CEO Library

More than 70 million Americans have some form of criminal record, which can limit their access to employment opportunities, eligibility for occupational licensure, and public benefits. The use of criminal background checks in the hiring process has also dramatically increased over the past decade, and there is reason to think that many criminal records are inaccurate. Prior research has not determined the extent of errors on criminal records.

The literature review updates and expands the findings of the Career Pathways Design Study that included the Career Pathways Research and Evaluation Synthesis, an analysis of career pathways research as of February 2017, that found a substantial amount of research and evaluation studies would be published in the near future. The findings from the updated scan will inform the project’s planned meta-analysis, which will examine the extent to which different career pathways program components drive impacts found in this body of evidence.

The supplemental resource to the Workers' Compensation and the Opioid Epidemic: State of the Field in Opioid Prescription Management Final Report that provides detailed information on each of the reviewed studies (with sort-and-filter capabilities) that covered approaches applied in workers’ compensation programs and other health care settings, such as health insurance programs and health care systems.

The report highlights the most promising policies, strategies, and practices for opioid prescription management between 2014 and 2019. The environmental scan covered approaches applied in workers’ compensation programs and other health care settings, such as health insurance programs and health care systems.

The literature review focuses on understanding more about technology-based learning (TBL), how it has been used for work-related skills and training, and whether it has been effective. It examines the literature on TBL interventions, factors associated with effectiveness, gaps in the knowledge base, and possible directions for future research.

In 2017, the Chief Evaluation Office (CEO) funded contractors Mathematica Policy Research, American Institutes for Research, ideas42, the W.E. Upjohn Institute for Employment Research, and Urban Institute to explore how insights from behavioral science can be used to improve the performance and outcomes of Department of Labor programs.

The literature scan highlights promising applications of behavioral insights to challenges that are specifically relevant to U.S. Department of Labor (DOL) programs, workers, job seekers, and employers. It synthesizes this information for DOL and others who are interested in applying behavioral interventions to address challenges within the labor context. DOL’s own work in this area contributes to this evidence base. Suggestions of areas in which to extend this body of work are also noted.

The literature review summarizes evidence on three topics related to the intersection of employment and the opioid crisis: (1) effective and promising practices for providing employment services to people with opioid use disorder; (2) employer best practices for preventing negative effects of opioid use disorder in the workplace and creating recovery-friendly workplaces; and (3) key considerations for developing the health care workforce that is addressing the opioid crisis.

In 2020, the Chief Evaluation Office (CEO) partnered with the Employment and Training Administration (ETA) and funded contractor Mathematica Policy Research to conduct the Workforce Innovation and Opportunity Act (WIOA) Research Portfolio Project.

In 2022, the Chief Evaluation Office (CEO) partnered with the Women’s Bureau and funded contractor Urban Institute to conduct the Descriptive Study of the Women in Apprenticeship and Nontraditional Occupations (WANTO) Grants under the Apprenticeship Evidence-Building Portfolio of studies. The descriptive study aimed to understand how WANTO grantees provided technical assistance, supportive services, and training opportunities to help women access nontraditional jobs.

In 2020, the Chief Evaluation Office (CEO) partnered with the Employment and Training Administration (ETA) and funded contractor Urban Institute and its partner the Capital Research Corporation to conduct the Implementation Evaluation of the Youth Apprenticeship Readiness Grants (YARG) under the Apprenticeship Evidence-Building Portfolio of studies.

The report is a high-level review of the literature on strategies that increase opportunities for employment in Non-Traditional Occupations (NTOs) – defined by the U.S. Department of Labor (DOL) as occupations where specific populations and subpopulations are traditionally under-represented among the industry’s workforce. The specific focus of this review is to address an individual’s barriers to entering NTOs with strategies appropriate for delivery within the public workforce system.

The literature review summarizes key challenges and strategies of states operating unemployment insurance (UI) programs during the Great Recession and its aftermath. Except when noted otherwise, “states” is used to refer to the 53 UI jurisdictions in the United States. This includes the 50 states, the District of Columbia, Puerto Rico, and the U.S. Virgin Islands. It is based on a targeted literature review for the U.S.

As economic conditions change and the research literature evolves, there is a need to assess current best practices for serving today’s youth and consider how they could inform the Job Corps program.

Job Corps, a program administered by the U.S. Department of Labor’s (DOL) Employment and Training Administration (ETA), is the nation’s largest and most comprehensive residential education and job training program for at-risk youth. Originally established by the Economic Opportunity Act of 1964, the program currently operates under the provisions of the Workforce Innovation and Opportunity Act (WIOA), which was enacted in 2014. Studies of Job Corps have found promising results especially for older youth (Schochet et al. 2001).

In 2016, the Chief Evaluation Office (CEO) partnered with the Employee Benefits Security Administration (EBSA) and funded Summit Consulting and the Center for Retirement Research at Boston College to conduct An Analysis of Retirement Models to Improve Portability and Coverage. The literature, policy, and proposal review aims to summarize what is known about the current employer-based voluntary retirement system in the United States and explore a wide set of available options.

The report examines the employer-based voluntary retirement system and explores a variety of potential changes through a three-part analysis:

In 2018, the Chief Evaluation Office (CEO) partnered with the Employment and Training Administration (ETA) to fund contractor Mathematica to conduct the National Health Emergency (NHE) Demonstration Grants to Address the Opioid Crisis: Implementation Evaluation.

This study includes a systematic review of existing evidence on the intersection of the opioid epidemic and workers’ compensation programs administered by public and private payers. The study will analyze existing evidence and identify innovative interventions and initiatives that may be relevant to the Federal Employees’ Compensation Act (FECA) client/customer population, and will develop research and evaluation design options for generating new evidence in the field.

In 2018, the Chief Evaluation Office (CEO) funded Mathematica Policy Research to conduct Data on Earnings: A Review of Resources for Research under the Administrative Data Research and Analysis portfolio of studies. This secondary data review describes data sources on wages and earnings that may be used by researchers who wish to incorporate reports of earned income in their analyses but original data collection is not feasible.

The state-Federal system of Unemployment Insurance (UI) programs has existed for 80 years. The programs in the states are financed by employer payroll taxes paid into state trust fund accounts maintained at the U.S. Treasury. These accounts are the source for benefit payments made to eligible unemployed workers.

The U.S. Department of Labor (DOL) has contracted with IMPAQ International and ideas to learn about the customer experience in American Job Centers (AJCs), and to identify ways to improve that experience. Developing an understanding about how job seekers and employer customers perceive their AJC experience, and then maximizing what makes a positive experience, should lead to improved outcomes in employment and other areas. As part of this exploratory study, the research team conducted a literature scan in fall 2015 on related key topics.

As investors increasingly consider environmental, social, and governance (ESG) factors when selecting and managing investments, questions about ESG’s relevance to retirement investing have grown commensurately. With this growth comes greater interest to understand if and to what extent ESG investing might affect American workers' retirement prospects.

To better understand the efficiency and practicality of the State Exchange on Employment and Disability (SEED) initiative, the U.S. Department of Labor's (DOL) Chief Evaluation Office (CEO), in collaboration with the Office of Disability Employment Policy (ODEP), conducted a formative evaluation.

Researchers conducted a scan of the implementation science literature. Implementation science is the scientific study of methods that encourage the systematic integration of evidenced-based practices and research knowledge into policy and practice (Eccles & Mittman, 2006).

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.