Summer Youth Employment Programs (SYEPs) help connect youth to opportunities for career exploration, skill development, and mentorship. Despite heightened investment in SYEPs, research regarding positive impacts is limited. Most of the common SYEP evaluation strategies are rooted in deficit thinking and focus on outcomes such as reducing violent…

Attaining a college degree is a well-recognized path to economic mobility in the United States, but enrollment gaps among students by family income persist. Interestingly, recent research finds this disparity to be particularly visible in communities where top ranked universities reside. In these communities, residents with no-affiliation to their…

New York's workforce system is a complicated entity that engages nearly a dozen state agencies and myriad funding streams originating at the federal and state levels, and operates on the ground in ten economic development regions, 33 designated workforce investment areas, community-based organizations, labor unions and 62 counties. This report…

Grounded in person-environment fit theory, this study examined whether low-income mothers' preferences for education moderated the effects of employment- and education-focused welfare programs on children's positive and problem behaviors. The sample included 1,365 families with children between ages 3 and 5 years at study entry. Results 5 years…

More than 2 million people are incarcerated in the United States, and around 700,000 are released from prison each year. Those who are released face daunting obstacles as they seek to reenter their communities, and rates of recidivism are high. Many experts believe that stable employment is critical to a successful transition from prison to the…

More than 2 million people are incarcerated in the United States, and around 700,000 are released from prison each year. Those who are released face daunting obstacles as they seek to reenter their communities, and rates of recidivism are high. Many experts believe that stable employment is critical to a successful transition from prison to the…

This study of supported employment's effects on wages earned by Michigan adults with disabilities found that wages increased after entering supported employment, mostly because of higher hourly rates but somewhat because of increased hours of employment and that individual placement had the largest effect on wages whereas participation in mobile…

This paper presents the results of an experiment in which private employment agencies were used to place public assistance clients in jobs. Contains brief descriptions of the experiment and the AFDC clients who participated in it. Key experimental findings are outlined and policy implications are discussed. (CT)

In May 2006, the National Poverty Center (NPC) at the Gerald R. Ford School of Public Policy at the University of Michigan hosted a meeting--"Research on Prisoner Reentry: What Do We Know and What Do We Want to Know?"--to discuss the state of research on employment-focused prisoner reentry programs. This paper, written as background for…

This paper describes the development and implementation of a selective job-placement system in the Michigan Vocational Rehabilitation agency. A number of specialized units in the system were created to facilitate both job development and job placement. (Author)

After careful review Workforce Strategy Center has articulated a policy assessment of President George W. Bush's Community-Based Job Training Grants initiative. WSC called the $250 million Community-Based Job Training Grants plan right on track by emphasizing: A Strong Role of Community Colleges in Workforce Development: All available research…

General and targeted programs and agencies in the Michigan Departments of Education, Social Services, and Labor that address the employment and training needs of the State's Hispanic population are described and analyzed in this report. Three different papers, each dealing with programs offered by one of the three departments, are bound together…

The State of Michigan, through its interagency Collaborative Initiative begun in 1979, has established local Interagency Collaborative Boards (ICBs) similar to work-education councils, in 30 of the 33 Comprehensive Employment and Training Act (CETA) prime sponsor areas in the state. These boards, unlike mandated councils, are not advisory to any…

State administration of the Comprehensive Employment and Training Act (CETA) Balance of State (BOS) programs was compared with administration of CETA programs by local (regular) prime sponsors in Michigan to gain insight on the potential impact of increased state control. BOS prime sponsors spent less than regular prime sponsors for administration…

Job Training Partnership Act (JTPA) programs and vocational education programs in seven states (California, Iowa, Kentucky, Michigan, Montana, North Carolina, and Wisconsin) were studied to find out to what degree the programs were cooperating and how much they were duplicating each other's services. The researchers found little evidence of…