Initiated in 2008, this final report from the WIA [Workforce Investment Act of 1998] Adult and Dislocated Worker Programs Gold Standard Evaluation, provides findings on participant outcomes 30-months after random assignment under the evaluation.

The evaluation began in 2008 and used a random assignment design to examine the impact of higher-tiered services provided by the Adult and Dislocated Worker programs in WIA, as implemented by 28 randomly selected local workforce investment areas (LWIAs) operating nationwide. The overall evaluation produced several prior reports. Such reports provided information regarding: the characteristics of veterans and how they are served through American Job Centers (AJC); findings from implementing the evaluation; an interim impact report; and 11 briefing papers describing the services offered by the programs, the contexts in which the programs operate, and the service delivery features which might have bearing on customer outcomes.

The report describes the impact of different services provided under WIA core and intensive; and core, intensive and training. Researchers followed more than 34,000 study participants after random assignment collecting outcome data through follow-up surveys at 15 and 30 months and the National Directory of New Hires (an administrative database containing information on earnings and employment) at 36 months after random assignment.

Of note, WIA was superseded by the Workforce Innovation and Opportunity Act (WIOA) in 2014.