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The brief documents the impact of four Ready to Work (RTW) programs on participants’ service and credential receipt through 18 months after random assignment, and on participants' employment and earnings through three to four years after random assignment.

The technical appendices to The Ready to Work Partnership Grant Evaluation: Findings from the Final Impact Study of Four Employment Services Programs for the Long-Term Unemployed (Klerman, Herr, and Martinson 2022): Appendix A: Additional RTW Impact Study Technical Information, Appendix B: Demographic Comparison of RTW Samples to U.S.

Building on an interim impact report at 18 months after program start, this final impact report describes each Ready to Work (RTW) Partnership Grant program’s impacts on participant earnings and employment through 3 years or more. For the report, the evaluation pre-specified average quarterly earnings for the period from 1 year to 2.5 years after random assignment as the evaluation’s main indicator of the extent to which a given RTW program had impact.

The toolkit represents successful practices in negotiating agreements to obtain and use administrative data in U.S. Department of Labor (DOL) program evaluations. It includes detailed instructions, recommendations, and lessons learned on how to obtain data from various data providers including state workforce agencies, community colleges, criminal justice agencies, and other DOL grantees, primarily by establishing data use agreements.

The technical appendix to Experiences of America’s Promise Participants During the “COVID-19 Recession”: Examining Gender Differences in Labor Market and Training Program Outcomes (Spitzer et al. 2022): Section A describes the data sources used for this study, Section B describes the approach taken to analyze employment and earnings, and Section C describes the approach taken to analyze program completion and enrollment.

The America’s Promise Job Driven Grant Program Evaluation Design Pre-Specification Plan follows the template that evaluators must use to meet the pre-specification practices articulated in OMB Memo M-20-12 Phase 4 Implementation of the Foundations for Evidence-Based Policymaking Act of 2018: Program Evaluation Standards and Practices.

The paper examines whether gender differences in outcomes emerged following the onset of the COVID-19 pandemic among a group of people who recently enrolled in training aimed at preparing workers for careers in “middle- to high-skilled” industries and occupations. These people received training through programs funded by America’s Promise grants, with most programs focusing on advanced manufacturing, health care, or information technology.

The U.S. Department of Labor (DOL) funded Evaluation of the Pathway Home Grant Program study was a result of the annual process to determine the Department’s research priorities for the upcoming year. It contributes to the labor evidence-base to inform Reentry and Employment and Training programs and policies and addresses Departmental strategic goals and priorities. In particular, the brief focuses on the first 20 Pathway Home grants awarded in 2020 and their experiences implementing their programs during the COVID-19 pandemic between January and December 2021.

The report for the Evaluation of the Pathway Home Grant Program. Individuals released from incarceration face substantial obstacles to successful reentry and self-sufficiency once in the community. The Pathway Home Grant program seeks to help mitigate these obstacles by providing linked pre- and post-release employment services to improve individuals’ chances of finding meaningful employment and avoiding recidivism.

The technical appendices to The Ready to Work Partnership Grant Evaluation: Findings from the Interim Impact Study of Four Employment Services Programs for the Long-Term Unemployed Report (Klerman, Herr, Martinson, and Copson 2022): Appendix A: Additional Technical Information on Methodology, Appendix B: Data Sources, Appendix C: Survey Methods for the 18-Month Follow-Up Survey, Appendix D: Definitions of Outcomes, Appendix E: Definitions of Base

The report documents the interim findings from the impact study of the Ready to Work (RTW) grant program. This report describes interim program impacts on service and credential receipt, earnings and employment, public benefits receipt, and a range of other employment-related outcomes through approximately 18 months after random assignment of participants into the study. The evaluation also estimates impacts for subgroups based on age, education level, employment status and gender.

In 2017 the Chief Evaluation Office (CEO), in close collaboration with the Bureau of International Labor Affairs (ILAB), contracted Mathematica to evaluate the effect of the Increasing Economic and Social Empowerment for Adolescent Girls and Vulnerable Women Project, (EMPOWER). EMPOWER aimed to reduce child labor in Eastern Province, Zambia by addressing skills gaps that constrain adolescent girls’ and women’s work and livelihood opportunities and facilitating pathways to employment that aligned with participants’ improved skills.

The report features findings from an evaluation of EMPOWER that used quantitative pre-post and descriptive analyses to measure changes in the outcomes for adolescent girls and women and qualitative analysis to contextualize findings. The evaluation’s primary objectives were to determine whether EMPOWER increased participants’ skill levels and, in turn, increased adolescent girls’ access to acceptable work and adolescent girls’ and women’s involvement in self-employment and paid work.

