The continuing opioid crisis is a major public health issue, and it extends across the domains of public assistance programs and workforce development as well. This report by the Office of the Assistant Secretary for Planning and Evaluation and the…

Skill development and job or educational training are essential tools for low-income or low-skilled workers to increase their labor market prospects and decrease their unemployment rates, so Local Workforce Development Boards (LWDBs) provide these…

Living in safe “opportunity neighborhoods” that provide quality services, employment, and schools is a recognized way for children and families to increase their economic opportunities and class mobility. The authors of this Urban Institute paper…

In response to several proposed federal changes to safety net program requirements, the Urban Institute developed a Well Being and Basic Needs Survey (WBNS) and published a report on the status of individual and family health and well-being. The…

In accordance with federal interests, the Office of Planning, Research and Evaluation funded a report on the challenges of and potential solutions for measuring TANF employment outcomes. Creating national standards would be a significant challenge…

Recent causal research shows that people’s earnings are directly linked to the neighborhoods where they grew up, with impoverished and underserved communities at the bottom end of the earning scale. Johns Hopkins’ 21st Century Cities Initiative…

The HHS Office of the Assistant Secretary for Planning and Evaluation (ASPE) has recently released a report which examines relationships between indicators of economic opportunity and the prevalence of prescription opioids and substance use in the…

Studying large public social programs can be a challenge for social scientists. Recent technological developments have allowed researchers to use big data — data sets that combine survey and administrative data — to examine how social programs work…

This brief reviews the recent trend of intracity income inequality, which is rising at a faster rate than national household income inequality. While policymakers cannot fully control drivers of inequality and the resulting economic and spatial…

The Urban Institute was contracted by a Washington State housing authority to evaluate its 2013-2016 Student and Family Stability Initiative that provided supportive housing and employment to homeless or vulnerable families with elementary-aged…