About MDRC
Freedman manages the collection and assembly of data from surveys and administrative records and the programming of large multisource data sets to study the use of program services, employment behavior, household income, assets and debt, and other indicators of financial well-being for low- and moderate-income populations. Since joining MDRC in 1985, he has served as data manager for three of MDRC’s biggest research projects, as well as several smaller evaluations of welfare-to-work, postemployment, housing, and health care initiatives. In 2010, Freedman joined the federal Social Innovation Fund (SIF) study of five programs for low-income adults and young people and presently serves as supervising data manager and member of the senior management team for the study. Within SIF, Freedman also serves as project data manager for the replication study of Jobs-Plus (which provides employment-related services, financial counseling, and rent subsidies to residents of public housing) and as impact analyst for the SaveUSA study of matched savings accounts for low-income tax filers. Since 2011, Freedman has joined the senior management team for three evaluations of programs that provide employment services or financial incentives to recipients of Section 8 Housing Choice Vouchers. Freedman serves as data manager for the Family Self-Sufficiency Program Demonstration, the largest of the three studies, which involves 18 housing authorities in seven states. The author of the process, impact, and benefit-cost analyses for over 20 MDRC reports and papers, Freedman was project director Los Angeles’s Jobs-First GAIN evaluation, the National Evaluation of Welfare-to-Work Strategies Long-Term Follow-Up Study, and the U.S. Health and Human Services Task Order Study of Families Cycling On and Off Welfare. Freedman also serves on the management teams of several corporate initiatives that develop, implement, and disseminate policies, procedures, and tools to strengthen MDRC’s data-management and data-security practices and to ensure compliance with stringent federal requirements. Freedman received a master’s degree in public policy and a second master’s degree in U.S. history from the University of Chicago.
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MDRC Publications
ReportEarly Findings From the Family Self-Sufficiency Program Evaluation
March, 2019This first national randomized controlled trial of the Family Self-Sufficiency (FSS) program — the main federal strategy to help housing voucher recipients make progress toward economic mobility — examined program implementation, participants’ engagement, and impacts on labor force participation and benefits receipt in the first 24 months of this five-year program.
ReportFinal Impact Findings from the SaveUSA Evaluation
January, 2016SaveUSA encourages low- and moderate-income people to set aside money from their tax refund for savings by awarding a 50 percent match to successful savers. After 42 months, the program had sustained its earlier effects, increasing both the percentage of individuals with nonretirement savings and the average amount of savings.
ReportImplementation and Interim Impact Findings from the SaveUSA Evaluation
April, 2014This report describes the early effects of a program helping low- and moderate-income families build up unrestricted-use savings via tax refunds. Individuals who save a pledged amount for a year earn a 50-percent match payment. After 18 months, SaveUSA had increased the percentage of individuals with savings and boosted average savings amounts.
BriefPreliminary Implementation Findings from the SaveUSA Evaluation
April, 2013SaveUSA, a pilot program in New York City, Newark, San Antonio, and Tulsa, offers a matched savings account to low-income tax filers, building on the opportunity presented by tax-time refunds, especially the Earned Income Tax Credit. This 12-page brief offers early implementation findings.
ReportImpacts on Health and Employment at Twelve Months
February, 2011This demonstration tested the effects of earlier access to health care coverage and related services for new Social Security Disability Insurance (SSDI) beneficiaries. After one year, the program increased health care use, reduced reported unmet medical needs, and modestly improved health and functioning. It also increased job prep and search activities but did not raise employment levels.
ReportNovember, 2010This report from the national Employment Retention and Advancement Project demonstrates that low-income single-parent and two-parent families have a roughly equivalent need for services to support employment retention and advancement and that this need does not differ substantially between men and women in two-parent families.
BriefSix-Month Results from the Accelerated Benefits Demonstration
April, 2010This policy brief offers early findings from a demonstration testing whether earlier access to health care and related services for new Social Security Disability Insurance (SSDI) beneficiaries who lack health care coverage would lead to improved outcomes. So far, the intervention has increased the use of health care services and reduced the reported unmet health care needs of the project participants.
ReportThe Employment Retention and Advancement Project
November, 2009A program in Los Angeles offering individualized and flexible case management services to working welfare recipients did not substantially increase the use of work-based services by participants – and did not lead to greater employment or higher earnings than did the county’s existing postemployment program.
