About MDRC
Bloom directs MDRC’s Policy, Research, and Evaluation Department, which houses the organization’s research and technical assistance activities. He previously directed the Youth Development, Criminal Justice, and Employment Policy Area, where his work focused on groups seeking to gain a foothold in the labor market, including former prisoners, disconnected young adults, low-income noncustodial parents (usually fathers), welfare recipients, individuals with disabilities, and others. He is currently directing the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services’ Building Evidence on Employment Strategies for Low-Income Families (BEES) project and the Subsidized and Transitional Employment Demonstration, which is testing innovative subsidized employment models. Previous projects include the National Guard Youth ChalleNGe evaluation and evaluations of three state welfare reform initiatives in the 1990s. Since joining MDRC in 1988, Bloom has coauthored more than 50 research reports and contributed articles to several published volumes on workforce and youth policy. Bloom previously worked for America Works, a for-profit company that operates job-placement programs for welfare recipients, and for the Center on Budget and Policy Priorities, a Washington, DC-based policy analysis group. He has a master’s degree in public policy from the John F. Kennedy School of Government at Harvard University.
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MDRC Publications
CommentaryJune, 2023MDRC Senior Vice President Dan Bloom reviews what MDRC’s evaluations of welfare-to-work programs say—and don’t say—about the effectiveness of work requirements and discusses the applicability of these findings to other public benefits programs.
Issue FocusMay, 2021The pandemic has been especially hard on recent high school graduates. MDRC is partnering with several cities to connect 2020 and 2021 graduates to high-quality programs and coaching and counseling resources that can guide them to educational and workforce opportunities that match their interests.
Issue FocusNovember, 2020In this commentary originally published in Government Executive, MDRC Senior Vice President Dan Bloom argues that the COVID-19 pandemic has demonstrated that it’s important for decisionmakers to make bold policy reforms and to build evidence for future action at the same time.
ReportNext Steps for Research
June, 2020The paper summarizes past and ongoing research, identifies gaps in knowledge, and presents four categories of potential questions to help define future research in employment and training programs serving low-income people.
Issue FocusThe Critical Role of Nonprofits, Public Agencies, and Social Enterprises
April, 2020The surging unemployment rate brought on by the COVID-19 pandemic is likely to remain unusually high for many months. The findings from two large-scale studies suggest that public/nonprofit employers are much more likely to hire disadvantaged workers whose wages are subsidized than are private, for-profit employers.
ReportA Synthesis of Findings from Evaluations of 13 Programs
February, 2020In 2010, the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services and the U.S. Department of Labor launched complementary large-scale research projects on the effectiveness of the latest generation of subsidized employment models. This report summarizes findings from the studies and discusses the implications for practitioners, policymakers, and researchers.
Issue FocusSuccessful Collaborations That Improve Outcomes in Prisoner Reentry and Child Support
January, 2019In this article originally published in Policy & Practice magazine, MDRC’s Dan Bloom and Cindy Redcross offer lessons from successful collaborations to improve employment and other outcomes for reentering prisoners and noncustodial parents.
BriefFindings from Three New Studies of Youth Employment Programs
November, 2018Over four million young people in the United States are “disconnected,” meaning they are not in school and are not working. In the past few months, studies of three programs aimed at such young people have released new findings. This brief discusses these findings and their implications.
MethodologyNovember, 2018The new book Randomistas describes how randomized controlled trials (RCTs) have revolutionized many fields. RCTs are a uniquely powerful tool, but they are not the only way to build knowledge about effective programs for low-income people.
ReportFinal Impacts of the Next Generation of Subsidized Employment Programs
May, 2018“Transitional jobs” are temporary, subsidized jobs meant to teach participants basic work skills or help them get started with an employer. The Enhanced Transitional Jobs Demonstration tested seven such programs for people recently released from prison or low-income parents behind on child support. This report presents the final impact results.
Issue FocusImproving Outcomes for Clients While Helping Systems Further Their Missions
April, 2017This issue focus describes how MDRC is helping administrators in criminal justice and child support enforcement test innovative reforms to improve the way their systems interact with low-income people, particularly men of color.
