CEO Library

Infographic depicting high-level results of the Using Behavioral Interventions to Increase Retirement Savings Technical Report.

Webinar describing the high-level results of the Using Behavioral Interventions to Increase Retirement Savings Technical Report.

Finding a job after becoming unemployed can be challenging for many individuals. Even as the unemployment rate has decreased during the recovery from the 2007–2008 financial crisis, the average duration of regular unemployment insurance (UI) benefits remains high (15.6 weeks as of January 2017). In response, the U.S. Department of Labor (DOL) helps UI claimants find, apply for, and obtain new employment. DOL has long sought effective ways to encourage unemployed workers to engage in services that can help them get reemployed.

Finding a job after becoming unemployed can be challenging for many individuals. Even as the unemployment rate has decreased during the recovery from the 2007–2008 financial crisis, the average duration of regular unemployment insurance benefits remains high (15.6 weeks as of January 2017). The Department of Labor (DOL) has long sought effective ways to encourage unemployed workers to engage in services that can help them get reemployed.

The brief presents initial findings on the effects of an intervention designed to encourage Unemployment Insurance (UI) claimants to participate in their state’s Reemployment and Eligibility Assessment (REA) pilot program and persist in their job search. For the study, selected Michigan Works! agencies and the W.E. Upjohn Institute partnered with the U.S.

Infographic depicting high-level results of the Using Behavioral Interventions to Improve Take-Up of a Reemployment Program Technical Report.

Webinar describing the high-level results of the Using Behavioral Interventions to Improve Take-Up of a Reemployment Program Technical Report.

The U.S. Department of Labor’s (DOL) Behavioral Interventions (DOL-BI) project adds to a growing body of evidence indicating that relatively small changes in how programs operate can lead to striking improvements in their performance. In three trials that tested applications of behavioral science, the project team found substantial benefits for three DOL programs. The brief provides details on the design and findings of each trial. This brief focuses on the lessons learned by the team as it identified opportunities for behavioral trials and implemented each one.

The playbook was developed to give program administrators and managers at the U.S. Department of Labor (DOL) and other social programs an overview of how they can use insights from behavioral science to improve the effectiveness of their programs and services. This playbook is a step-by-step guide on how to identify behavioral problems and use strategies informed by behavioral science.

Effective U.S. Department of Labor (DOL) programs often require people to take action to get the benefits offered, but people often fail to do so. The reasons can be varied: they aren’t motivated to participate or they intend to but get distracted, or they begin and then are deterred by seemingly minor operational hassles. Fortunately, behavioral scientists have developed many techniques to improve the effectiveness of program procedures–techniques that have been applied successfully in many DOL programs.

The way we write and structure documents can make them much more impactful. The checklist provides guidance before sending out an important communication. Make sure to review the checklist and see if there are edits you can make to improve it. While it may not always be possible to complete each item on the checklist, communications that incorporate more behavioral insights will have greater potential.

The podcast describes lessons learned from the Behavioral Interventions for Labor Related Programs Project, designed to test the use of behavioral science in U.S. Department of Labor (DOL) programs.

Worker moral hazard has been shown in some empirical studies to influence workers’ compensation insurance claims patterns. According to moral hazard theory, temporary help services workers would be expected to file a greater number of spurious claims than traditional, directly-hired employees as a result of greater safety information asymmetry between staffing agencies and the temporary help services workers they place in third party workplaces than between employers and their directly-hired employees.

The nature of the employer-employee relationship is drastically changing in the United States, with lead employers employing fewer workers directly and instead relying on intermediaries and contracting firms for providing labor services. In the paper researchers investigate the incidence and effects of outsourcing labor service jobs in food, cleaning, security and logistics (FCSL) to business service firms. They first provide long time series using Census and ACS data documenting large movements of FCSL jobs to business service firms, with an accelerating trend since the Great Recession.

