The U.S. Department of Labor (DOL) awards National Emergency Grants (NEGs) to states or local areas in need of supplemental resources to provide workforce development services. NEGs are provided in response to economic shocks such as mass layoffs, natural disasters or base realignment and closures. NEGs temporarily increase the capacity of state or local areas to provide workforce development services. The NEGs provided to military communities (known as Military Base NEGs) aimed to give temporary aid to military personnel separated due to Department of Defense (DoD) base realignment and closures. After the September 11, 2001 terrorist attacks, the goal of the Military Base NEGs shifted to providing aid to military spouses to help DoD retain staff.

DOL awarded a contract to Mathematica Policy Research, Inc. to evaluate recent experience with Military Base NEGs. The evaluation objectives were to: 1) obtain a more comprehensive understanding of the NEGs’ history and implementation experiences; 2) provide information about the makeup of the target populations, the costs associated with serving them, the services they received, and the employment experiences of those exiting program services; and 3) identify the policy implications of the study’s findings, such as how the workforce investment system might better serve military populations and identify the distinctive features of NEG service delivery for military communities. A total of six NEGs were targeted for the evaluation, three large NEGs and three small NEGs. For the large NEGs, data were gathered through in-person staff interviews, client focus groups, management information systems (MISs), cost records, and grant documents. Data for the small NEGs were collected through staff phone interviews and grant documents. The Evaluation of Military Base National Emergency Grants Final Report provides detailed findings from six key research questions.