I believe you may have been referring to the program for older worker adjustment, POWA, which ended in 1997 and was meant as a bridge to retirement. It was a pilot program. It was actually a predecessor to the targeted initiative for older workers which followed that program. The reason it ended at the time was that, based on evaluation evidence, it was showing that it was not leading to very good outcomes, certainly not good employment outcomes for the participants, because it was really meant as a passive income support program and not as an active employment measure program.
On April 30th, 2013. See this statement in context.