Working weekends, evenings, and early morning hours are the norm for most employed, low-income Latino parents, according to new research from the National Research Center on Hispanic Children & Families. Many, and particularly immigrant parents, also have little advance notice of their work schedules. These type of work schedules can make it difficult for families to access child care options, particularly the publicly funded care designed to support low-income families.

This 40-minute webinar from the Institute for Research on Poverty features Marci Ybarra of the University of Chicago School of Social Service Administration. She highlights the growing national interest in Paid Family Leave and the many questions about how these policies might extend to low-income women. Beginning with an overview of current family leave policies and research, she then discusses how other public welfare programs may function as temporary supports for poor mothers with infant children, and how expanded paid family leave programs could improve the well-being of families with children.

In this episode of GAO Watchdog, a podcast that features interviews with GAO officials on significant issues and new reports, GAO staff discuss U.S. unemployment. Unemployment in the U.S. has hit a 16-year low and much of this decline is due to the rise of low-wage occupations. So what exactly is classified as a low-wage job? The Watchdog Report is recorded, hosted, and produced by GAO staff.

This resource from the American Academy of Pediatrics provides evidence and research to support early literacy within the family. Professionals are encouraged to talk to parents about the importance of early literacy and support family efforts to read and learn together. The brief also provides evidence that these early reading activities increase children’s readiness for school.

This practice brief introduces the Tribal HPOG 2.0 evaluation, provides a summary of the findings of the Tribal HPOG 1.0 evaluation, and examines how the evaluation of the first program informed the second. The Tribal HPOG 2.0 program encourages individuals to enter the healthcare field through supporting demonstration projects that equip those individuals with the necessary education and training. It is the first in a series of briefs that will be disseminated to share lessons learned and findings from the program evaluation.

This WorkforceGPS desk reference on the Workforce Innovation and Opportunity Act (WIOA) provides information for state and local boards on serving priority populations using WIOA Adult funds. Those priority populations include recipients of public assistance, low-income individuals, individuals who are basic skills deficient, and veterans. The desk reference also includes definitions of each priority population and provides links to additional guidance and resources on WIOA.

This reference resource from the Office of Planning, Research and Evaluation is a guide for the use of cost-benefit analyses (CBAs) to be conducted at six of the nine Pathways for Advancing Careers and Education (PACE) programs that are part of the Career Pathways Intermediate Outcomes (CPIO) study. The study looks at how to monetize and determine the cost and benefits of the net present value (NPV), which can be a useful tool to policymakers when making decisions about what works in employment and self-sufficiency programming.

This toolkit from Workforce GPS provides ideas, strategies, and resources for integrating service delivery in the public workforce system under the Workforce Innovation and Opportunity Act (WIOA). This toolkit provides workforce partners across state, regional, and local levels with information to help them work together to share a common vision, integrate service strategies, and streamline service delivery to benefit job seeker and employer customers.

Work-based learning combines paid training at a work site with classroom education that leads to an industry-recognized credential. This National Skills Coalition toolkit provides resources to state policymakers and advocates who want to implement paid work-based learning programs for out-of-school youth and disadvantaged adults. The toolkit explains key policies that support work-based learning, provides examples of current state and local work-based learning practices, and provides a legislative template for state work-based learning policies. States can also use the toolkit to help align work-based learning policies with other workforce development strategies.

In high-demand sectors, employers often have difficulty finding applicants with the right skills, and job seekers need training to qualify for those positions. WorkAdvance is a workforce development model that treats both employers and jobseekers as customers in these high demand sectors. This MDRC brief draws on an evaluation of four WorkAdvance programs to analyze whether they impact the long-term upward economic mobility of participants. The programs were Per Scholas and St. Nicks Alliance in New York, Madison Strategies Group in Oklahoma, and Towards Employment in Ohio. The researchers analyzed economic impacts through three years of follow-up, and they found that some sector programs had positive effects that lasted beyond two years. In some cases the economic impacts strengthened after two years, especially for long-term unemployed participants who were reentering the labor market.