United Kingdom

Working Paper

Preliminary Analysis

March, 2009
David H. Greenberg, Johanna Walter, Genevieve Knight

This report presents a preliminary analysis of the cost of operating Britain’s Employment Retention and Advancement (ERA) demonstration, which is being evaluated though a large-scale randomised control trial. This assessment of costs will become an important element of the full cost-benefit analysis to be presented in future ERA reports.

Brief

Lessons from Research and Practice

May, 2011
Karin Martinson, Gayle Hamilton

This 12-page practitioner brief offers lessons for policy and practice from MDRC-conducted random assignment studies of five programs that provided earnings supplements to low-income parents to encourage employment and increase the payoff of low-wage work.

Report

Evidence from the UK Employment Retention and Advancement (ERA) Demonstration

March, 2006
Robert Walker, Lesley Hoggart, Gayle Hamilton

The largest ever random assignment test of a social policy in Britain is being applied in a demonstration of the Employment Retention and Advancement (ERA) program. This report, written by MDRC and British colleagues as part of a consortium of social policy research firms and produced for the UK Department for Work and Pensions, examines how well random assignment worked.

Report

Delivery, Take-Up, and Outcomes of In-Work Training Support for Lone Parents

March, 2011
Richard Hendra, Kathryn Ray, Sandra Vegeris, Debra Havenstone, Maria Hudson

This report presents new findings from Britain’s Employment Advancement and Retention demonstration, which tested the effectiveness of a program to improve the labor market prospects of low-paid workers and unemployed people. The report assesses whether coaching by advisers and financial incentives encouraged single-parent participants to take and complete training courses and whether training had an impact on their advancement in the labor market.

Report

Using Earnings Supplements to Improve Employment Retention and Advancement Programs in Texas and the United Kingdom

September, 2010
Erika Lundquist, Tatiana Homonoff

Although much is known about how to help welfare recipients find jobs, there is less hard evidence about what can be done to help current and former recipients and other low-wage workers stay employed or advance in the labor market. This paper looks closely at one strategy — providing earnings supplements, or stipends, to current and former welfare recipients who maintain stable full-time employment — that was used at sites in Texas and in the United Kingdom.

Report

Final Evidence from the UK Employment Retention and Advancement (ERA) Demonstration

August, 2011
Richard Hendra, James A. Riccio, Richard Dorsett, David H. Greenberg, Genevieve Knight, Joan Phillips, Philip K. Robins, Sandra Vegeris, Johanna Walter

The British ERA program’s distinctive combination of post-employment advisory support and financial incentives was designed to help low-income individuals who entered work sustain employment and advance in the labor market. It produced short-term earnings gains for two target groups but sustained increases in employment and earnings and positive benefit-cost results for the third target group, long-term unemployed individuals.

Until recently, employment policy in the United Kingdom had been focused principally on helping people who had lost their jobs to find work. Although some government-sponsored measures were available to help those on the margins of employment retain their jobs and improve their earnings, there had been less support for people once they had found jobs. The launch of the...