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The brief summarizes the state of the evidence for basic career services—a category of reemployment services—to help unemployment insurance (UI) claimants return to work. The brief closes with a discussion of gaps in the current evidence base and implications of evaluating these kinds of Reemployment Services and Eligibility Assessments (RESEA) program components.

The brief summarizes the state of the evidence for individualized career services—a category of reemployment services—to help unemployment insurance (UI) claimants return to work. This brief closes with a discussion of gaps in the current evidence base and implications of evaluating these kinds of Reemployment Services and Eligibility Assessments (RESEA) program components.

The 2018 amendments to the Social Security Act (hereafter “the Statute”) permanently authorized the Reemployment Services and Eligibility Assessment (RESEA) program, required that states’ programs be supported by evidence, and allowed states to use up to 10 percent of their RESEA grant for evaluations. Developed as part of the Evaluation to Advance RESEA Program Evidence, the evidence-building options report aims to serve as a resource for decision makers to understand and weigh options for developing evidence of various types.

The report presents the results of the evaluation’s implementation study, a multi-method effort intended to provide an up-to-date understanding of states’ current Reemployment Services and Eligibility Assessments (RESEA) programs, their evaluation plans, and recent programmatic changes in response to new statutory requirements for RESEA established through amendments to the Social Security Act (SSA) and related U.S. Department of Labor (DOL) guidance. Program changes in the wake of the COVID-pandemic are also examined.

The technical appendices to The Ready to Work Partnership Grant Evaluation: Findings from the Interim Impact Study of Four Employment Services Programs for the Long-Term Unemployed Report (Klerman, Herr, Martinson, and Copson 2022): Appendix A: Additional Technical Information on Methodology, Appendix B: Data Sources, Appendix C: Survey Methods for the 18-Month Follow-Up Survey, Appendix D: Definitions of Outcomes, Appendix E: Definitions of Base

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 report presents findings on American Apprenticeship Initiative (AAI) grantee program operations from fall 2017 (approximately two years into the grant when data were first available) through summer 2021, when most grantees had concluded their grant activities and others were close to finishing. The report documents the degree to which grantees collectively met their apprenticeship program registration targets, their apprentice registration targets, and their pre-apprentice program implementation and enrollment targets. It also describes variation on these among grantees.

In 2019, the Chief Evaluation Office (CEO) partnered with the Employment and Training Administration, Office of Unemployment Insurance (OUI) to conduct the Behavioral Interventions to Improve Work Search Among Unemployment Insurance Claimants project. The unemployment insurance (UI) program requires claimants to be actively looking for work while they receive benefits to encourage a rapid return to work.

In 2016, the Chief Evaluation Office (CEO) partnered with the Employment and Training Administration (ETA) and funded contractor Abt Associates to conduct the Evaluation of the Cascades Job Corps College and Career Academy (CCCA) Pilot. The program evaluation aims to document the implementation and assess the impact of the CCCA pilot program.

The brief is based on lessons from an evaluation: a randomized controlled trial (RCT) of a small subset of the 53 TechHire and Strengthening Working Families Initiative (SWFI) programs—three TechHire programs and two SWFI programs—that explored the implementation and short-term impacts of TechHire and SWFI. In particular, this brief focuses on findings from the implementation analysis that was part of the RCT; data sources for the implementation analysis included observations of TechHire and SWFI programs, interviews with staff members, and a review of program participation data.