About MDRC
Deitch joined MDRC in 2006 and has performed a variety of essential technical and analytical tasks for the national Employment Retention and Advancement study, an evaluation of more than a dozen models in eight states that provide postemployment services and financial incentives to current or former welfare recipients. She is currently working on the Opportunity NYC-Family Rewards demonstration project, which involves temporary cash payments to poor families to boost their income in the short term while building their abilities to avoid longer-term and second-generation poverty; and the Rent Reform Demonstration, which alters the rent rules in the Housing Choice Voucher Program to allow families to keep more of their earnings from increases in earnings and employment. Deitch has coauthored several MDRC reports, including a comparative benefit-cost study funded by the MacArthur Foundation of 27 welfare-to-work programs. Deitch has a bachelor’s degree in finance and in business information systems from Illinois State University and a master’s degree in public affairs from the University of Wisconsin.
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MDRC Publications
ReportFindings from the Dana Center Mathematics Pathways Impact Study
November, 2019This instructional reform diversifies math course content so that it better aligns with students’ career interests. After three semesters, the reform increased developmental math students’ rates of taking and passing college-level math and accumulating math credits. Few effects have yet emerged on overall credit accumulation, degree receipt, or transfer to a four-year college.
ReportAugust, 2019This report presents 27- to 30-month impacts of an alternative rent policy for housing voucher recipients in four locations. Voucher program tenure and monthly housing subsidies increased for recipients, and housing agencies’ administrative burdens decreased. Average earnings did not rise overall, but earnings increased in two locations and employment increased in one.
ReportMay, 2019This report presents early impacts on an alternative rent policy designed to reward work among housing voucher recipients. The policy increased earnings in two of four locations, reduced administrative burdens in all four housing agencies, and somewhat reduced tenants’ rent and utilities expenses and their likelihood of exiting the voucher program.
ReportRent Reform Demonstration Baseline Report
October, 2017Housing Choice Vouchers subsidize rent and utilities for homes that families rent from private landlords. The Rent Reform Demonstration is testing an alternative rent policy for voucher recipients. This report describes the new policy, the rationale behind each of its elements, and the way it is being evaluated.
ReportFinal Results of the Hard-to-Employ Demonstration and Evaluation Project and Selected Sites from the Employment Retention and Advancement Project
May, 2012BriefFindings from the Employment Retention and Advancement Project
January, 2011This 12-page practitioner brief examines the work, education, and training patterns of single parents in the national Employment Retention and Advancement Project, which evaluated strategies to promote employment stability among low-income workers. The findings support other research in underscoring the importance of changing jobs and of access to “good” jobs as strategies to help low-wage workers advance.
ReportNovember, 2010This report from the national Employment Retention and Advancement Project examines the 27,000 single parents who participated in the studied programs to understand the characteristics of those who successfully advanced in the labor market.
ReportMay, 2010This report examines the financial benefits and costs of three different programs in the national Employment Retention and Advancement project, sponsored by the federal Administration for Children and Families, that have increased employment and earnings among current and former welfare recipients.
ReportA Synthesis of Research
February, 2009Most welfare programs seek to ensure that poor families have adequate income while at the same time encouraging self-sufficiency. Based on studies of 28 programs involving more than 100,000 sample members, this synthesis compares the costs, benefits, and returns on investment of six welfare program strategies – from the perspectives of participants, government budgets, and society as a whole.
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Other Publications
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Projects
James A. Riccio, Nandita Verma, Cynthia Miller, Gilda Azurdia, Donna Wharton-Fields, Victoria Deitch, Nikki OrtolaniIn 2007, New York City officials launched three related initiatives testing distinct strategies for promoting employment and economic well-being among recipients of housing assistance, particularly those receiving rent subsidies through Housing Choice Vouchers (also known as “Section 8” assistance, after Section 8 of the Housing Act of 1937). Called the Work Rewards...
James A. Riccio, Cynthia Miller, Nandita Verma, Edith Yang, Jared Smith, Gilda Azurdia, Donna Wharton-Fields, Victoria Deitch, Anne Warren, M. Victoria Quiroz-BecerraFamily Rewards was an innovative approach to poverty reduction in the United States that was modeled on the conditional cash transfer (CCT) programs common in lower- and middle-income countries. The program offered cash assistance to poor families, contingent on their meeting certain criteria related to family health care, children’s education...
James A. Riccio, Nandita Verma, Victoria Deitch, Stephen Freedman, Audrey Yu, Jonathan Bigelow, Gilda Azurdia, 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....
James A. Riccio, Gilda Azurdia, Nandita Verma, Donna Wharton-Fields, Cynthia Miller, Victoria Deitch, Jared Smith, Edith Yang, Betsy L. Tessler, Nikki Ortolani, Audrey YuIn March 2007, former New York City Mayor Michael R. Bloomberg announced his intention to test a set of antipoverty initiatives, called Opportunity NYC, that would use temporary cash payments to poor families to boost their income in the short term, while building their ability to avoid longer-term and second-generation poverty. Such payments...
James A. Riccio, 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...
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-...