The U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics reported on August 24, 2012 that from January 2009 through December 2011, 6.1 million workers were displaced from jobs they had held for at least three years. This is down from the 6.9 million for the survey period covering January 2007 to December 2009. In January 2012, 56 percent of workers displaced from 2009-11 were reemployed, up by seven percentage points from the prior survey in January 2010.

The Brookings Institute published a paper that aimed to provide metro, State, and national policy makers with a clearer understanding of the specific problems facing metropolitan labor markets today. An analysis examining trends in the demand for educated labor, and an explanation on how the gap between education supply and demand is related to unemployment, is addressed. This study concludes with a discussion of the implications of these findings for public policy.

This Research Brief analyzes quarterly data from the Current Population Survey, the nation's primary data collection instrument for labor force activity. Analyses of the employment patterns of persons with children under age 18 show that they have largely mirrored the employment patterns of the rest of the labor force since the beginning of the most recent recession, including a decrease in employment. Findings show an increase in the percent of couples with neither parent employed and an increase in the percent of single mothers who were neither employed nor living with an employed cohabiting partner.

Cornell University's School of Employment and Disability Institute collaborated to conduct a survey on the practices and policies related to accessibility and accommodation for people with disabilities. On May 17, 2012, these findings were published and are currently the second in a three-part series on organizational practices and policies related to the employment of people with disabilities. Results show that three out of four (75%) organizations designate an office or person to address accommodation questions, and more than one-half of organizations (56%) indicate that having a centralized accommodation fund (i.e., companywide fund to provide accommodations for people with disabilities) was a very effective practice.

The Social Security Administration's Disability Blog has introduced The Ticket to Work "Find Help" Tool. The Ticket to Work Program can be utilized by Social Security disability beneficiaries aged 18 through 64. Those individuals that fall within this requisite and are looking to work can use this service to help prepare for, find, and maintain work. The Ticket to Work "Find Help" Tool helps find service providers unique to participants' locations, and connects participants to organizations that can help them achieve their work goals. The web page provides further information on EN Report Cards, eligibility criteria, and services provided.

From the Center on Budget and Policy Priorities, this Chartbook provides data on the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP). SNAP provides approximately 46 million people across the country with nutrition assistance and is especially relied upon during economic recessions, since after unemployment insurance, SNAP has been the most responsive Federal program to assist families. Authors provide information on the demographics of the population accessing this program, as well as information on program administration, take-up, and use.

The Center on Law and Social Policy's Center for Postsecondary and Economic Success launched the Alliance for Quality Career Pathways (AQCP). The goal of the AQCP is to identify benchmarks for measuring high-quality career pathways programs. Currently, at least 10 States are conducting Statewide career pathways programs. Successful career pathways programs are tailored to the local context, so there is no one-size-fits-all model, but the goal of the AQCP is to identify a broad range of benchmarks that can be applicable to multiple industries, target populations, and program designs.

As part of the Aspen Institute's Workforce Strategies Initiative (AspenWSI) funded by the Charles Stewart Mott Foundation, this report provides an overview of programs developed as part of the Courses to Employment (C2E) demonstration. The three-year demonstration was designed to help build programs through partnerships between community colleges and nonprofits and learn how these partnerships support low-income adults in post-secondary education and beyond in employment opportunities.

Social policy evaluations usually use classical statistical methods, which may, for example, compare outcomes for program and comparison groups and determine whether the estimated differences (or impacts) are statistically significant — meaning they are unlikely to have been generated by a program with no effect. This approach has two important shortcomings. First, it is geared toward testing hypotheses regarding specific possible program effects — most commonly, whether a program has zero effect. It is difficult with this framework to test a hypothesis that, say, the program’s estimated impact is larger than 10 (whether 10 percentage points, $10, or some other measure). Second, readers often view results through the lens of their own expectations. A program developer may interpret results positively even if they are not statistically significant — that is, they do not confirm the program’s effectiveness — while a skeptic might interpret with caution statistically significant impact estimates that do not follow theoretical expectations.

This paper uses Bayesian methods — an alternative to classical statistics — to reanalyze results from three studies in the Enhanced Services for the Hard-to-Employ (HtE) Demonstration and Evaluation Project, which is testing interventions to increase employment and reduce welfare dependency for low-income adults with serious barriers to employment. In interpreting new data from a social policy evaluation, a Bayesian analysis formally incorporates prior beliefs, or expectations (known as "priors"), about the social policy into the statistical analysis and characterizes results in terms of the distribution of possible effects, instead of whether the effects are consistent with a true effect of zero.

The main question addressed in the paper is whether a Bayesian approach tends to confirm or contradict published results. Results of the Bayesian analysis generally confirm the published findings that impacts from the three HtE programs examined here tend to be small. This is in part because results for the three sites are broadly consistent with findings from similar studies, but in part because each of the sites included a relatively large sample. The Bayesian framework may be more informative when applied to smaller studies that might not be expected to provide statistically significant impact estimates on their own. (author abstract)

The U.S. Department of Labor awarded $12 million in grants to nine organizations to provide employment services to previously incarcerated female adults and youth. The funds will be used by grantees to provide job training to lead to credentials in high-demand industries; employment preparation; mentoring; supportive services such as housing, and substance abuse and mental health treatment; family counseling; and assistance with parenting and child reunification. Helping this population gain employment is critical to providing the stability required for improving their educational and employment outcomes. This news release provides an overview of each grantee, including their location and award amount.