Publications

WorkAdvance goes beyond the previous generation of employment programs, concentrating on demand-driven skills training and identifiable career pathways. Findings show the approach increased earnings and led to advancement gains over time at the most successful study sites. One program, Per Scholas, boosted earnings by 20 percent in the last year of follow-up.

This web product describes some of the practices programs in a federal study used to keep participants involved in fatherhood programs. It divides these practices into three categories — inside the program, outside the program, and “round and round” continual learning — and includes a downloadable one-page tip sheet.

The Earned Income Tax Credit reduces poverty for many low-income families but does little for workers without dependent children. Paycheck Plus, being tested in New York City and Atlanta, offers an expanded credit to this population. This report presents its two-year impacts on employment, earnings, and income in Atlanta.

Funders at all levels are investing in programs to support expectant parents and families with young children. MDRC is conducting research in that field in three areas: integrating systems of services that work together, getting families and children the right services, and building evidence about promising models.

The Breaking Barriers program, based in San Diego, provided employment services to lower-income individuals with disabilities. MDRC carried out a random assignment evaluation of the program. As part of the Building Evidence on Employment Strategies for Low-income Families project, MDRC is collecting additional administrative records to extend the original evaluation.

Many people are interested in making better use of administrative data (data collected in the course of administering public programs) to support research and evidence-based policy. This publication contains information about a variety of useful administrative data sources and how to access them.

In 2010, the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services and the U.S. Department of Labor launched complementary large-scale research projects on the effectiveness of the latest generation of subsidized employment models. This report summarizes findings from the studies and discusses the implications for practitioners, policymakers, and researchers.

One-time training rarely results in long-term shifts in working practices, but remote learning communities can help reinforce new lessons and promote lasting change. In this post, we explore how two MDRC programs use online, video conferencing and telephone connections to help participants across the country further their professional growth.

This report presents findings through three years from a replication of the City University of New York Accelerated Study in Associate Programs model at three community colleges in Ohio. The Ohio programs nearly doubled degree receipt through three years and led to an increase in transfers to four-year colleges.

MDRC launched the In Practice blog in April 2019, to reflect lessons learned from program managers and staff in various partnerships. Posts in 2020 include Designing Programs Around Real People’s Real Needs, How to Use Data to Improve Programs, Making Evidence-Based Practices a Priority, and Improving Programs by Improving Training.

More than 300 College Promise Programs nationwide are transforming perceptions about college affordability and access while increasing rates of enrollment and completion. Participants in MDRC’s College Promise Success Initiative (CPSI) share their insights on effectively designing College Promise programs that make equity a central principle in serving students.

This is the eighth in a series of Q&As with past participants in MDRC’s Gueron Scholars Program in which they reflect on their experiences at MDRC and discuss what they’re up to today.

Several jurisdictions have instituted procedures meant to affect the use of bail. To determine whether those policies have had effects, a past trend can be used to extrapolate what would have happened had business continued as usual. This post discusses how researchers did such an extrapolation in Mecklenburg, North Carolina.

Focusing on NYC’s small high schools of choice, this reflection on MDRC’s recent high school reform research considers responses to five challenges: creating personalized, orderly learning environments; assisting students with poor academic skills; improving instructional content and practice; preparing students for the future; and stimulating change in overstressed high schools.

This brief presents an early analysis of a program incorporating interactive cognitive-behavioral techniques with job-readiness services for fathers recently involved in the justice system. Implementation succeeded, but about 30 percent of fathers did not engage in the program or in existing fatherhood services, suggesting similar participation challenges in both.

This brief describes an early analysis of Just Beginning (JB), a five-session, one-on-one program that uses videos and father-child play activities to build parenting skills. While JB was implemented successfully, only 55 percent of fathers completed at least one JB session, though those fathers typically completed most of the curriculum.

Bridging Access to Benefits and Care — a collaboration among three nonprofit organizations — was designed to improve connections to public benefits and health care services for people dependent on opioids and intravenous drugs in the Bronx. This brief presents findings from an MDRC study of the pilot program’s implementation.

In 2019, MDRC’s Evidence First podcast featured experts — program administrators, policymakers, and researchers — talking about the best evidence available on education and social programs that serve low-income people.

MDRC posted nearly 100 publications to its website in 2019 – reports, briefs, commentaries, blog posts, infographics, and more – on a wide range of topics, from microfinance to homevisiting, from behavioral science interventions to rent reform, from growth mindset interventions to small high schools.

This is the seventh in a series of Q&As with past participants in MDRC’s Gueron Scholars Program in which they reflect on their experiences at MDRC and discuss what they’re up to today.