ReportThe Enhanced Transitional Jobs Demonstration
November, 2016This demonstration is testing seven enhanced transitional jobs programs that offer temporary, subsidized jobs and comprehensive support to people recently released from prison and unemployed parents behind in child support payments.
Issue FocusOctober, 2016In this essay, originally published in Spotlight on Poverty and Opportunity, Dan Bloom reviews what research says about subsidized jobs programs – and how they can be a strategy both for tough economic times and for the hard-to-employ in better labor markets.
ReportAn Evaluation of SEED DC
June, 2016The nation’s first public, urban, college-prep boarding school emphasizes academic excellence and personal development. A six-year evaluation using SEED’s admission lotteries found that SEED DC raised lottery winners’ test scores but did not increase the on-time graduation rate or reduce teen pregnancy or involvement in the criminal justice system.
ReportAn Introduction to the Subsidized and Transitional Employment Demonstration and the Enhanced Transitional Jobs Demonstration
May, 2015Targeting “hard to employ” groups, transitional jobs programs use a range of approaches. Some place participants into fully subsidized, temporary jobs to gain work experience; others place recruits into permanent positions with a temporary wage subsidy; and others combine methods. This report introduces the evaluation of 13 distinct programs.
ReportEvidence on Improving Employment Outcomes for Disadvantaged Youth in the United States
February, 2015The Great Recession took a toll on the already dim economic prospects of low-income 16- to 24-year-olds who face structural barriers to employment. Evidence indicates that involvement of employers in devising education, training, and work experiences that meet labor market demands should be a key component of any policy response.
TestimonyPresented Before the U.S. House Committee on Ways and Means, Human Resources Subcommittee
July, 2014On July 30, 2014, MDRC’s Dan Bloom testified before the House Ways and Means Subcommittee on Human Resources on what research says about the effectiveness of subsidized employment programs in promoting work, reducing poverty, and improving other important outcomes.
ReportJune, 2014This report, published by the Fatherhood Research and Practice Network, offers a set of recommendations about how to build knowledge on effective programs and policies to improve the economic condition of disadvantaged fathers.
ReportEvidence from Promising Programs
June, 2014A review of high-quality studies, this paper highlights interventions — in education, employment and training, and second-chance programs — that have demonstrated positive results for young men of color. It comes as policymakers and philanthropies focus new attention on investing more to build opportunities for these young men.
BriefA New Antipoverty Strategy for Single Adults
May, 2014This 12-page brief describes a pathbreaking demonstration project testing an enhanced Earned Income Tax Credit for low-income single adults without dependent children in New York City. Paycheck Plus aims to improve participants’ economic well-being while promoting employment and other positive outcomes.
BriefApril, 2013This article, first published in Community Development Investment Review, proposes a vision of a social impact bond model that moves beyond just achieving cost-savings to spurring innovation, knowledge-building, rigorous evaluation, and, potentially, outcomes that achieve other socially desirable goals.
ReportFinal Results of the Hard-to-Employ Demonstration and Evaluation Project and Selected Sites from the Employment Retention and Advancement Project
May, 2012ReportFinal Results from a Test of Transitional Jobs and Preemployment Services in Philadelphia
December, 2011An evaluation of two different welfare-to-work strategies for long-term welfare recipients finds that: (1) transitional jobs substantially increased employment in the short term, but these effects faded after one year, and (2) it is difficult to engage welfare recipients in extensive preemployment services long enough to improve their employability.
ReportA Review of State Employment Programs Created Through the TANF Emergency Fund
December, 2011In 2009-2010, states placed more than 250,000 people in subsidized jobs using the Temporary Assistance for Needy Families (TANF) Emergency Fund established by the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act. This report reviews the experience of the largest subsidized employment initiative in the country since the 1970s.
BriefAugust, 2011This policy brief, developed by the Urban Institute for the federal Administration for Children and Families, examines what is known about welfare recipients with serious barriers to work, what states are doing to serve them, and what research says about which interventions are most effective.
ReportThree-Year Results of the National Guard Youth ChalleNGe Evaluation
June, 2011After three years, participants in National Guard Youth ChalleNGe, an intensive, “quasi-military” residential program for high school dropouts, are more likely than their control group counterparts to have obtained a GED or high school diploma, to have earned college credits, and to be working. Their earnings are also 20 percent higher.
