WIA Adult and Dislocated Worker Programs Gold Standard Evaluation

Project

Overview

STATUS: Current

Basics

Issue: Work and Income Security

Focus Area: Job Retention and Advancement

Population: Low-Income Populations

Focus Population: Low-Wage Workers, The Unemployed

Locations: California, Florida, Georgia, Illinois, Indiana, Kentucky, Louisiana, Michigan, Mississippi, Missouri, Nevada, New Jersey, New York, Ohio, Pennsylvania, South Carolina, South Dakota, Tennessee, Texas, Washington, Wisconsin

Intervention: Employment Services, Job Training, Reemployment Programs, Sectoral Training

Project Overview

The Workforce Investment Act of 1998 (WIA) is the federal government’s largest source of federally funded employment services and training. WIA is the latest in a series of federal employment and training programs, the first having arisen in response to the Great Depression. WIA aims to bring formerly fragmented public and private reemployment, make them accessible to a wider population, provide customers with greater ability to choose from among services, and establish local workforce investment boards to provide input and oversight to local WIA programs and services. It provides a variety of services at local facilities to those who are unemployed and for those who are underemployed and interested in creating new opportunities for themselves. Specifically, the WIA Adult and Dislocated Worker Programs provide three different levels of services: core services, intensive services, and training services.

WIA provides $3 billion annually for employment and training services for over two million people, including adults, dislocated workers, and youth. Policymakers are interested in learning if WIA-funded Adult and Dislocated Worker Programs’ intensive services and training are as effective as they can be. The recent recession and high unemployment rate serve as reminders of the importance of ensuring that the employment and training services provided to people who are out of work and desiring to transition to new employment are as effective and efficient as possible. This evaluation of WIA will give policymakers a better understanding of how the program can best serve those who require or request its services.

Agenda, Scope, <br> & Goals

Agenda, Scope, and Goals

The WIA Adult and Dislocated Worker Programs Gold Standard Evaluation is an experimental research study. MDRC is collaborating in the study with Mathematica Policy Research, which is the primary and lead organization on the project. The other evaluation partners include Social Policy Research Associates and The Corporation for a Skilled Workforce.

Under the guidance of DOL, the study will conduct a rigorous evaluation of the WIA-funded Adult and Dislocated Worker Programs and their services to determine the impact they have on individuals who take them up. The major goal of the evaluation is to provide insight on the effectiveness of these services and the WIA Adult and Dislocated Worker Programs in general. Toward this end, the evaluation will involve randomly selecting 30 study sites and, within those sites, randomly assigning about 68,500 customers to treatment and control groups.

The study’s research questions are:

How do the WIA-funded intensive services affect customers’ employment rates, earnings, and other related outcomes?
How does WIA-funded training affect customers’ employment rates, earnings, and other related outcomes?
What is the effect of these services on subgroups of customers defined by customer and program characteristics?
How are these services implemented, and how do differences in implementation affect customers’ employment, earnings, and related outcomes?
Are the benefits of these services measured in dollars greater than their costs?

In conjunction with the partners, MDRC is executing the recruitment of participating local workforce investment areas (LWIAs), monitoring the random assignment of individuals at the LWIAs, and conducting implementation research. The implementation analysis, which will describe how the WIA program is run across local sites, will focus on the availability, content, and intensity of WIA core, intensive, and training services, as well as on non-WIA services that each group might access.

Design, Sites, & <br> Data Sources

Design, Sites, and Data Sources

The study will use an experimental research design. Each of the 30 LWIAs has been randomly selected based upon certain criteria that assure necessary regional representation across the nation. All eligible customers who request intensive services from the participating sites will then be randomly assigned into one of three groups: (1) all WIA services, (2) core and intensive services but not training, and (3) core services only. The largest percent of WIA-eligible adults and dislocated workers will be in the first group and will be able to access the complement of WIA services for which they are eligible, namely core, intensive, and training. Because each group is distinguished by its access to particular WIA-funded services, this random assignment design will allow the study to estimate the added value of intensive services over core-only services, as well as the added value of training services over intensive or core-only services, by comparing the outcomes of the three different groups.

The 30 LWIAs will undergo staff training and will receive technical support from the study team to minimize disruptions to its normal operations.

Detailed information will be collected on the implementation of WIA intensive and training services through interviews with program staff. Two rounds of site visits to all 30 LWIAs in the study will provide information on the implementation and costs of WIA.

Data on sample members will be collected for the evaluation from four sources:

All sample members will complete a baseline information form prior to random assignment.
Information on the services received by customers will be collected from state WIA agencies.
Data on quarterly employment and earnings and unemployment insurance claims will be collected for all sample members from the state unemployment insurance agencies.
Two follow-up telephone surveys will collect information from a subset of participants on education and training receipt, employment and earnings, receipt of public assistance, household income, and receipt of services not funded by WIA.

Funders & <br />Partners

Funders

U.S. Department of Labor

Partners

MDRC Staff

Frieda Molina
Project Director
Deputy Director, Low-Wage Workers and Communities Policy Area
Frieda Molina is the Deputy Director of the Low-Wage Workers and Communities Policy Area at MDRC. She brings over 20 years of experience providing technical and operational assistance to workforce development service providers.
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Nadine Dechausay
Research Associate, Low-Wage Workers and Communities Policy Area
Dechausay has worked for MDRC for four years as an implementation researcher. Her work has revolved primarily around the evaluation of conditional cash transfer programs — Opportunity NYC: Family Rewards and the Social Innovation Fund’s replication of Family Rewards in Memphis and New York City.
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Vanessa Martin
Senior Associate, Health and Barriers to Employment
Martin has over ten years of experience in the social and education policy research field, focusing primarily on employment, training, and postsecondary education for low-income individuals. She is currently responsible for project development and management as well as site recruitment.
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David Navarro
Research Associate,
Navarro, a Research Associate in MDRC’s California office, possesses 25 years of experience as an information services and operations liaison for 31 sites, covering 15 evaluations and demonstrations of innovative programs to help low-income people become self-sufficient.
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Betsy L. Tessler
Research Associate, Low-Wage Workers and Communities Policy Area
Tessler has more than 10 years of experience with operations and implementation research at MDRC, focusing primarily on employment, training, and work support take-up among low-wage workers.
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Donna Wharton-Fields
Senior Associate, Low-Wage Workers and Communities Policy Area
Wharton-Fields, a Senior Operations Associate, has more than 15 years of experience in community development and urban planning. Her current work is focused on the Opportunity NYC project, a new demonstration program designed to reduce inter-generational poverty in New York City.
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