About MDRC
Since joining MDRC in December 2010, Olejniczak has led and supported the design, planning, and execution of implementation field research and technical assistance efforts supporting program operations and evaluations. He has worked on a range of employment, education and training, housing, and asset building projects. He is the operations and the implementation lead for the Cascades Job Corps College and Career Academy Pilot Evaluation and is also supporting field work on the Job Corps Evidence Building Portfolio Evaluation project. He is also currently providing technical assistance as part of the SNAP to Skills SNAP E&T Technical Assistance and Best Practices project, and conducting field research and providing technical assistance to housing authorities participating in the HUD Rent Reform demonstration, which alters the rent rules in the Housing Choice Voucher Program. He provided technical assistance and conducted field research for the SNAP Employment and Training Evaluation and provided technical assistance as an operations liaison for the MyGoals for Employment Success project, an innovative coaching program to help recipients of federal housing subsidies advance toward greater self-sufficiency. Previously he made significant technical assistance and field research contributions to the WorkAdvance program evaluation, the WIA Adult and Dislocated Worker Programs Gold Standard Evaluation, and the SaveUSA evaluation. Olejniczak holds a bachelor’s degree in philosophy from the University of Montana.
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MDRC Publications
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Other Publications
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Projects
The U.S. Department of Labor’s Job Corps program provides education and training to disadvantaged young people. It offers high school education services combined with career and technical training in a residential setting. The Cascades College and Career Academy ( CCCA ) pilot is an ambitious and evidence-based attempt to improve upon the Job Corps model for its...
James A. Riccio, Donna Wharton-Fields, Nina Castells, Stephanie Rubino, Keith Olejniczak, Joshua Vermette, Hannah Dalporto, Gloriela Iguina-Colón, Annie Utterback, Henry KanengiserMyGoals for Employment Success is a new workforce program intended to help recipients of federal housing subsidies who are not employed find work, build careers, and advance toward greater self-sufficiency. The program incorporates an innovative employment coaching model that is informed by current literature in behavioral psychology on executive functioning skills and...
Barbara S. Goldman, Frieda Molina, Donna Wharton-Fields, Stephen Freedman, Richard Hendra, David Navarro, Susan Scrivener, Betsy L. Tessler, Jonathan Bigelow, Keith Olejniczak, Kelsey Schaberg, Gloriela Iguina-Colón, Annie Utterback, Alexandra Pennington, Brandon HawkinsThe Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program ( SNAP ) — formerly the food stamp program —is a critical work support for low-income people and families. Although SNAP has included various employment and training requirements for adult recipients to maintain their eligibility since the 1970s, the SNAP Employment and Training ( SNAP E&T ) program was established as...
Many U.S. households do not have enough savings to help manage temporary losses of income or increased expenditures from unexpected events. Increased savings might particularly help low- and moderate-income families avoid resorting to high-cost (sometimes “payday”) loans or failing to meet monthly rent bills and minimum credit card payments. To support the buildup of...
James A. Riccio, Nandita Verma, Gilda Azurdia, Edith Yang, Jonathan Bigelow, Keith Olejniczak, Joshua Vermette, Camille Préel-Dumas, Andrew Rock, Audrey Yu, Melissa WestThe Housing Choice Voucher Program is one of the federal government’s major programs for helping very low-income families with children, elderly people, and disabled people afford decent and safe housing in the private rental market. Housing vouchers are administered locally by public housing agencies with funding from the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban...
Frieda Molina, Barbara S. Goldman, Richard Hendra, Betsy L. Tessler, Keith Olejniczak, Kelsey Schaberg, Hannah Dalporto, Alexandra PenningtonPast evaluations have provided solid evidence regarding what works to help low-income individuals become employed. However, these studies have also found that many people who found jobs were not better off financially, in part because these jobs were unstable, low paying, and provided few advancement opportunities. More recent randomized controlled evaluations of both...
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 together formerly fragmented public and private reemployment services, make...