ReportThe Employment Retention and Advancement Project
November, 2007Two education and training programs for employed, single-parent welfare recipients had small impacts on attendance in basic education or training overall but had larger impacts for disadvantaged groups. However, over two years, neither program increased employment and earnings levels overall or for any subgroup.
ReportApril, 2004In MDRC’s study of over 160,000 single-parent welfare recipients, families who repeatedly return to welfare assistance—“cyclers”—were less disadvantaged in the labor market than long-term welfare recipients. At the same time, they were less able than short-term recipients to attain stable employment and to work without welfare.
ReportFive-Year Impacts of Pre-Employment Services in the National Evaluation of Welfare-to-Work Strategies
July, 2003This report finds that — over a five-year follow-up period — both mandatory employment-focused and education-focused welfare-to-work programs helped young adults attain higher earnings.
ReportFive-Year Adult and Child Impacts for Eleven Programs
December, 2001How best to help people move from welfare to work — particularly whether an employment-focused approach or an education-focused approach is more effective — has been a subject of long-standing debate. This report summary, which describes the long-term effects of 11 different mandatory welfare-to-work programs for single parents and their children, takes a major step toward resolving this debate.
ReportFinal Report on a Work First Program in a Major Urban Center
June, 2000ReportTwo-Year Impacts for Eleven Programs
June, 2000Working PaperFive-Year Impacts on Employment, Earnings, and AFDC Receipt
Working Paper 96.1July, 1996 -
Other Publications
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Projects
Richard Hendra, Barbara S. Goldman, Stephanie Rubino, Kristin Porter, Erika Lundquist, Alexandra Pennington, Stephen Freedman, David Navarro, Melissa WaveletTANF Data Innovation (TDI) is a new national initiative to support Temporary Assistance for Needy Families (TANF) agencies as they harness the full potential of using administrative records data to improve program administration, payment integrity, and outcomes for low-income families....
Gayle Hamilton, Barbara S. Goldman, Frieda Molina, Donna Wharton-Fields, Stephen Freedman, Richard Hendra, David Navarro, Alexandra Pennington, Susan Scrivener, Betsy L. Tessler, Jonathan Bigelow, Keith Olejniczak, Kelsey SchabergThe 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...
Gayle Hamilton, Caroline Schultz, Stephen Freedman, Gilda Azurdia, Keith Olejniczak, Joshua VermetteMany 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....
James A. Riccio, Nandita Verma, Victoria Deitch, Stephen Freedman, Audrey Yu, Jonathan Bigelow, Keith OlejniczakThe Housing Choice Voucher Program is one of the federal government’s major programs for assisting very low-income families with children, elderly people, and disabled people to 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...
Nandita Verma, James A. Riccio, Donna Wharton-Fields, Stephen Freedman, Betsy L. Tessler, Stephanie Rubino, David Navarro, Michelle Ware, Joshua Vermette, Simran VaziraniThe Family Self-Sufficiency (FSS) program is the main federal program for increasing employment and earnings and reducing reliance on government subsidies among recipients of housing subsidies. Created in 1990, FSS is administered by state and local public housing agencies with funding from the U.S...
In recent decades, families have shown a steady decline in their ability to weather a financial emergency. A study released by the National Bureau of Economic Research in 2011 estimated that about one-quarter of Americans lack the capacity to cover an unexpected expense by coming up with $2,000 within 30 days.
James A. Riccio, Gayle Hamilton, Gilda Azurdia, Edith Yang, Donna Wharton-Fields, Nandita Verma, Caroline Schultz, Jocelyn Page, Frieda Molina, Cynthia Miller, Richard Hendra, Barbara S. Goldman, Stephen Freedman, Victoria Deitch, Jared Smith, Mark van Dok, Natasha Piatnitskaia, Sharon Rowser, Betsy L. Tessler, Stephanie RubinoThe Social Innovation Fund (SIF), an initiative enacted under the Edward M. Kennedy Serve America Act, deploys millions of dollars in public-private funds to expand effective solutions in three issue areas: economic opportunity, healthy futures, and youth development...
Gayle Hamilton, Richard Hendra, Cynthia Miller, Susan Scrivener, Stephen Freedman, Frieda Molina, Jocelyn Page, David Navarro, Barbara S. Goldman, Dan Bloom, John Martinez, Mark van Dok, Victoria Deitch, Alexandra Pennington, Erika Lundquist, Edith YangThe 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-...