The Brookings Institution recently released an interactive tool that takes a comprehensive look at the state of the job market for America's youth in the nation for each of the 100 largest U.S. metropolitan areas. Users are able to select a city from the dropdown menu and then view data about the specific employment rates, disconnected youth, race/ethnicity, education levels, and poverty status. Interested users are also able to download this information. The report also includes a number of strategies to reduce youth joblessness and labor force underutilization.

The Departments of Labor (DOL), Health and Human Services (DHHS), and Housing and Urban Development (HUD) have issued a letter to their respective customers encouraging partnerships among the network of state and local youth service and workforce development providers, human service agencies, and public housing agencies to develop summer jobs programs for needy and at-risk youth that provide employment, educational experiences, and essential skills such as financial literacy and time management.

This report describes the evaluation design for the HPOG National Implementation Evaluation. The design focuses on the 27 non-tribal HPOG grantees and addresses: how health professions training programs are being implemented; changes to the service delivery system associated with program implementation; individual-level outputs and outcomes; and what key components and factors appear necessary or seem likely to contribute to the success of the programs. The evaluation involves three related analyses: a Descriptive Implementation Study, a Systems Change Analysis, and an Outcome Study. The report was written as part of the HPOG Implementation, Systems and Outcome Project and the HPOG National Implementation Evaluation, which are both led by Abt Associates in partnership with the Urban Institute. (author abstract)

The Office of Planning, Research and Evaluation released the HPOG Annual Report to highlight information regarding the program after its second year of operation. The report provides an overview of HPOG grantees, characteristics of participants, activities in which participants were engaged, training and employment outcomes, and how grantee programs continued to evolve in the second year of the program. The report was developed as part of the HPOG Implementation, Systems, and Outcome Project, which is being led by Abt Associates in partnership with the Urban Institute.

The Office of Planning, Research and Evaluation (OPRE), Administration for Children and Families released a report outlining their portfolio of research related to welfare and family self-sufficiency projects for the fiscal year 2013. OPRE's research focuses on four major areas: TANF and the Safety Net, Employment and the Labor Market, Education and Training, and other relevant cross-cutting research.

This study examines how child support arrears affect fathers’ labor force participation. It relies on longitudinal data from the Fragile Families and Child Well-Being Study. Findings from analyses of these data suggest that child support arrears result in declines in average weeks worked in the formal labor market in subsequent time periods. These findings are driven by the behaviors of fathers who had relatively high amounts of arrears and no income in the previous year and are mostly robust to tests for selection into no work or low levels of work by fathers. Findings also suggest that arrears obligations that are low relative to income result in increases in the probability that fathers engage in any formal work. Arrears are not statistically significantly related to informal labor force participation. This study highlights both intended and unintended consequences of the growth in arrears under current child support enforcement policies. (author abstract).

The National Poverty Center released a working paper bibliography that summarizes research on the structure and effectiveness of workforce development programs. The paper covers evidence on the overall effectiveness of job training and other active labor market programs, several proposals to improve them, and the impact of the Great Recession on workforce development in the U.S. It also discusses the growing skills and earnings gaps between rich and poor Americans, and provides evidence on training and advancement programs.

The Region IV Administration for Children and Families, Office of Family Assistance (OFA); Region IV U.S. Department of Labor (DOL); and Region IV Office of Child Support Enforcement (OCSE) convened a meeting entitled "Sustainable Employment Strategies: A TANF, Workforce, and Child Support Collaboration" in Atlanta, Georgia, from August 14-16, 2013. The meeting provided TANF, Workforce, and Child Support administrators and staff with an open forum for discussing critical issues impacting the collaboration of their respective entities towards sustainable employment strategies for their TANF and hard-to-serve population, and an opportunity to network both amongst themselves and with Region IV leadership. Region IV staff from each agency--ACF, DOL, and OCSE--shared lessons learned and gathered strategies that can improve their own programs' ability to identify and address multiple barriers, and develop pathways to create sustainable employment and career building opportunities for program participants. In addition, the meeting gave participants an opportunity to meet with their individual State teams to develop action plans that support interagency collaboration.

Project SEARCH, run by Cincinnati Children's Hospital, provides employability skills training and workplace internships for individuals with significant disabilities, particularly youth transitions from high school to adult life. Project SEARCH now has program sites throughout the United States and the United Kingdom, and works with youth with chronic illnesses, traumatic injuries, rehabilitation issues, and other disabilities, and generates a plan that addresses their vocational, educational, training, and employment goals.

The Connecticut Employment & Training Commission released a report describing the most prominent State strategies for building and promoting career pathways. These strategies were pulled from a review of literature on career advancement strategies for low-skilled workers over the last decade.