In 2022, the Chief Evaluation Office (CEO) partnered with the Employment and Training Administration’s (ETA) Reentry Employment Opportunity (REO) Program to fund Mathematica, Inc. and its subcontractors—RTI International and Abt Associates—to conduct the Partners for Reentry Opportunities in Workforce Development (PROWD) Grants Evaluation. The PROWD grants effort is a first-of-its-kind partnership between DOL and the U.S.

In 2022, the Chief Evaluation Office (CEO), in collaboration with the Office for Unemployment Insurance (OUI) in the Employment and Training Administration (ETA), funded independent contractor Abt Associates to conduct the Reemployment Services and Eligibility Assessments (RESEA) Evidence Building Portfolio Project. This portfolio project will provide evaluation technical assistance and conduct evidence-building activities to support and complement states’ evaluations.

In 2022, the Chief Evaluation Office (CEO) partnered with the Employment and Training Administration (ETA) to fund contractor the Urban Institute and its partners Mathematica and Social Policy Research Associates to conduct the Evaluating Registered Apprenticeship Initiatives. The Evaluation aims build and share evidence about registered apprenticeship initiatives through evaluating strategies under the Apprenticeship Building America (ABA) grants program, conducting an impact and cost-benefit evaluability assessment of pre-registered apprenticeship prog

In 2022, the Chief Evaluation Office (CEO) partnered with the Employment and Training Administration (ETA) to fund Trewon Technologies, LLC to conduct the Strengthening Community Colleges (SCC) Training Grants Study. The implementation study and impact evaluability assessment aim to understand the implementation of SCC grantees—community college-based workforce development and career pathways programs in partnership with local employers—as they address disparities in workforce outcomes and build institutional capacity.

The brief draws on data collected from virtual site visits with 18 of the 23 America’s Promise Job Driven Training (America’s Promise) grant programs as part of a comprehensive implementation study to explore the development of and services provided by regional grant partnerships involving workforce development agencies, institutions of higher education, economic development agencies, employers, and community based organizations.

The report documents findings from an implementation study, describing how the Ready to Work (RTW) Partnership grantees’ programs were implemented over the full term of the grants, the institutional benefits the grantees anticipated would be sustained after the grants ended, and lessons for current workforce programs. Future reports, to be released in 2021 and 2022, will examine the impact of the four RTW programs on participants’ education and employment outcomes. Findings from this implementation study will be important in interpreting those impact results.

This brief documents findings from the Ready to Work (RTW) Partnership Grant Evaluation, describing how the grantees’ programs were implemented over the full term of the grant, the institutional benefits the grantees anticipated would be sustained after the grants ended, and lessons for current workforce programs. Future reports, to be released in 2021 and 2022, will examine the impact of the four programs on participants’ education and employment outcomes. Findings from this implementation study will be important in interpreting those impact results.

COVID-19 has caused hiring freezes and business and institutional closures, which affected disconnected youth’s ability to continue working with service providers to meet employment and education goals and basic needs. In response, and in order to continue supporting youth, providers have adapted their services. To assess these adaptations, Mathematica and its subcontractor, Social Policy Research Associates, conducted a supplemental study as part of the National Evaluation of the Performance Partnership Pilots for Disconnected Youth (P3).

This project evaluated subsidized and transitional employment approaches for critical low-income populations, potentially including welfare recipients and low-income non-custodial parents. The project examined subsidized employment strategies designed to address two distinct goals: (1) provide work-based income support for people who were not able to find regular, unsubsidized jobs; and 2) to improve the employability of disadvantaged groups.

In 2021, the Chief Evaluation Office (CEO) partnered with the Social Security Administration (SSA) and the Office of Disability Employment Policy (ODEP) and funded contractor Mathematica to support the ongoing evaluation of the Retaining Employment & Talent After Injury/Illness Network (RETAIN) demonstration projects. CEO’s contract supports enrollment data collection and the random assignment of study participants for phase 2 of the RETAIN demonstration.

In 2014, the Chief Evaluation Office partnered with the Employment and Training Administration (ETA) to manage an impact evaluation and complementary analysis of Youth CareerConnect and to develop a participant tracking system for the program. These evaluation activities were carried out by contractors Mathematica, and Social Policy Research Associates. The final impact report follows implementation study reports published in 2017 and 2019.

The report provides details on the data, samples, methods, and analyses for the Youth CareerConnect (YCC) impact study. Rigorously evaluating the effects of the YCC program on student outcomes required that multiple technical pieces be put in place, from selecting districts to participate in the evaluation to collecting and processing high-quality data and measuring impacts to conducting rigorous analysis to estimate impacts. This report provides details of these processes.