Jobs-Plus Programs Increased Earnings for Public Housing Residents

To promote self-sufficiency among public housing residents, the Jobs-Plus Community Revitalization Initiative for Public Housing Families (Jobs-Plus, for short) delivered three types of assistance in difficult public housing developments in six cities: employment-related services, rent breaks as an incentive to work and earn more, and the promotion of social ties among residents to create community support for work.

MDRC found that Jobs-Plus markedly increased residents’ earnings at the sites where the program was implemented well, boosting earnings by 14 percent or $4,564 over what they would have been without the program during the last four years of the study (see the figure above). Men as well as women and both immigrants and native-born residents showed large earnings gains. The earnings effects of the program are especially impressive for at least three reasons: (1) they occurred in high-poverty public housing environments, where living conditions are often difficult and where few employment programs have been tested; (2) the effects were particularly striking for men, a group for whom past employment programs have had mixed success; and (3) they occurred in both good and bad economic times.

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