Jobs for the Future will host a free webinar on January 14, 2026 from 12:30 p.m. ET to 1:30 p.m. ET, to review the Trump-Vance administration’s workforce development priorities, including their strategic roadmap for workforce development. This event will feature senior leaders in federal agencies unpacking President Trump’s vision for the education and workforce systems and the steps that the administration is undertaking.

The Tennessee Temporary Assistance for Needy Families (TANF) Opportunity Act of 2021 set the TANF cash benefit amount at no less than 25 percent of the Consolidated Need Standard, which is the estimated amount of income a family in Tennessee needs to cover basic living expenses. This change increased the monthly cash benefit for a family of three from $277 to $387, a 40 percent increase. The benefit increase was implemented in July 2021 and remains at that amount. This MEF paper examines the effects of this benefit increase on families participating in Tennessee’s TANF program.

As part of the Tennessee Opportunity Act (TOA), the Tennessee Department of Human Services launched the Tennessee Opportunity Pilot Initiative, awarding $25 million grants to seven community initiatives to support low-income families' economic mobility and well-being. The pilots provide families with direct services and connections to existing services within their communities. The service mix and structure of the pilots vary, but they include similar components such as care coordination and coaching, employment support, financial support, and family or other individual support. TOA also established a rigorous evaluation to inform future policy and programs. The evaluation aimed to create a state-level learning laboratory to produce evidence on program effectiveness and implementation, enabling Tennessee to enhance human services delivery.

This MEF report builds upon the information in the first report, details progress on the evaluation in 2024, and looks towards the upcoming evaluation work.

As part of the Tennessee Opportunity Act (TOA), the Tennessee Department of Human Services launched the Tennessee Opportunity Pilot Initiative, awarding $25 million grants to seven community initiatives to support low-income families' economic mobility and well-being. The pilots provide families with direct services and connections to existing services within their communities. The service mix and structure of the pilots vary, but they include similar components such as care coordination and coaching, employment support, financial support, and family or other individual support. TOA also established a rigorous evaluation to inform future policy and programs. The evaluation aimed to create a state-level learning laboratory to produce evidence on program effectiveness and implementation, enabling Tennessee to enhance human services delivery.

This MEF report discusses the overall research design, presents each pilot’s program characteristics and impact evaluation design, summarizes the planned data sources and data collection methods, and describes the study participants’ characteristics as of March 2024.

As part of the Tennessee Opportunity Act (TOA), the Tennessee Department of Human Services launched the Tennessee Opportunity Pilot Initiative, awarding $25 million grants to seven community initiatives to support low-income families' economic mobility and well-being. The pilots provide families with direct services and connections to existing services within their communities. The service mix and structure of the pilots vary, but they include similar components such as care coordination and coaching, employment support, financial support, and family or other individual support.

This MEF and Urban Institute resource describes the demographic and economic context within which the seven pilot programs are operating as of the start of the programs’ implementation. The context described includes demographic information, income measures and poverty rates, employment and education data, safety net program caseloads, and health information.

As part of the Tennessee Opportunity Act (TOA), the Tennessee Department of Human Services launched the Tennessee Opportunity Pilot Initiative, awarding $25 million grants to seven community initiatives to support low-income families' economic mobility and well-being. The pilots provide families with direct services and connections to existing services within their communities. The service mix and structure of the pilots vary, but they include similar components such as care coordination and coaching, employment support, financial support, and family or other individual support. TOA also established a rigorous evaluation to inform future policy and programs. The evaluation aimed to create a state-level learning laboratory to produce evidence on program effectiveness and implementation, enabling Tennessee to enhance human services delivery.

This MEF resource includes recommendations for a set of outcome measures to more fully describe the impact of services on individual and family capacity for self-sufficiency, as well as use of safety net programs. This resource was a result of nearly 300 sources and input from five experts from the field. While these recommendations were developed to support the TOA pilot evaluations, findings may be applied more broadly to efforts to promote capacity for self-sufficiency among families with low-income.

Across the country, more adults are turning to short-term skills training as a relatively fast and affordable path to better jobs. As Workforce Pell expands access to these kinds of programs, it is more important than ever to understand how short-term skills training programs are and are not working for the people they are meant to serve. This National Skills Coalition (NSC) brief highlights findings from conversations with 34 people across sixteen states who were enrolled in or had recently graduated from short-term skills training programs.

This Jobs for the Future report explains how and why education and workforce leaders should link public and private education and workforce data to promote economic mobility for all. It also offers guidance on how to forge partnerships that will facilitate that process. The report highlights the various types of data available and what might be accomplished by linking them. The report also provides examples of how public and private data could be combined to develop a deeper understanding of employer demand and the learn-to-earn pipeline.

This Annie E. Casey Foundation resource highlights the work of the Del Norte Work-Based Learning Ecosystem, which works to trans­form edu­ca­tion to bet­ter respond to stu­dents and help schools and dis­tricts in strength­en­ing or imple­ment­ing work-based learn­ing programs. Indi­vid­u­al­ized youth intern­ships are keep­ing stu­dents at Del Norte High School in Albu­querque, New Mex­i­co, on track to achieve aca­d­e­m­ic and career goals. By intern­ing at orga­ni­za­tions that address homelessness, these stu­dents are build­ing aca­d­e­m­ic and occu­pa­tion­al skills as they con­tribute to their communities.

Jobs for the Future will host a webinar on December 2, 2025 from 2:00 p.m. to 3:30 p.m. ET to show how to thoughtfully integrate artificial intelligence (AI) as a powerful partner in practice. Through real-world examples, guided exercises, and peer-to-peer practice, participants will learn practical strategies to boost their efficiency, tailor support to unique jobseeker needs, and free up more time for human-centric coaching. Whether new to AI or ready to deepen their skills, this session will equip participants with tools to create better outcomes for the people they serve.