ReportOne-Year Findings from the Transitional Jobs Reentry Demonstration
October, 2010The Transitional Jobs Reentry Demonstration is testing a program that provides temporary subsidized jobs, support services, and job placement help to former prisoners in four midwestern cities. This report describes how the demonstration was implemented and assesses how the transitional jobs programs affected employment and recidivism during the first year after people entered the project.
ReportInterim Results of the National Guard Youth ChalleNGe Evaluation
May, 2010Interim results from a random assignment evaluation of the National Guard Youth ChalleNGe Program, an intensive, residential program for high school dropouts, show that young people who had access to ChalleNGe were much more likely than those in the control group to have obtained a high school diploma or a General Educational Development certificate. They were also somewhat more likely to be working, in college, or enlisted in the military.
ReportMarch, 2010Built on a research review and consultation with youth policy experts, this paper makes the case for developing a menu of approaches for the heterogeneous population of disconnected youth, building knowledge about mature programs (to better understand whether they work, for whom, and why), and creating new programs that address areas of unmet need. This framework may be particularly relevant for the Administration’s newly proposed Youth Innovation Fund.
ReportBackground, Program Models, and Evaluation Evidence
February, 2010Transitional jobs programs provide temporary, wage-paying jobs and other services to help individuals who have difficulty succeeding in the regular labor market. In the context of a new federal initiative to support and study these programs, this paper describes what is known about transitional jobs and offers ideas for program design and research.
ReportTesting Transitional Jobs and Pre-Employment Services in Philadelphia
October, 2009Interim results from an evaluation of two different welfare-to-work strategies for long-term welfare recipients show that transitional jobs increase employment and earnings but that it is difficult to successfully engage participants in extensive pre-employment services.
ReportImplementation, Two-Year Impacts, and Costs of the Center for Employment Opportunities (CEO) Prisoner Reentry Program
August, 2009A random assignment study shows that participants in CEO’s transitional jobs program were less likely to be convicted of a crime, to be admitted to prison for a new conviction, or to be incarcerated for any reason in prison or jail over the first two years. The program also had a large but short-lived impact on employment.
ReportTesting Strategies to Help Former Prisoners Find and Keep Jobs and Stay Out of Prison
July, 2009Each year, almost 700,000 people are released from state prisons, and many struggle to find jobs and integrate successfully into society. This policy brief describes an innovative demonstration of transitional jobs programs for former prisoners in Chicago, Detroit, Milwaukee, and St. Paul being conducted by MDRC.
ReportThe Employment Retention and Advancement Project
March, 2009Participants in an intensive care management program for public assistance recipients with substance abuse problems were slightly more likely to enroll in treatment than participants in less intensive services. However, the intensive program had no effects on employment or public benefit receipt among the full sample.
ReportEarly Results of the National Guard Youth ChalleNGe Program Evaluation
February, 2009Very early results from a random assignment evaluation of the National Guard Youth ChalleNGe Program, an intensive, “quasi-military” residential program for high school dropouts, show that the program has large impacts on high school diploma and GED attainment and positive effects on working, college-going, health, self-efficacy, and avoiding arrest.
ReportApril, 2008One of the most controversial features of the 1990s welfare reforms was the imposition of time limits on benefit receipt. This comprehensive review, written by The Lewin Group and MDRC, includes analyses of administrative data reported by states to the federal government, visits to several states, and a literature review.
ReportTwo-Year Effects of a Freshmen Learning Community Program at Kingsborough Community College
March, 2008Freshmen in a “learning community” at Kingsborough Community College in Brooklyn, NY, moved more quickly through developmental English requirements, took and passed more courses, and earned more credits in their first semester than students in a control group. Two years later, they were also somewhat more likely to be enrolled in college.
Working PaperNovember, 2007After one year, CEO’s transitional jobs program generated a large but short-lived increase in employment for ex-prisoners. A subgroup of recently released prisoners showed positive effects on recidivism: They were less likely to have their parole revoked, to be convicted of a felony, and to be reincarcerated than the control group.
