About MDRC
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MDRC Publications
ReportFindings From the Family Self-Sufficiency Evaluation
July, 2021The federal Family Self-Sufficiency program works with Housing Choice Voucher recipients to foster economic self-sufficiency and boost assets through case management and an escrow account for participants’ increased earnings. This three-year report examines program implementation, participants’ engagement, and impacts on employment, government benefits receipt, and material and financial well-being.
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