Work Advancement and Support Center Demonstration

Project

Overview

STATUS: Current

Basics

Issue: Work and Income Security

Focus Area: Work Supports and Asset-Building, Job Retention and Advancement

Population: Low-Income Populations

Focus Population: Low-Wage Workers

Locations: California, Connecticut, Ohio, Texas

Intervention: Benefits Planning, Case Management, Counseling/Advising, Employment Services, Financial Incentives, Job Training, Reemployment Programs, Sectoral Training

Project Overview

The wages and earnings of low-income workers have been stagnant or declining in real terms for approximately 35 years. Nationwide, the labor market-driven growth of the low-wage workforce has become a major issue for both the business community and the public. Low-wage workers represent a significant segment of the nation’s workforce: According to the Bureau of Labor Statistics, a quarter of the nation’s labor force earns $11.17 or less per hour. From both employers’ and employees’ perspectives, the rate of job loss and job turnover among low-wage workers — and the associated personal, family, and business costs — are high. At the same time, the rate of advancement of low-wage workers into better-paying jobs is low, and many of those who “play by the rules” — by working full-time, year-round — cannot support a family. Research evidence shows that work supports — which include child care subsidies, public health insurance, the Earned Income Tax Credit, food stamps, and other related programs — can substantially boost income and improve family well-being, both while low-wage workers are employed and during periods of unemployment.

With a renewed national commitment to supporting low-income workers and the unemployed within the context of a deep recession, the efforts of public, nonprofit, and other social service agencies to assist low-income families in accessing work supports need to be as effective as possible.

FEATURED CONTENT

Report

Strategies to Help Low-Wage Workers Advance

Implementation and Final Impacts of the Work Advancement and Support Center (WASC) Demonstration
WASC sought to increase the incomes of low-wage workers by stabilizing employment, improving skills, increasing earnings, and easing access to work supports. The program increased workers’ receipt of work supports. In the two sites that eased access to funds for training, WASC increased the receipt of certificates and licenses and increased earnings in the third year.
- Overview
- Full PDF
Report

Career Advancement and Work Support Services on the Job

Implementing the Fort Worth Work Advancement and Support Center Program
This report examines the design and operation of a program called Project Earn, in Fort Worth, Texas, one of four sites in MDRC’s Work Advancement and Support Center demonstration. The program combined two types of income-building services for low-wage workers — skills training and connection to work supports, such as food stamps, child care subsidies, and tax credits — and delivered them in workplaces in collaboration with employers.
- Overview
- Full PDF
Brief

Helping Low-Wage Workers Access Work Supports

Lessons for Practitioners
This 12-page brief distills practical implementation lessons from four programs that help low-wage workers access and retain child care subsidies, public health insurance, the Earned Income Tax Credit, food stamps, and other related government benefits.
- Overview
- Full PDF

Agenda, Scope, <br> & Goals

Agenda, Scope, and Goals

The Work Advancement and Support Center (WASC) Demonstration was designed to build the capacity of the workforce and welfare systems to provide employment retention and advancement services, and the full package of financial work supports, to low-wage workers and low-income, reemployed dislocated workers. Sites in the demonstration created WASC units of colocated workforce and welfare staff, who were housed in One-Stop Career Centers created by the Workforce Investment Act of 1998. They also simplified the application procedures for financial work supports and made it easier for working people to gain access to them. In addition to these innovations, the sites built new linkages with employers in order to develop and deliver career advancement services — and work supports — directly at the work site.

MDRC, which provided the sites with technical assistance to help them build strong programs, is also conducting a rigorous evaluation to assess WASC program operations and the impact of program services on job retention, wage progression and career advancement, and family income and poverty. This knowledge-development agenda, together with the institutional change in the workforce and welfare systems, was the key motivating force behind the support that the U.S. Departments of Labor and Health and Human Services and the Ford, Rockefeller, and Robert Wood Johnson foundations provided to MDRC for this project.

Design, Sites, & <br> Data Sources

Design, Sites, and Data Sources

The decision to build the demonstration within the One-Stop system, rather than in welfare or other agencies, was based in part on the view that retention and advancement services should become an integral part of the workforce system. It also recognized that many people who are eligible for work supports are employed and have no relationship to the welfare system — but many work supports are still administered through welfare agencies. This led to agreement that the One-Stop system is the most promising institution in which to locate (and build) both job retention and advancement services and access to work supports for low-wage workers.

