34 percent of GDP.

The tax plan has yet to pass the Senate, which will start debating after Thanksgiving and vote sometime before the Christmas holiday. Because Republicans have a 52–48 majority in the Senate, if more than two Republican Senators vote no, the bill would be stifled. There’s reason for Republicans to be concerned though: Two Republican senators, Ron Johnson and Susan Collins, have already expressed hesitation about the contents of the bill.

This article is part of the “What Makes a Worker?” project, which is supported by a grant from Lumina Foundation.