While many of the United States’ peer countries have partnered effectively with employers to offer earn-and-learn options like apprenticeships on a grand scale, the U.S. continues to rely almost exclusively on traditional four-year college degrees as the primary path to a good job—leaving many workers and learners behind. Brookings and New America’s Partnership to Advance Youth Apprenticeship are co-hosting a webinar on February 21, 2024 at 2:00 p.m. ET, where leaders in Alabama, Colorado, and Indiana will discuss how they are creating enabling policies to scale earn-and-learn opportunities.

Whether or not they have a strong understanding of all the options before them, many Gen Z youth are looking for faster, more economical, and more relevant on-ramps to meaningful jobs that offer life-sustaining wages and are aligned to their real interests. They want opportunities to learn and grow while working and earning—options that do not require them to put their lives on hold for years and accumulate life-changing debt in the process. This Jobs for the Future report is intended to improve public awareness of nondegree pathways by exploring how they benefit people and the workplace as well as barriers that prevent them from being mainstreamed.

Many learners face financial and other barriers to accessing and completing occupational training courses. The cost of education has also increased across different types of institutions, while financial aid has declined. In 2019, Social Finance, Inc. launched the UP Fund, a $50 million fund that aims to improve economic mobility by expanding access to job training programs to underserved learners and learners from low-income backgrounds. MDRC conducted a study of UP Fund and its Career Impact Bond (CIB) model with four main goals:

• Build knowledge on whether the CIB model can increase affordability and access to short-term training courses;
• Document the experiences of learners in these programs;
• Examine learners’ short- and long-term outcomes; and
• Assess whether the CIB model is a sustainable and scalable financial model.

This brief provides an overview of the study, details of the UP Fund’s CIB model, and early implementation findings.

In 2020, the Urban Institute (UI) published a framework comprising 26 mobility metrics that can help communities understand and track the factors that most influence mobility from poverty. These metrics span three distinct but interconnected dimensions:

1. economic success,
2. power and autonomy, and
3. dignity and belonging.

To gain a nuanced understanding of local conditions, however, communities should supplement these metrics with local data, as well as the knowledge and lived experiences of community members. This UI resource offers insights into how two communities – Fresno, California and Philadelphia, Pennsylvania - can effectively monitor progress toward their upward mobility goals.

More on the Mobility Metrics Framework!

January was National Mentoring Month, which highlighted the critical role that mentors play in the lives of youth and the extent to which young people have access to mentors in America. Unfortunately, new data indicate that decades of mentoring progress may be eroding at a time when youth mental health needs are soaring. This Annie E. Casey Foundation blogpost emphasizes trends, impacts, and recommendations for youth mentoring.

In 2020, the Urban Institute (UI) published a framework comprising 26 mobility metrics that can help communities understand and track the factors that most influence mobility from poverty. Urban Institute’s framework identifies five pillars that support mobility from poverty and their predictors, which both reflect performance and can be influenced by local leaders to help bolster the conditions that boost upward mobility and narrow racial inequities.

The Department of Labor’s Women’s Bureau is hosting a webinar on February 13, 2024, from 8:00 p.m. to 9:00 p.m. ET, where an expert panel will discuss the need for structured mentorship for women in the trades. Panelists will focus on best practices for program startup and review successful program structures.

As the United States confronts social, structural, and economic shifts driven by climate change, the need for workers with new skills and capabilities is clear. But not enough workers are trained and prepared for these opportunities. Jobs for the Future (JFF) launched the Quality Green Jobs Regional Challenge to invest nearly $5 million in communities to develop and implement regional strategies to grow quality green jobs. The challenge is part of Climate-Resilient Employees for a Sustainable Tomorrow (CREST), which is a five-year initiative of the Ares Charitable Foundation to prepare and reskill individuals for green jobs to help ensure an equitable and inclusive economy. This JFF resource provides insights on the perceptions, barriers, and solutions in pursuit of green jobs and skills.

The Office of Planning, Research, and Evaluation is funding the Building Evidence on Employment Strategies (BEES) project to conduct an evaluation of a supportive housing program in Portland, Oregon. The program, operated by Central City Concern, provides treatment for substance use disorder (SUD) along with housing and employment services. This OPRE project profile provides a short overview of the Central City Concern’s supportive housing program, including the program’s employment services, and describes the study to be carried out by the project team.

Learning and employment records (LERs) could play a critical role in advancing skills-based hiring practices and ensuring they are implemented equitably. LERs are digital records of an individual’s formal and informal learning and employment and can be used to represent diverse experiences on the job or inside the classroom. SkillsFWD is a new initiative on a mission to catalyze a more equitable skills-based hiring ecosystem and announced inaugural grants to fund projects solving challenges around LERs. This U.S. Chamber of Commer Foundation resource names the six grant-winning teams that will spearhead diverse projects across the country, generating replicable models and sharing original learnings and insights