Rural low-income families trying to find jobs, maintain employment, and secure longer-term well-being face distinct challenges. In rural labor markets, jobs tend to be scarcer than in urban ones, and the jobs that are available more often involve…

This report examines the effects of welfare and work policies on earnings, welfare benefits, income, stable employment, and stable welfare exits across a range of subgroups using information from random assignment studies of 26 welfare and work…

Drawing from administrative records and survey data collected for the National Evaluation of Welfare-to-Work Strategies (NEWWS) during the 1990s, this report extends MDRC's research on whether mandatory employment-focused and education-focused…

Examining federal, state, and institutional programs, the paper presents a framework for understanding challenges to securing comprehensive financial assistance for low-income working students. The paper identifies promising approaches for…

This paper looks at curricular and program redesign strategies being used in community colleges today to speed nontraditional students' advancement from lower levels of skill into credential programs and to shorten the time commitment that…

Efforts to replicate the experience of the Center for Employment Training (CET) in San Jose, California -- a uniquely successful program that helped at-risk youth develop skills needed to compete in today's labor market -- showed mixed results.…

Because meaningful improvements in literacy require more hours of instruction than most adult learners receive, low student persistence is a critical issue for providers of adult education. This interim report from the Literacy in Libraries…

Phased in during a time of strong economic expansion, welfare reform and the Temporary Assistance for Needy Families (TANF) program have been associated P with an unprecedented drop in the welfare rolls and commensurate increases in employment.…

Exceptional for its large scale, long follow-up period, and rigorous research design, the National Evaluation of Welfare-to-Work Strategies (NEWWS) has yielded a trove of hard evidence about how best to help people get off welfare and into jobs.…

After-school programs can play an important positive role in the academic and personal development of young people, especially in an era when many parents work full time. Launched in 1997, the Extended-Service Schools (ESS) Initiative helped…