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.
Some two million fewer families were receiving welfare benefits in 1999 than in 1994 - a decline of nearly 50 percent in the welfare caseload over the five-year period.
Case Studies of How Urban School Systems Improve Student Achievement
Some of the nation's fastest improving urban school systems are raising overall academic performance while reducing achievement gaps among students of different racial groups. But instead of taking a school-by-school approach, they are tackling education reform on a district wide basis.
Implementation, Effects, and Experiences of Poor Families and Neighborhoods
This report from the Project on Devolution and Urban Change examines how welfare reform has played out in Ohio's Cuyahoga County, which encompasses Cleveland, based on a comprehensive body of evidence that includes administrative records, surveys, and ethnographic interviews.
Tapping a deep pool of survey data to learn about residents' connections to the labor market, this report dispels some widespread misconceptions. For example, it finds that even in places with high rates of joblessness, many public housing residents have work histories that are extensive and varied, albeit typically in unstable, low-wage jobs.
The Jobs-Plus Experience in Public Housing Developments
Through extensive ethnographic interviews with staff and residents of two Jobs-Plus housing developments in Seattle and St. Paul, this report explains how a range of social and personal issues characteristic of largely immigrant public housing residents can render conventional employment and support services ineffective.
How Welfare and Work Policies Influence Parents' Decisions
Congressional deliberations on the future of welfare reform have reopened a debate about whether current child care assistance programs adequately support employment among low-income working parents while also fostering their children's development. Issues at the forefront of this debate are explored in this timely new policy brief.
Lessons from the National Evaluation of Welfare-to-Work Strategies
This report distills lessons from the National Evaluation of Welfare-to-Work Strategies (NEWWS) with a focus on the effectiveness of employment-focused versus education-focused programs in helping people move from welfare to work.
Recognizing that welfare recipients who find jobs may remain poor, the "make work pay" approach rewards those who work by boosting their income. This strategy was the centerpiece of the Self-Sufficiency Project (SSP), a large-scale demonstration program in Canada that offered monthly earnings supplements to single parents who left welfare for full-time work.
The latest report from the Opening Doors project explores how to help low-wage workers move toward career advancement and higher wages by enrolling in and completing community college programs.
Findings from the Extended-Service Schools Initiative
Launched in 1997, the Extended-Service Schools (ESS) Initiative helped establish after-school programs in 17 communities across the country, each of which adapted one of four program models to local circumstances and needs.
