About MDRC

Cates has over ten years of experience in public policy research and project management. She currently serves as the resource manager for the Enhanced Services for the Hard-to-Employ Demonstration and Evaluation Project and the TANF/SSI Disability Transition Project. In this role, she works with the project directors and task leaders on the day-to-day management of the projects and serves as a key liaison to funding agencies, subcontractors, and other outside partners. As the lead resource manager for the Health and Barriers to Employment policy area, she manages day-to-day policy area and project activities, such as developing, maintaining, and monitoring work plans, expenditures, and budgets; communicating with key partners and funders in the area’s project work; and supporting the development of the area’s new projects. Cates also played a substantive role on the Employment Retention and Advancement Evaluation, assisting with random assignment processes, conducting field research, analyzing qualitative and program participation data, and developing memos, interim reports, and other project deliverables. In addition, Cates has developed MDRC-specific trainings and procedure manuals for the coordination and production of reports and competitive proposals. She received a bachelor of arts degree in sociology from Drew University.
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MDRC Publications
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Other Publications
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Projects
Jurisdictions across the country are striving to increase equity in their pretrial justice systems by reducing their use of pretrial detention and money bail, which affect Black people and other people of color disproportionately and are linked to negative health and well-being outcomes. Despite the intentions of these reforms, there is little rigorous evidence...
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...
The Learn and Earn to Achieve Potential ( LEAP ) project is a three-year nationwide program that provides education and employment services to young people ages 14-25 who are homeless or “systems-involved” — that is, young people who are aging out of the foster care system or who are otherwise involved in the child welfare, criminal justice, or juvenile justice systems...
While welfare agencies and the federal disability system have common goals of supporting people with disabilities and helping them become more independent, the two systems often have diverging interests as well. Differing missions, programmatic and financial challenges, definitions of disability, and rules and incentives related to work make it challenging for the...
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...