Resource Library

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.

Making the successful transition to adulthood has become increasingly difficult for many young people in the United States, particularly for those without a college education. Those without a high school degree face even tougher prospects, with especially high unemployment rates and falling wages. A typical worker without a high school diploma earns less today than the same worker did in the 1970s. YouthBuild is a program that attempts to improve prospects for less-educated young people, serving over 10,000 individuals each year at over 250 organizations nationwide.

The Employer Perspectives Study describes strong employer-community college partnerships. It draws insights from employers identified by colleges as partners that have contributed to their programs. Abt Associates and the Urban Institute, with their partners Capital Research Corporation and the George Washington University, (the research team) interviewed 41 employers to better understand their perspective of what constitutes a strong partnership with a college.

The Enhanced Transitional Jobs Demonstration (ETJD), funded by the Employment and Training Administration (ETA) of the U.S. Department of Labor (DOL), tested seven transitional jobs programs that targeted people recently released from prison or low-income parents who had fallen behind in child support payments. The ETJD programs were “enhanced” in various ways relative to programs studied in the past. MDRC, a nonprofit, nonpartisan research organization, led the project along with two partners: Abt Associates and MEF Associates.

The brief presents an overview of key institutional features of the AJC service delivery system across the country that shape day-to-day operations and customer experiences. To do this, researchers identify common patterns and variations in (1) administrative One-Stop Operator structure and AJC management, (2) AJC partner programs and staffing, (3) funding and resource sharing, (4) data systems and sharing, and (5) AJC services.

The brief describes the role and activities of One-Stop Operators in 40 comprehensive American Job Centers (AJCs). It provides an overview of the types of entities that served as Operators, the roles that Operators played, common supervision models, and the key activities of AJC managers in day-to-day center operations. It concludes with a description of Workforce Innovation and Opportunity Act (WIOA) One-Stop Operator requirements and identifies some general concerns raised about these changes as local areas prepared for their implementation.

The brief describes how 40 comprehensive American Job Centers (AJCs) selected to participate in the Institutional Analysis of AJCs shared resources. It opens by reviewing resource sharing requirements under Workforce Investment Act of 1998 (WIA) and Workforce Innovation and Opportunity Act (WIOA), and then outlines the extent to which the study AJCs shared resources at the time of the study's data collection.

The brief discusses key features and experiences of 12 America Job Centers (AJCs) in the America Job Centers Institutional Analysis study that were located in rural areas. It focuses on AJCs as the unit of service delivery, which is a narrower focus than prior studies of the rural workforce system as a whole. Therefore, the findings offer insight into frontline service delivery and system-wide planning in addition to an update on the persistence of previously-identified challenges in rural service delivery.

To systematically document key characteristics and features of American Job Centers (AJCs), Mathematica and its partners—Social Policy Research Associates, The George Washington University, and Capital Research Corporation—conducted the America Job Centers’ Institutional Analysis for the U.S. Department of Labor (DOL).

Earnings are a key outcome in evaluating the impact of job training and other employment- oriented assistance programs. Adequate and sustained earnings provide a reliable measure of success for these interventions and contribute to other positive outcomes as well. Accordingly, high quality data on the income earned from employment—including self-employment—are an essential component of any analysis that seeks to understand the consequences of participating in an employment-assistance program.