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.
This document compares two approaches to improving community college outcomes — CUNY ASAP, a specific program model, and guided pathways, a framework for institutional reform — and discusses how they might be integrated to improve structure, coherence, and support for students.
As the first major effort to use a behavioral economics lens to examine human services programs that serve poor and vulnerable families in the United States, the BIAS project demonstrated the value of applying behavioral insights to improve the efficacy of human services programs.
A significant gap in the rates of college degree attainment persists between men of color and their white counterparts. This brief catalogues strategies commonly used in interventions at postsecondary educational institutions aimed at improving outcomes for male students of color and charts the way forward for future evaluative work.
The Work of MDRC’s Center for Applied Behavioral Science
This issue focus describes how MDRC’s Center for Applied Behavioral Science has completed several large-scale field studies, incorporated behavioral science into other MDRC projects, and educated policymakers and practitioners about how to use behavioral science to improve their programs.
Implementation and Early Impacts of the Los Angeles County Transitional Subsidized Employment Program
This report presents implementation findings and interim impact results (after one year) from a random assignment evaluation of subsidized employment for recipients of Temporary Assistance for Needy Families in Los Angeles County. The study examines the impact of two distinct approaches to subsidized employment.
This demonstration is testing seven enhanced transitional jobs programs that offer temporary, subsidized jobs and comprehensive support to people recently released from prison and unemployed parents behind in child support payments.
A Primer for Researchers Working with Education Data
Predictive modeling estimates individuals’ probabilities of future outcomes by building and testing a model using data on similar individuals whose outcomes are already known. The method offers benefits for continuous improvement efforts and efficient allocation of resources. This paper explains MDRC’s framework for using predictive modeling in education.
The Change Capital Fund donor consortium invests in community groups to help expand their capacity to coordinate services in areas of persistent poverty. Using a variety of models, grantees are strengthening internal and external connections to meet the housing, education, and employment needs of local residents.
A randomized controlled trial conducted by REL West and MDRC finds that counseling and text-messaging “nudges” boosted the proportion of community college students who completed academic plans by 20 percentage points.
Interim Impact Findings from the YouthBuild Evaluation
YouthBuild provides construction-related or other vocational training, educational services, counseling, and leadership-development opportunities to low-income young people ages 16 to 24 who did not complete high school. This interim report presents the program’s effects through two and a half years.
Comments to the Commission on Evidence-Based Policymaking
In public comments submitted to the Commission on Evidence-Based Policymaking, MDRC President Gordon Berlin makes the case for putting rigorous evidence at the center of policymaking, improving access to administrative data, protecting confidentiality, bolstering the federal research agencies, addressing process and procurement issues, and maintaining the independence of third-party evaluators.
Two-Year Impact Findings from the Youth Villages Transitional Living Evaluation
This study tested a program that offers individualized services to young people who are making the transition from foster care or juvenile justice custody to independent living. The program had modest, positive effects on earnings, housing stability, and economic well-being and improved some health and safety outcomes.
Results from a Partnership Between New Visions for Public Schools and MDRC
A custom-designed intervention aimed to improve New York City high school students’ attendance by using text messaging to send parents daily absence updates and weekly attendance summaries. The rapid-turnaround randomized evaluation found that the short-term intervention did not improve attendance rates during the second semester of the 2015-2016 school year.
Using Behavioral Insights to Increase Incarcerated Parents’ Requests for Child Support Modifications
A behavioral intervention provided incarcerated noncustodial parents in Washington with materials about their eligibility for a child support order modification and how to request one. It increased the number of parents requesting a modification by 32 percentage points and the number of parents receiving a modification by 16 percentage points.
In this essay, originally published in Spotlight on Poverty and Opportunity, Dan Bloom reviews what research says about subsidized jobs programs – and how they can be a strategy both for tough economic times and for the hard-to-employ in better labor markets.
The demonstration of WorkAdvance confirmed that sectoral employment programs can increase employment and earnings among low-income individuals. This brief offers insights from providers on selecting sectors, tailoring training to employer needs, reducing attrition, securing placements that offer better wages and benefits, and helping workers plan for advancement.
An evidence-based preschool math curriculum called Building Blocks, combined with ongoing professional development, was compared with “business as usual” pre-K programs across 69 public schools and community-based organizations. This report contains interim findings on the implementation of the model, the amount and quality of its math instruction, and children’s learning outcomes.
Which Improves Welfare Recipients’ Earnings More in the Long Term?
Findings after 10-15 years from the National Evaluation of Welfare-to-Work Strategies suggest that while initially stressing job search for participants led to greater earnings in the short term than did initially stressing education and training, neither approach produced substantial effects past the five-year follow-up period.
The GED Bridge to College and Career Program at Northeast Wisconsin Technical College
Nearly 30 million adults today lack a high school credential and face significant barriers to higher education and employment. This Issue Focus describes an evaluation of a career-focused GED program that aims to help these adults obtain a high school credential and transition seamlessly into postsecondary education or training.
A program in Memphis and the Bronx offered cash incentives, coupled with family guidance, to poor families for meeting certain health care, education, and work milestones. The program increased income and reduced poverty, increased dental visits and health status, reduced employment somewhat, and had few effects on students’ education.
