Founded in 1974, MDRC is committed to improving the lives of people with low incomes. We design promising new interventions, evaluate existing programs, and provide technical assistance to build better programs.
MDRC develops evidence about solutions to some of the nation’s most difficult problems. Explore our projects and variety of products, including publications, videos, podcast episodes, and resources for researchers and practitioners.
An Analysis of Programs Serving Young People Not Connected to School or Work
This report, a companion to an online compendium, offers findings from a systematic analysis of programs supporting young people who experience disconnection from school and work during the transition to adulthood. It focuses on services to help them reconnect to education, obtain employment, and advance in the labor market.
This brief outlines how Head Start programs responded to the ever-evolving public health emergency caused by the COVID-19 pandemic—shifting activities to virtual formats, adapting in-person activities to local restrictions, and maintaining connections with families and community providers.
The information technology (IT) sector has great potential to help workers with low incomes improve their prospects in the labor market. This review examines the IT training offered by an employment services provider in New York and the impact such training had on career advancement opportunities for program participants.
An Introduction to the Strengthening the Implementation of Responsible Fatherhood Programs (SIRF) Study
This report summarizes activities in the first two years of the Strengthening the Implementation of Responsible Fatherhood Programs (SIRF) study (2019 to 2021). SIRF aims to identify and test approaches to improving programs’ recruitment, engagement, and retention of fathers using rapid learning cycles.
Sectoral strategies train people for industries with strong local demand. This report summarizes the Year 7 findings of an evaluation of WorkAdvance, a sectoral training initiative launched in 2011. Overall, the results show that sector programs can increase earnings in the longer term and can lead to career advancement gains.
Lessons from an Implementation Study of the Procedural Justice-Informed Alternatives to Contempt Demonstration
The Procedural Justice-Informed Alternatives to Contempt (PJAC) project integrated procedural justice (the idea of fairness in processes) into enforcement at six child support agencies. This report presents the first systematic analysis of the implementation of the PJAC model.
This report, a companion to an online evidence gap map, presents findings from an analysis of 60 studies of programs to support young people who experience disconnection from school and work during their transition to adulthood. The evidence gap map provides insights into what evidence exists and where there are opportunities to build evidence.
This brief examines Park City Career Pathways, a program aimed at addressing gaps in support for young people who are making the transition from high school to college and the workplace in a possible “COVID recession.” It offers lessons for other communities that may be interested in launching similar efforts.
Final Impact Findings from the Paycheck Plus Demonstration in Atlanta
Paycheck Plus expanded the Earned Income Tax Credit for single workers with low incomes and without qualifying children in two cities, offering a tax credit of up to $2,000. This report presents three-year findings from the program in Atlanta.
As part of a research-practice partnership, the NYC Department of Education worked with MDRC to improve its outreach to families and its digital processes for middle school application during the pandemic. This brief describes what adaptations were made, how families reacted, and what lessons the experience offers for the future.
CDI has collaborated with two of MDRC’s long-standing program partners, Per Scholas and the Center for Employment Opportunities, to create and implement tools that can more fully capture participants’ lived expertise. This brief summarizes lessons learned from these partnerships.
MDRC’s Center for Effective Career and Technical Education spoke with Di Xu, associate professor at the School of Education at the University of California, Irvine, to learn from her research on nondegree credentials: short-term training programs that purport to give students skills highly valued in the labor market.
In this commentary originally published by The 74, Rachel Rosen, co-director of MDRC’s Center for Effective Career and Technical Education, explains how effective CTE models can be adapted to prepare high school students for jobs in new industries that lower carbon emissions.
In this commentary originally published by New America, Samuel Maves and Meghan McCormick describe the lessons that state advocates and policymakers learned from implementing pre-K assessment systems. These lessons were discussed during an event cohosted by New America, the Alliance for Early Success, and MDRC.
Building Better Evidence on Pre-K Programs by Assessing the Full Range of Children’s Skills
Recent research has highlighted a pattern of “fadeout” of positive academic effects of pre-K as children progress into elementary school. This brief looks at examples of less frequently measured types of skills that pre-K programs may help boost in the short term and sustain over the longer term.
MDRC’s Scaling Up College Completion Efforts for Student Success (SUCCESS) aims to help more low-income students and students of color graduate by combining proven components into an integrated three-year program. This brief describes the model, the study, and adaptations to the COVID-19 pandemic, and offers some early findings.
Recent federal and state policies are creating momentum for combating climate change by tying a clean energy transition to job growth. MDRC and JobsFirstNYC convened 30 stakeholders from locations across the country to discuss how career and technical education and workforce development programs can train people for green careers.
This brief highlights key findings from the implementation of the TechHire and Strengthening Working Families Initiative (SWFI) programs and offers considerations for practitioners involved in planning or implementing similar programs. The programs provided training for high-tech jobs as well as support services to people with barriers to training and employment.
Two experimental studies examined multiple measures assessment (MMA), in which colleges use alternative measures (like high school GPA) rather than just standardized test scores, to assign students to developmental or college-level courses. Students placed using MMA were more likely to complete college-level courses. This brief offers recommendations for other colleges.
School-community partnerships are one strategy leaders can use to increase equity in education by building supportive environments that meet students’ social and emotional needs. A recent brief on school-community partnerships included some advice from three leaders of successful district-level partnership programs. This companion brief focuses specifically on these leaders’ suggestions.
