Webinar on MDRC Research on Low-Wage Workers Now Available for Free Download from U.S. Department of Labor
In September 2007, the U.S. Department of Labor’s Employment and Training Administration hosted a Webinar entitled “Improving Labor Market Success for Low-Wage Workers: MDRC’s Research on Job Retention and Advancement Programs, Education Interventions, and Transitional Jobs Programs.” More than 250 registrants participated.
A recorded version of the Webinar is now available for free download. The accompanying PowerPoint is also available separately. (Both require free registration.)
The presenters and moderator of the Webinar are:
Presenters:
- Dan Bloom, Director, MDRC, Welfare and Barriers to Employment Policy Area
- Rob Ivry, Senior Vice President, MDRC
- Frieda Molina, Senior Associate, MDRC, Low-Wage Workers and Communities Policy Area
- Regina Peruggi, President, Kingsborough Community College, Brooklyn, NY
- Susan Scrivener, Senior Associate, Young Adults and Post-Secondary Education Policy Area
Moderator:
- Maria K. Flynn, Administrator, Office of Policy Development and Research, Employment and Training Administration
The Webinar highlights research that MDRC is conducting, with support from the Employment and Training Administration, on programs serving low-wage workers, low-income students, and ex-prisoners returning to society. The Employment Retention and Advancement (ERA) and Work Advancement and Support Center (WASC) Demonstrations focus on improving job retention and advancement for low-wage workers, from current and former welfare recipients to dislocated workers. Interim findings on several promising approaches tested in the ERA study are highlighted. MDRC describes how the WASC demonstration is engaging the Workforce Investment Act’s One-Stop Career Centers, other workforce organizations, and employers to provide a full range of job retention and advancement services and financial supports to low-wage workers. MDRC also profiles innovative employment programs for ex-prisoners in New York City and four Midwestern cities.
In education, MDRC focuses on findings from its long-term evaluation of Career Academy high schools, which combine small learning communities with career-oriented curricula and with work experience, and on how practitioners are using the research to improve their programs. Finally, the Webinar provides early findings from MDRC's Opening Doors demonstration, which is testing, at six community colleges, the effects of enhanced student services, instructional reforms, and performance-based scholarships on student grades, retention, graduation, and labor market outcomes. The president of one of these institutions, Kingsborough Community College, explains how they are building on the results of the study to expand learning communities programs for incoming freshmen.
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