In the paper the researchers analyze if the share of agricultural employment can contribute to strengthening employment resilience in Indian Country. They define Indian Country as all reservation territories within the contiguous United States. They construct employment data by sector for Indian Country based on Zip Code level data from 1990 to 2015. They analyze employment growth in Indian Country across recessions and recovery periods and find Indian Country generally to be less affected by recessions than the United States as a whole.

A crucial question for the Occupational Safety and Health Administration (OSHA) and other regulatory agencies in the U.S. Department of Labor (DOL) is the extent to which enforcement inspections lead to general deterrence—that is, improve compliance and performance at non-inspected workplaces. The magnitude and scope of spillovers has major implications for how OSHA should target its enforcement resources to maximize their impact on the health and safety of workers. However, identifying spillover effects of inspections entails overcoming several substantial empirical challenges.

The brief highlights the goals of the Trade Adjustment Assistance Community College and Career Training (TAACCCT) grant program and provides an overview of evaluation activities for the four rounds of TAACCCT grants. Using information from grantee documents, third-party evaluation plans, and the solicitations for grant applications (SGAs) from all four rounds of grants, the brief describes grant requirements, proposed evaluation designs, and TAACCCT grant funding for evaluations. This brief concludes with a preview of the national evaluation of the TAACCCT grant program.

The brief provides an overview of the types of Trade Adjustment Assistance Community College and Career Training (TAACCCT) grants awarded, the geographic distribution of grant funding, and characteristics of the colleges receiving TAACCCT funding from the grants across the four rounds awarded (2011–14). This brief uses information from grantees’ original proposals and supporting documentation and data from the U.S. Department of Education’s Integrated Postsecondary Education Data System to obtain a richer understanding of the types of institutions participating in TAACCCT.

The brief provides an overview of the various approaches the Trade Adjustment Assistance Community College and Career Training (TAACCCT) grantees planned to implement, the industries targeted at the start of their grants, the degrees and certifications they planned to develop, and the types of partnerships grantees would leverage during the grants. These activities are the core of what the grantees intended to do during their grant period.

The brief presents preliminary results on key outcomes and characteristics of grant-funded program participants from the first four years of Trade Adjustment Assistance Community College and Career Training (TAACCCT). The TAACCCT grant program is primarily focused on capacity building and sustainability, with grant funding directed at institution building rather than at tuition assistance for students to help them pay for education and training.

In 2017, the DOL’s Chief Evaluation Office (CEO), in collaboration with the Employment and Training Administration (ETA), funded contractor Mathematica to conduct an implementation and impact evaluation of the America’s Promise grant program. The implementation study examines how the 23 grantee organizations implemented their programs between 2016 and 2020.

In 2017, the Chief Evaluation Office (CEO) partnered with the Veterans’ Employment and Training Service (VETS) and commissioned contractor Mathematica and its subcontractors, the Urban Institute and Social Policy Research Associates, to conduct the Homeless Veterans’ Reintegration Program (HVRP) Evaluation.

The Trade Adjustment Assistance (TAA) program, administered by the Employment and Training Administration (ETA), seeks to assist U.S. workers who have lost or may lose their jobs as a result of foreign trade. The program provides adversely affected workers with opportunities to obtain the skills, credentials, resources, and support necessary to (re)build skills for future jobs.

In 2013, the Chief Evaluation Office (CEO) partnered with the Employment and Training Administration (ETA) to fund contractor Abt Associates to conduct the Evaluation of the Reemployment and Eligibility Assessment (REA) Program. The implementation and impact evaluations aim to describe the implementation and estimate the impact of REA programs in Indiana, New York, Washington, and Wisconsin on outcomes of interest: amount and duration of unemployment insurance (UI) benefits, employment, and earnings.

A main goal of the U.S. Unemployment Insurance (UI) program is to provide temporary income support to workers who lose their jobs through no fault of their own. Benefits supply only partial wage replacement and are time-limited, so as to balance providing income support during unemployment and preserving incentives for benefit recipients to return to work. Most UI claimants who begin receiving benefits during non-recessionary periods can collect them for up to 26 weeks.