Resource Library

The brief provides an overview of the types of Trade Adjustment Assistance Community College and Career Training (TAACCCT) grants awarded, the geographic distribution of grant funding, and characteristics of the colleges receiving TAACCCT funding from the grants across the four rounds awarded (2011–14). This brief uses information from grantees’ original proposals and supporting documentation and data from the U.S. Department of Education’s Integrated Postsecondary Education Data System to obtain a richer understanding of the types of institutions participating in TAACCCT.

The brief provides an overview of the various approaches the Trade Adjustment Assistance Community College and Career Training (TAACCCT) grantees planned to implement, the industries targeted at the start of their grants, the degrees and certifications they planned to develop, and the types of partnerships grantees would leverage during the grants. These activities are the core of what the grantees intended to do during their grant period.

The brief presents preliminary results on key outcomes and characteristics of grant-funded program participants from the first four years of Trade Adjustment Assistance Community College and Career Training (TAACCCT). The TAACCCT grant program is primarily focused on capacity building and sustainability, with grant funding directed at institution building rather than at tuition assistance for students to help them pay for education and training.

The brief summarizes a simulation analysis of five different paid family and medical leave model programs based on working programs in three states and a federal proposal, all applied to the national workforce. The analysis simulates worker behavior and estimates how many paid leaves would be taken under each model, the average weekly benefit level for each leave, and the total costs of the benefits paid. The analysis estimates the cost of benefits in dollars and as a share of total payroll for the nation as a whole and across industries and establishments of different sizes.

The brief explores the distributional impact of three alternative policy models for providing paid sick days taken from actual policies in the states and a federal proposal selected to show a range of generosity of provision. San Francisco was the first U.S. locality to pass paid sick days in 2006. Their Paid Sick Leave Ordinance (PSLO) covers nearly all workers in San Francisco and provides up to five days per year for workers employed in small businesses (under ten employees) and up to nine days per year for workers employed in larger businesses.

Workers who are 55 years old and over are projected to remain the fastest growing segment of working adults in the U.S. through 2022. Health, longevity, education, and attitude are some of the reasons for their continued labor force attachment. In recent years, older workers have also either delayed retirement or re-entered the workforce due to financial losses in the Great Recession. Older workers face different challenges and responsibilities than their younger counterparts.

Welcoming a new child commonly requires working parents to face challenging decisions related to balancing their career obligations with the extensive caregiving responsibilities of a new child. The brief explores the association between paid leave use and the employment stability of a specific group of parents, first-time mothers, using data from the U.S. Census Bureau’s 2008 Survey of Income and Program Participation’s (SIPP) Fertility History Module.

The participation rate of mothers in the labor force has increased significantly over the last four decades with an estimated 71% participating in 2014 compared to 47% in 1975. Similarly, the share of households with mothers of children under the age of 18 as the sole or primary income earner has grown substantially, increasing from 11% in 1960 to 40% in 2011.

The Family and Medical Leave Act (FMLA) enables employees to take up to 12 weeks of unpaid, job-protected leave. However, while FMLA has increased leave-taking among eligible workers, overall effects have been modest, perhaps because much of the workforce is ineligible for FMLA, and many who are eligible are unaware of the law’s benefits and eligibility requirements.

The report compares MSHA Part 50 program data to mining-related claims filed with the Illinois Workers’ Compensation Commission (IWCC). Illinois was chosen because it is an important mining state which collects substantial data on workers’ compensation claims. The research group at the University of Illinois at Chicago, School of Public Health has full access to this data set and obtained access to Illinois MSHA Part 50 data in order to perform this analysis.