About the Report

Download Report

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. The following four purposively selected grantees participated in the evaluation: Maryland Tech Connection (operated by Anne Arundel Workforce Development Corporation), Skills to Work in Technology and Job Search Accelerator (operated by Jewish Vocational Service), Finger Lakes Hired (operated by RochesterWorks!), and Reboot Northwest (operated by Worksystems, Inc.).

Research Questions

• What was the impact of the offer of the RTW program on the outcomes specified in the logic model?
• How did those impacts vary with study member baseline characteristics?

Key Takeaways

• The RTW programs provided a range of services (occupational training, work-based training, employment readiness courses, and job search assistance), produced moderate impacts on service receipt, and increased the number of hours of employment readiness courses the participants attended.
• The study did not find positive impacts on earnings, employment, or receipt of public benefits at 18 months. The evaluators explored four factors that may explain the pattern of interim impact findings:
  • The 18-month follow-up period may have been too early to detect positive impacts; however, impacts may appear with the longer follow-up period included in the final report (36 months after random assignment).
  • The impacts were too small to be detected by the study’s small sample sizes.
  • The grantee programs did not increase service receipt enough to generate detectable impacts on earnings.
  • RTW’s customized approach did not provide the appropriate content or intensity of services to improve employment outcomes for RTW participants, who were substantially older and better educated than the unemployed workers typically served by the workforce system. The evaluators also noted findings from earlier studies that revealed how older displaced workers face unique challenges to employment, including age discrimination, emotional distress due to unemployment, and outdated skills.

Citation

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

Download Report   View Study Profile

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.