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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.

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Research Questions

• What was the impact of the offer of the RTW program on the outcomes specified in the logic model (e.g., receipt of program services, educational attainment, employment, and earnings)?
• How did those impacts vary with study member baseline characteristics?

Key Takeaways

• The Ready to Work (RTW) program was designed to assist those experiencing long-term unemployment or underemployment after the Great Recession of 2007-2009. Participants were provided with employment related services—primarily occupational training, work-based training, employment readiness activities, and job search assistance services— which were expected to produce an increase in program participants’ educational attainment and ultimately to lead to increased employment and earnings.
• The RTW evaluation detected positive impacts on educational attainment and credential receipt (i.e. receiving certificates, credentials, licenses, or degrees) for three of the four grant programs included in the impact study.
• The RTW evaluation detected no sustained positive impact on earnings or employment for any of the four RTW grantee programs through approximately four years of follow-up. Even considering the four programs together, no impact is detected.
• Several potential factors could have contributed to these findings, including the improving economy over the four-year grant period (from 2014 to 2019). As more job-ready unemployed workers found jobs, grantees reported serving participants who faced greater barriers to employment than originally anticipated.
• The study also found that RTW control group members (individuals who were not offered RTW services) were able to access many employment-related services provided in the community. In designing future programs, the U.S. Department of Labor (DOL) may wish to consider how the new program will lead to the receipt of considerably more employment related services than participants would receive otherwise.

Citation

Klerman, J. A., Herr, J. L., Martinson, K. (2022). Abt Associates. The Ready to Work Partnership Grant Evaluation: Final Report of the Impact Study of Four Employment Services Programs for the Long-Term Unemployed. Chief Evaluation Office, U.S. Department of Labor.

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This study was sponsored by the Employment and Training Administration, Office of Policy Development and Research, Division of Research and Evaluation, and was produced outside of CEO’s standard research development process.