CEO Library

The report presents findings of the Pathways to Careers: Community Colleges for Youth and Young Adults with Disabilities (Pathways) evaluation consisting of an implementation study and a descriptive outcomes study. The evaluation is descriptive only, given the small numbers of participants included in the Pathways project and lack of a comparison group to measure impacts. The evaluation incorporates an overall design based on mixed data collection methods to support two interrelated and interwoven studies focused on implementation processes and programmatic outputs and outcomes.

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.

Paper that directly addresses the U.S. Department of Labor (DOL) topic areas of “Improving Equal Employment Opportunities for Targeted Populations” and “Innovative Approaches to Evaluating the Impact of Department of Labor Worker Protection Programs and Policies Using Existing Administrative or Other Data” through each of its three main objectives. Multiple meetings with Office of Federal Contract Compliance Programs (OFCCP) staff helped to shape and refine the components of this study to best address the current needs of OFCCP, employers, and individuals with disabilities.

Paper that presents a study of consumer learning in the context of payroll accounts, a simple financial technology that is currently being rolled out to millions of workers worldwide in response to demands for increased supply chain transparency and as a result of the Covid-19 pandemic. The researchers conducted a field experiment with a population of salaried factory workers in Bangladesh who, prior to the study, received their wages entirely in cash.

Paper that presents results of a randomized controlled trial with 3,136 salaried factory workers in Bangladesh employed at two large garment factories which, at the beginning of the study, paid all wages in cash. The researchers randomly and individually assign workers within the same factory to either continue receiving their wages in cash or receive electronic wage payments through either a bank or mobile account.

To evaluate the impacts of Seattle’s Secure Scheduling legislation on the work schedule experiences of Seattle workers, the researchers who developed this paper surveyed a set of workers paid by the hour and employed at businesses covered by the Secure Scheduling Ordinance. The researchers collected pre-implementation, baseline survey data from Seattle workers in the Spring of 2017. The researchers then collected follow-up survey data from Seattle workers between Fall of 2017 and Spring of 2018, after the law had gone into effect.

Healthcare workers are well known to be at high risk of musculoskeletal disorders (MSDs) from patient handling. In 2011, California passed the Hospital Patient and Health Care Worker Injury Protection Act (AB 1136) that requires acute care hospitals to implement safe patient handling policies and programs to prevent patient handling injuries (PHIs). In 2014, the California Division of Occupational Safety and Health (Cal/OSHA) established regulations to implement the safe patient handling law.

The researchers who produced this paper evaluate health outcomes for workers subject to incentivized compensation in an effort to better understand the effects and implications of modern day performance and piece rate pay in the growing gig economy sector. This paper is the first to explore the effects of pay type on worker health outcomes in a large and representative longitudinal and cross-sector panel of the U.S. workforce.

The report presents the results of an empirical study of ten years of employee misclassification summary judgment decisions by U.S. district courts, in which judges were asked to determine whether a worker was an employee or an independent contractor. Using text mining, machine learning classifiers, and regression analysis, the research reveals among 747 opinions that the judge ruled that the plaintiff was an independent contractor in thirty-eight percent of cases, and that the plaintiffs’ occupation was a strong predictor of outcomes.

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.

Since the beginning of the COVID-19 pandemic, there have been unprecedented changes in employment for America’s workforce. Many businesses ceased or scaled back operations and many state governments issued stay-at-home orders. Using key labor force statistics from the Census Bureau’s Current Population Survey (CPS), researchers with the Department of Labor’s Office of Disability Employment Policy (ODEP) sought to provide insight into the recent changes.

In 2017, the Chief Evaluation Office (CEO) partnered with the Wage and Hour Division (WHD) to fund contractor Mathematica to conduct the Wage and Hour Division’s Compliance Strategies Evaluation. The impact design and outcomes evaluation aim to build evidence on how to assess effective compliance strategies and compliance assistance within WHD, including exploring ways WHD may use external data for ongoing monitoring and evaluation.

Since the beginning of the COVID-19 pandemic, there have been unprecedented changes in employment for America’s workforce. Many businesses ceased or scaled back operations and many state governments issued stay-at-home orders. Using key labor force statistics from the Census Bureau’s Current Population Survey (CPS) researchers with the U.S. Department of Labor’s Office of Disability Employment Policy (ODEP) sought to provide insight into the recent changes.

