When the COVID-19 pandemic plunged the economy back into recession in early 2020, it laid bare a fragile and profoundly inequitable labor market. The economic expansion that reigned from 2009 through 2019 brought historically low unemployment and inflation but failed to reduce income inequality or arrest the decline in the number of high-quality,…

We study how the employment effects of enterprise zones vary with their location, implementation, and administration, based on evidence from California. We use new establishment-level data and geographic mapping methods, coupled with a survey of enterprise zone administrators. Overall, the evidence indicates that enterprise zones do not increase…

In September 1985, the Canadian government introduced the Canadian Jobs Strategy. Two features distinguish the jobs strategy program from Canada's old job development programs and programs for purchasing job training from colleges. These features are: (1) focusing of federal support for labor market adjustment on those individuals who are most in…

This study analyzes the extent to which targeting objectives of the Emergency Jobs Programs Extension Act (EJPEA) of the Comprehensive Employment and Training Act (CETA) programs have been achieved by federal and local officials and the effectiveness of limited-duration projects in providing useful public services. The study deals with the…

The Self-Employment Investment Demonstration (SEID) is a test, designed to run from 1988 to 1992, of the feasibility of operating a program to encourage self-employment among welfare recipients. Challenges facing SEID included selecting sites, developing curricula, recruiting clients, getting clients through business training, completing business…

A study was conducted to determine the effectiveness of the Targeted Jobs Tax Credit (TJTC) as observed between July 1980 and March 1981 in 25 areas throughout the United States. Findings include the following: (1) TJTC has not worked as envisioned as a self-marketing effort by vouchered individuals and new hires by employers; most employers are…

A formal review was conducted to assess the efforts made by federal agencies to implement the 1983 Emergency Jobs Appropriations Act (EJAA). (The EJAA provided emergency supplemental appropriations to provide productive employment for jobless Americans, to hasten or initiate federal projects and construction of lasting value to the nation, and to…

The first and longest section of this publication is a comparative analysis summarizing the impacts of the two Unemployment Insurance (UI) Self-Employment Demonstration Projects in Washington State and Massachusetts. Based on the first wave of post-project follow-up surveys, this evaluation report provides results on the net impacts of each…

The Youth Incentive Entitlement Pilot Projects were set up to aid disadvantaged youths, ages 16 to 19, by guaranteeing them a part-time job during the school year and a full-time job during summer months on the condition that they remain in, or return to, a secondary school or enroll in an equivalent education program. The program was started in…

At the end of September, 1978, 37,000 low-income youths in seventeen competitively selected communities across the country were enrolled in Youth Incentive Entitlement Pilot Projects which guaranteed them a part-time job during the school year and a full-time job during summer months on the condition that they remain in, or return to, a secondary…

Succeeding in the labor market depends now more than ever on having the right education and training. This reality poses a particular challenge for out-of-school youth, who are no longer connected to institutions designed to provide them with training and connect them to good jobs. The Center for Employment Training (CET) in San Jose, California,…

This report presents an evaluation of the Education Consolidation and Improvement Act, Chapter 2, Subprogram C, Special Projects program for the 1988-89 school year. The purpose of the program was to expand the knowledge and skills of job developers in placing severely handicapped students in appropriate occupational and adult service agency…

A study assessed the first two years of a three-year initiative to test the potential of extending sectoral employment strategies among 10 organizations, most of which were new to the sectoral employment field. Five organizations increasing low-income workers' access to good jobs were ARCH; PhAME; Training, Inc.; WIRE-Net; and Project QUEST. Five…

A study identified United States Department of Labor efforts to expand apprenticeship to new occupations and explained impediments to establishing apprenticeship programs in fields not traditionally apprenticed (e.g., high technology and biotechnology). Labor had not systematically identified new occupations suitable for apprenticeship programs…

The Youth Incentive Entitlement Pilot Projects (YIEPP) demonstration was a large-scale test of a school-conditioning guaranteed jobs program for teenagers from low-income families. Unlike previous youth employment programs, the YIEPP linked school and work by offering jobs to all youth who met the eligibility criteria and who also agreed to remain…