ReportAn Introduction to the Enhanced Services for the Hard-to-Employ Demonstration and Evaluation Project
October, 2007This demonstration is evaluating four diverse strategies designed to improve employment and other outcomes for low-income parents and others who face serious barriers to employment.
ReportThe Employment Retention and Advancement Project
July, 2007A random assignment study of a welfare-to-work program for recipients with work-limiting medical and mental health conditions shows that participants had increased employment and decreased welfare payments.
ReportOctober, 2006An evaluation of a retention and advancement program for recently employed welfare recipients shows modest increases in employment and large reductions in welfare receipt during the first two years of follow-up.
ReportWhat Have We Learned, What Are We Learning, and Where Should We Go from Here?
July, 2006Each year, the more than 600,000 people released from prison face numerous obstacles to successful reentry into society, starting with the challenge of finding stable work. What does existing research say about the effectiveness of work-focused programs for ex-prisoners?
ReportEarly Results from the Opening Doors Demonstration at Kingsborough Community College
June, 2005Opening Doors Learning Communities, a program serving mostly low-income freshmen at Kingsborough Community College in Brooklyn, NY, improved course and test pass rates, particularly in English.
ReportJune, 2005Early results are mixed for Employment Retention and Advancement project programs in four sites, but programs in two sites appear to help some welfare recipients work more steadily and advance to higher-paying jobs.
ReportFinal Report on Connecticut’s Welfare Reform Initiative
February, 2002ReportAn Introduction to the Employment Retention and Advancement Project
February, 2002Welfare reform has resulted in millions of low-income parents replacing the receipt of public cash assistance with income from employment. But what strategies will help the new workforce entrants find more stable jobs, advance in the labor market, and achieve long-term self-sufficiency? The Employment Retention and Advancement (ERA) evaluation is a comprehensive effort to explore this urgent public policy question.
ReportA Synthesis of Research
May, 2001ReportFinal Report on Florida’s Initial Time-Limited Welfare Program
December, 2000ReportKey Findings from the Forty-Two-Month Client Survey
June, 2000Working PaperSix-Month Survey Results
January, 1999Working PaperSeptember, 1998ReportConnecticut’s Welfare’s Reform Initiative
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Other Publications
Bloom, Dan, and David Butler. 2007. “Overcoming Employment Barriers: Strategies to Help the Hard-to-Employ.” In Harry Holzer and Demetra Nightingale (eds.), Reshaping the American Workforce in a Changing Economy. Washington, DC: Urban Institute Press.
Bloom, Dan. 2010. “Programs and Policies to Assist High School Dropouts in the Transition to Adulthood.” The Future of Children 20, 1: 89-108.
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Projects
MDRC is leading an evaluation of JPM organ Chase’s Summer Youth Employment Program, a national program that aims to help economically disadvantaged and out-of-school youth enter the labor market and pursue economic mobility. MDRC will conduct semi-structured interviews with program staff at 27 grantee sites and collect aggregate-level program data from each site....
The Center for Employment Opportunities ( CEO ), which provides subsidized employment and other services to individuals who have recently returned home from incarceration, launched the Returning Citizens Stimulus ( RCS ) program in April 2020 in response to the COVID -19 pandemic. It provided three monthly cash transfers to people who were recently released from...
Megan Millenky, Dan Bloom, Susan Scrivener, Charles Michalopoulos, Dina A. R. Israel, Johanna Walter, Lauren Cates, Sally Dai, Caroline Mage, Emily Marano, Viktoriya Syrov, Douglas Phillips, Kyla Wasserman, Lily Freedman, Osvaldo Avila, Emily Brennan, Jillian Verrillo, Gilda Azurdia, Frieda Molina, Shelley Rappaport, Clinton Key, Nandita Verma, Cynthia Miller, Jared Smith, Shawna Anderson, Kelsey Schaberg, Caitlin Anzelone, James A. Riccio, Keri West, Caroline Schultz, Ethan Feldman, Gabriel WeinbergerMany Americans struggle in the labor market even when overall economic conditions are good. Unemployment is persistently high for some demographic groups and in certain geographic areas, and a large proportion of working-age adults — about two in five in 2019 — tend to be out of the labor force. Factors such as systemic racism embedded in the economy and...
