This video, prepared by MDRC’s Economic Mobility, Housing, and Communities policy area, describes MyGoals for Employment Success (MyGoals). MyGoals is an innovative employment coaching program intended to help recipients of federal housing subsidies who are not employed find work, build careers, and advance toward greater self-sufficiency. Informed by behavioral psychology, MyGoals focuses on supporting participants as they set and accomplish goals that are meaningful to them in four domains: education and training, financial management, personal well-being, and family well-being.

Youth apprenticeship has gained traction across the United States, and many programs have adopted the Partnership to Advance Youth Apprenticeship (PAYA) Definition & Principles for Youth Apprenticeship to guide program design and implementation. It is critical that apprenticeships are career-oriented, equitable, portable, adaptable, and accountable. Building from these principles, PAYA has developed this Youth Apprenticeship Quality Assessment Tool as part of a four-step protocol aimed at assisting education providers, employer and industry partners, intermediary organizations, and other youth apprenticeship leaders in collaboratively identifying ways to improve policies, procedures, and practices in support of learner success.

Registered and non-registered apprenticeships come in many shapes and are adaptable to traditional and non-traditional industries and occupations. Traditional apprenticeship occupations have been mainly in skilled trades such as carpentry, electrical, and plumbing. Today, apprenticeships span across non-traditional industries such as information technology, health care, and green energy. This brief highlights the benefits of apprenticeships, including pre-apprenticeship, and registered and non-registered apprenticeship programs as a viable career pathway for career seekers with disabilities.

Funded by the U.S. Department of Labor, Employment and Training Administration, this report is a roadmap to outline the three stages of building, managing, and sustaining a registered apprenticeship program for young people. The roadmap includes steps under each respective stage and provides a set of tools, guidance documents and templates in the accompanying appendix.

The State of Washington Department of Social and Health Services, Economic Services Administration (DSHSA), Community Services Division (CSD), Office of Programs and Policy (OPP) is seeking a WorkFirst and TANF Cash Programs Policy Administrator to join their team. WorkFirst is Washington’s employment and training program for parents receiving TANF cash assistance. DSHSA is providing a gradual transition into full responsibility for management of this important and complex program. The selected candidate will collaborate with, be trained by, and learn the position from the out-going Administrator until January 1, 2023, and then assume full supervisor and management responsibilities as WorkFirst and TANF Cash Programs and Policy Administrator.

This report overviews the design and implementation of the New Start Career Network, a statewide program that assists older, long-term unemployed New Jerseyans. The report examines the rationale behind the program and its design, notes the collaborators involved, and discusses the program’s services, including a website, webinars, online tools, and career coaching. It also reviews approaches to engaging employers as well as recruiting members and coaches. In addition, lessons learned, recommendations, and key elements for serving long-term, unemployed job seekers are identified.

This brief describes how Iowa’s Family Development and Self-Sufficiency (FaDSS) program used a data-driven reflection process to understand how well virtual coaching is meeting the needs of families. The brief also examines whether families may want a mix of remote and in-person coaching options in the future. It describes lessons learned through this process and aims to help TANF and other human services agencies generate ideas on how to use data-driven reflection to make decisions in their own organizations.

The authors of this blog provide data and commentary that highlight three key economic concerns for the summer of 2022: women leaving the labor force, economic contraction erasing job gains by Black workers, and the heightened risk of food insecurity. To mitigate these potential pitfalls, the authors suggest robust fiscal policies such as stronger unemployment insurance and a renewed monthly Child Tax Credit as well as a collaborative effort from the federal government, states, philanthropy, and local community-based organizations to support families vulnerable to food insecurity and homelessness in the coming months.

Can the promising IT job market improve the economic mobility of adults who are unemployed or looking for higher-wage jobs? This Office of Planning, Research and Evaluation paper examines the Per Scholas WorkAdvance program by exploring opportunities for advancement in two of the IT occupations targeted by the program. The paper outlines potential advancement opportunities within the IT sector and details the career advancement outcomes (as measured by earnings) of program participants. The key findings noted that most participants completed Per Scholas’s WorkAdvance IT training and obtained an industry-recognized certification. Many participants who started Per Scholas’s WorkAdvance IT training increased their earnings over time.

The authors of these five essays explore the extent to which young people from socioeconomically disadvantaged backgrounds achieve steady, decent-paying employment by their early thirties. Using multivariate analysis, they identify factors predicting membership to four different earnings groups. Factors associated with membership in one or both of the higher-earning groups include higher education, military service, union membership, job-related training, and working in a non-service sector occupation at age 25. Factors associated with belonging to a lower-earning group include incarceration, work-limiting health conditions, and prolonged unemployment.