The U.S. Department of Labor (DOL)’s Chief Evaluation Office (CEO), in partnership with the Wage and Hour Division (WHD) contracted with Mathematica Policy Research to synthesize existing literature and data related to WHD compliance strategies.

The report supplements the Wage and Hour Division’s (WHD) Compliance Strategies Evaluation by exploring whether and how data that are housed outside of WHD could be integrated with WHD’s administrative data. The researchers explored how external data can be integrated with WHD’s case management system, the Wage and Hour Investigative Support and Reporting Database (WHISARD), and the limitations of doing so.

The report examines information from a literature and database review that identified knowledge gaps, discussions with Wage and Hour Division (WHD) about compliance strategies, and discussions with a panel of experts about compliance strategies. The researchers then developed a framework for WHD and other agencies to consider when designing processes for monitoring and evaluating strategies and outcomes.

The report provides intervention and evaluation designs for two behavioral intervention (BI) trials that, if implemented, would test whether webinar registrations increase when behavioral strategies are applied to emails targeting a given industry. To design the study, researchers followed a six-step process developed by the U.S. Department of Labor (DOL) for designing and conducting BI studies that has resulted in trials that produce meaningful evidence.

In 2012 and 2014, the Chief Evaluation Office (CEO) partnered with the Employment and Training Administration (ETA) to fund contractors Urban Institute and Abt Associates to conduct the Trade Adjustment Assistance Community College and Career Training (TAACCCT) Initiative National Evaluation. The implementation and outcomes evaluation, as well as a synthesis of third-party grantee evaluations, aims to document promising practices to deliver workforce education and training programs. 

The report of the Trade Adjustment Assistance Community College and Career Training (TAACCCT) national evaluation describes the strategies implemented by the Rounds 1 and 2 TAACCCT colleges. The introduction provides an overview of the grant program, the national evaluation, and the implementation study.

Developed under the Trade Adjustment Assistance Community College and Career Training (TAACCCT) national evaluation, the brief highlights employers’ perspectives on community college relationships and offers insights for leaders and practitioners that can help them tailor their own approaches to helping colleges and employers in their local communities develop and maintain strong and productive relationships.

The report of the Trade Adjustment Assistance Community College and Career Training (TAACCCT) national evaluation describes the activities among all 263 of the Round 4 TAACCCT colleges based on a survey conducted in the fourth and final year of their grants. The findings support a growing body of evidence—from the national evaluation and third-party evaluations across all rounds—on the colleges’ partnerships, participant recruitment activities, and the strategies that encourage accelerated and enhanced learning, college persistence and completion, and connections to employment.

The report of the Trade Adjustment Assistance Community College and Career Training (TAACCCT) national evaluation presents survey results across all four rounds of TAACCCT grants to describe how the implementation of grant activities differed for three subgroups of colleges: rural colleges, colleges whose grant activities focused on their local economy’s recovery and expansion, and colleges that implemented work-based learning activities.

The report of the Trade Adjustment Assistance Community College and Career Training (TAACCCT) national evaluation focused on Round 3 TAACCCT colleges that summarizes key findings based on a survey of all Round 3 colleges that participated in the grants, totally 187 colleges, and interviews and focus groups conducted during site visits to 14 Round 3 colleges. This final report presents findings from the Round 3 implementation study.

The report of the Trade Adjustment Assistance Community College and Career Training (TAACCCT) national evaluation synthesizes findings from 87 third-party evaluations of the Rounds 1 and 2 TAACCCT grants. The findings are based on the final evaluation reports that assess the implementation of the grant activities and estimate the impact of TAACCCT on the education and employment outcomes of participants.

The brief explores factors affecting the implementation of statewide systems change in the Round 4 Trade Adjustment Assistance Community College and Career Training (TAACCCT) grants, focusing on the experiences of statewide consortia. It first describes Round 4’s emphasis on systems change and then discusses systems change to improve community colleges’ ability to train workers in skills needed for in-demand jobs. The brief then presents findings on systems change efforts implemented by statewide consortia composed of multiple community colleges in one state.