Melanie Skemer, Dan Bloom, Dina A. R. Israel, Louisa Treskon, Douglas Phillips, Rebecca Behrmann, Caroline Mage, Jennifer (Jenny) Hausler, Yana Kusayeva, Cassandra T-Pederson, Jayce Helpley, Anna KylerThe Office of Child Support Enforcement launched the Procedural Justice-Informed Alternatives to Contempt ( PJAC ) demonstration to test the efficacy of incorporating procedural justice principles into child support practices as a cost-effective alternative to contempt. In this context, contempt is a legal action involving the use of civil court proceedings against...
More than one-third of all children under 18 — about 24 million children — live in single-parent families, the vast majority headed by single mothers. Although there have been improvements (such as automatic deductions from paychecks) in collecting and distributing child support from noncustodial parents (those who do not have physical custody of their children), more...
Caitlin Anzelone, Emily Marano, Dan Bloom, Jean Grossman, John Hutchins, Jared Smith, Frieda Molina, Clinton Key, Sophia Sutcliffe, Jessica Kopsic, Rebecca Schwartz, Sophia Sutcliffe, Faith Lewis, Mary BambinoThe goal of human services programs is to help individuals and families meet critical needs and improve their well-being. But many of these programs require participants to navigate complicated processes—involving many decisions and actions—to receive resources and services. Behavioral science research generates insights about human behavior, including how and why...
Behavioral science sheds light on human decision-making and behavior to better understand why people make the choices that they do. Designers of social services often expect that clients will understand their many choices and obligations, respond appropriately to notices, recognize the benefits of supportive services, and diligently follow through. When these...
Dina A. R. Israel, Michelle S. Manno, Dan Bloom, JoAnn Hsueh, Charles Michalopoulos, Virginia Knox, Erika Lundquist, Electra Small, Rebecca Behrmann, Samantha Wulfsohn, Douglas Phillips, Patrizia Mancini, Emily Brennan, Jillian Verrillo, Kureem NugentFathers play a unique role in their children’s lives and development, but some fathers face personal or societal barriers to positive involvement with their children — such as low levels of education, stigma from criminal records, declining wages for low-skilled men, or family instability. Responsible Fatherhood programs aim to improve the well-being of low-income...
This MDRC study assesses the academic and labor market impacts of New York City’s Summer Youth Employment Program ( SYEP ), the nation’s largest summer jobs program for young people.
The federal government has greatly reduced its funding for summer job programs. These programs, however, have attracted increased attention in light of the unprecedented increase...
Dan Bloom, Louisa Treskon, Yana KusayevaSome 25 million working-age adults in the United States lack a high school diploma or equivalent, barring them from most colleges and many training programs. When high school dropouts seek to continue their education, it is typically via the General Educational Development ( GED ) exam, and although a GED certificate is not as helpful in the labor market as a high...
With 750,000 people released from prisons each year, there is a pressing need for rigorous evidence on the effectiveness of reentry strategies. Returning citizens face a range of challenges to successful reentry into the community, including low levels of employment and substance use problems, all of which impact recidivism rates. Although the issue of reentry among...
Cynthia Miller, Dan Bloom, Gilda Azurdia, Caroline Schultz, Nikki Ortolani, Edith Yang, Alexandra BernardiThe New York City Center for Economic Opportunity has selected MDRC and its partners to implement and evaluate a pilot program to simulate an expanded EITC in New York City for low-income single workers without dependent children, with the goal of increasing employment and earnings and reducing poverty.
Economic and labor-market changes over the past three decades have dramatically reduced the availability of well-paying jobs for workers without postsecondary education. And yet one in four high school freshmen do not graduate in four years, and many who do complete high school are poorly prepared for college. These trends are particularly pronounced in urban areas and...
A central challenge in welfare policy arises from the dual imperatives to promote self-sufficiency among welfare recipients and to protect vulnerable families from economic deprivation. In the late 1980s and throughout the 1990s, the U.S. moved to expand the services it offered recipients to help them prepare for and find work, while also expanding the mandates on...