In each of the three full demonstration sites, Workforce Investment Act staff, focused on retention and advancement services, working closely with welfare staff, who were relocated into a single unit and who administered work supports for WASC participants. At these sites, between 700 and 1,200 eligible workers were randomly assigned either to the program group (50 percent) or the control group (50 percent). Those in the control group continued to be eligible for any existing services that they were previously eligible to receive at the One-Stop and elsewhere (but not for the services provided by the new WASC unit). The WASC retention and advancement services aimed to move low-wage and employed dislocated workers into better-paying jobs; to help employers to reduce job turnover and related costs and to have trained employees for second- and third-level job openings; and to simplify access to work supports through the One-Stops. The Department of Agriculture’s Food and Nutrition Service provided a waiver to two demonstration sites, to encourage states and localities to experiment with simplification of the food stamp program rules (and the research will measure the effects of this simplification).

In early 2005, Montgomery County (Dayton), OH, and San Diego County (Chula Vista), CA, launched pilot WASC services. Full implementation began in fall 2005. A third site, Bridgeport, CT, launched its program in spring of 2006. In addition, a fourth site in Tarrant County (Fort Worth) was selected for an implementation study because it offered the promising innovation of delivering WASC services entirely at employee work sites, with the cooperation of participating employers.

The research has two main components: (1) an implementation analysis to assess how the sites operate the program in the “real world,” adapting it to their differing local circumstances, and (2) an impact analysis of the program’s effects on participants’ labor market outcomes and income, based on a random assignment research design. Data sources for the study include individual participant background and follow-up surveys; administrative records on earnings and work supports; interviews and focus groups with WASC staff, participants, and their employers; case file reviews; and program observations.

Together, the implementation and impact research strands allow the study to answer such questions as: Can the WASC approach be operated on a large scale and in diverse localities? Does it increase participants’ acquisition of the skills needed in high-demand occupations? Does it reduce participants’ job turnover and increase their employment retention? Does it enable participants to find better-paying jobs with advancement opportunities? Does it increase low-income workers’ receipt of financial work supports? And does it enable workers receiving work supports to advance to better-paying positions that make those supports unnecessary? What is the potential role of employers in connecting their entry-level and lower-wage workers to work supports and skill-building opportunities?

The first major report from the project describes the rationale behind the program intervention, the program’s goals and strategies, and the early planning challenges encountered, and choices made, by the first two sites selected for the demonstration — Dayton and San Diego. The second report explores how WASC career coaches help low-wage workers understand the complex interactions between earnings and eligibility for work support programs and guide them to make the best advancement decisions possible. The third report, released in June 2009, offers impact findings from the first year of implementation at two sites: Dayton and San Diego. The fourth report, released in October 2010, describes the food stamp quality control study that was conducted as part of the demonstration and at the request of the Department of Agriculture Food and Nutrition Service in two of the sites (Dayton, OH, and San Diego, CA).The fifth report, released in April 2011, describes implementation findings from the WASC program in Fort Worth, Texas.

Funders & <br />Partners

Funders

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 has over 20 years of experience providing technical and operational assistance to workforce development service providers.
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Cynthia Miller
Senior Associate, Low-Wage Workers and Communities Policy Area
Miller is an economist whose current work focuses on policies and programs to increase the employment and earnings of low-wage workers and disadvantaged youth.
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David Navarro
Research Associate, Low-Wage Workers and Communities Policy Area
Navarro, a Research Associate in MDRC’s California office, has 26 years of experience as an information services and operations liaison for 35 sites, covering 17 evaluations and demonstrations of innovative programs to help low-income people become self-sufficient.
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James A. Riccio
Director, Low-Wage Workers and Communities Policy Area
Riccio is Director of the Low-Wage Workers and Communities policy area at MDRC. He specializes in evaluations of programs to improve labor market and quality-of-life outcomes for low-income populations.
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Caroline Schultz
Research Associate,
Schultz manages MDRC’s work on two projects that are testing approaches to increase financial assets held by low-wage workers: AutoSave, a workplace-based savings plan that automatically diverts a small portion of post-tax earnings into accessible savings to cover short-term expenses, and SaveUSA
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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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Mark van Dok
Research Associate,
Van Dok is principal data manager for the Work Advancement and Support Center Demonstration, a multisite test of programs designed to promote employment stability and wage progression among low-wage workers and reemployed dislocated workers who are relatively low-income.
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Nandita Verma
Senior Associate, Low-Wage Workers and Communities Policy Area
Since joining MDRC in 1996, Verma has been involved with the design, analysis, and management of a wide range of evaluation projects.
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Anne Warren
Research Associate,
Warren has several years of experience processing and analyzing quantitative data from programs focused on health care and employment.
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