About two-thirds of high school dropouts continue their education and obtain a high school credential within eight years of their scheduled graduation date. The majority obtain a General Educational Development ( GED ) certificate rather than a high school diploma. Unfortunately, labor market outcomes for GED holders are much worse than for high school graduates, and...
An estimated five million Americans between the ages of 16 and 24 are both out of school and unemployed. These youth are more likely than those who work or complete a degree to face long-term unemployment, permanent school dropout, welfare dependence, and criminal involvement and incarceration. The National Guard Youth ChalleNGe Program was developed in the early 1990s...
The more than 600,000 people who are released from prison each year face a range of obstacles to successful reentry into the community. Perhaps not surprisingly, outcomes are often poor: Two-thirds of those who are released from prison are rearrested and half are reincarcerated within three years. States and localities throughout the nation are searching for...
The number of people incarcerated in the U.S. has quadrupled since the 1970s. The more than 600,000 people who are released from prison each year face a range of obstacles to successful reentry into the community. Perhaps not surprisingly, outcomes are often poor: Two-thirds of those who are released from prison are rearrested and half are reincarcerated within three...
Cynthia Miller, Dan Bloom, Dina A. R. Israel, Michelle S. Manno, John Martinez, Megan Millenky, Louisa Treskon, Sally Dai, Caroline Mage, Sharon RowserMaking the successful transition to adulthood had become increasingly challenging for disadvantaged young people. Two changes in the labor market have contributed to this trend. First, the rise in demand for higher skilled workers, while increasing the payoff to college, has resulted in declining real wages for less-educated workers. On top of this, youth are finding...
Some adults have great difficulty finding and holding jobs even when overall economic conditions are good. These individuals typically have low levels of formal education and skills and other characteristics, such as criminal records, that place them at the back of the queue for job openings. Many programs have been developed to assist these job seekers, but few have...
Kate Gualtieri, Dan Bloom, Melissa Boynton, William Corrin, Fred Doolittle, John Martinez, Louisa Treskon, Jean Grossman, Leigh Parise, Marie-Andrée Somers, Michelle S. Manno, Rebecca Unterman, Megan Millenky, Rashida Welbeck, Mary BambinoThe Social Innovation Fund ( SIF ) , an initiative enacted under the Edward Kennedy Serve America Act, targets millions of dollars in public-private funds to expand effective solutions across three issue areas: economic opportunity, healthy futures, and youth development and school support.
Most of the children who are placed in out-of-home care through the child welfare system exit to a “permanent” placement with a family member, or they are adopted or placed with a legal guardian. However, more than 20,000 young people each year “age out” of care, usually when they reach age 18. Most of these young people entered foster care in their teens after having...
Dan Bloom, Richard Hendra, Melanie Skemer, David Navarro, Sally Dai, Kyla Wasserman, Jillian Verrillo, Chloe Anderson GolubOver the past 80 years, a variety of subsidized employment strategies have been used for two main purposes: (1) to provide work-based income support for people who are not able to find regular, unsubsidized jobs; and (2) to improve the employability of disadvantaged groups. Programs with the first goal have typically emerged during periods of sustained high...
Dan Bloom, Lauren Cates, JoAnn Hsueh, Dina A. R. Israel, Charles Michalopoulos, Johanna Walter, Sally Dai, Ximena PortillaFueled by a strong economy and passage of the 1996 federal welfare law, which imposed new work requirements and time limits on cash benefits, welfare caseloads declined precipitously during the 1990s. Between 1993 and 2000, the number of families on welfare dropped 56 percent nationally, with individual states experiencing reductions ranging from 20 percent to more...
Richard Hendra, Cynthia Miller, Susan Scrivener, Frieda Molina, David Navarro, Barbara S. Goldman, Dan Bloom, John Martinez, Mark van Dok, Erika Lundquist, Edith Yang, Alexandra PenningtonThe federal welfare overhaul of 1996 ushered in myriad policy changes aimed at getting low-income parents off public assistance and into employment. These changes — especially cash welfare’s transformation from an entitlement into a time-limited benefit contingent on work participation — have intensified the need to help low-income families become economically self-...