The COVID-19 pandemic and its economic fallout have caused major disruptions for many workers and their families, particularly individuals working in jobs with low wages. This report and its accompanying brief summarize the experiences that 41 such workers shared during in-depth interviews, which examined how the respondents’ employment situations changed during the pandemic and the financial struggles they faced as a result of losing their job or having their work hours reduced. The stories and experiences workers share in the report and brief can help policymakers, employers, and programs that are interested in better supporting individuals with low incomes and their families.

This blogpost illustrates how newly released data from the U.S. Census Bureau reveal a major public policy success. The nation’s child poverty rate dropped by half in 2021, from an estimated 10% in 2020 to a historic low of 5%. This drop was primarily due to the expanded child tax credit (CTC), according to the Supplemental Poverty Measure (SPM). The SPM provides an opportunity to assess the effectiveness of government anti-poverty interventions by accounting for safety net benefits, including the expanded child tax credit as part of the American Rescue Plan Act of 2021. Based on Census Bureau data, the CTC lifted 2.9 million children out of poverty in 2021; one-third of these kids was under age 6.

Soft skills, also known as “noncognitive,” “employability,” “baseline,” or “twenty-first-century” skills, are the capabilities and habits that affect social-emotional abilities related to communication, social interactions, and problem-solving. This blogpost covers findings from a series of interviews with employers to gauge how they perceive the value and authority of soft-skills credentials and to learn what could increase their utility and credibility. Additionally, the blogpost notes that employers made clear that they value work and academic experiences that relate to candidates’ skills more than they value soft-skills credentials.

The once-in-a-generation financial disruption caused by COVID-19 was a massive stress test on the financial resilience of U.S. households. In response, policymakers, companies, nonprofits, and community leaders stepped up to support households in ways they never had before – through direct financial assistance, by closing critical gaps in workplace benefits, and with innovative solutions to improve the design and delivery of benefits.

The Aspen Institute’s Financial Security Program will host a two-part Financial Resilience series which will highlight the foundational role benefits play in supporting household financial resilience, elevate the insights and work of benefit leaders, and discuss the opportunities for scale and innovations needed in public benefits and workplace benefits. Part 1 of this webinar series, Modernizing Public Benefits, will take place on October 13, 2022 from 2:00 p.m. to 3:00 p.m. ET. This webinar will highlight a new framework for financial resilience, elevate the work of federal, state, and nonprofit leaders currently paving the way to support household financial resilience by taking a people-centric approach to public benefits design and delivery, and explore opportunities for scaling these solutions to reach all households. Details on Part 2 of the webinar series, Modernizing Workplace Benefits on November 17, 2022, will be included in a future PeerTA newsletter.

Engaging job seekers in apprenticeship has a multitude of barriers to overcome depending on the community. For instance, younger generations may not be interested because it is seen as a long-term effort to receive monetary rewards. Others who are not English speaking may find apprenticeship daunting. The National Association of Workforce Development Professionals will host a webinar session on October 26, 2022 from 1:00 p.m. to 1:30 p.m. CT to provide tools and information on how to address job seeker barriers to apprenticeship. Speakers include staff from West Michigan Works.

Mathematica will host an interactive webinar on October 13, 2022 from 3:00 p.m. to 4:00 p.m. ET which will explore and discuss three Evidence Snapshots created by the Pathways to Work Evidence Clearinghouse. The Snapshots cover employment coaching, financial incentives, and subsidized employment and transitional jobs.

The webinar will include an interactive discussion among panelists from Mathematica and the Office of Planning, Research and Evaluation, which will address the following questions:

• Which interventions featuring an employment coaching component improve the employment and earnings of people with low incomes?
• Which interventions with a focus on financial incentives are the most effective overall, and which outcomes do they improve?
• Which subsidized employment and transitional jobs interventions improve outcomes for participants?

There will also be a separate interactive breakout session to each of the three snapshots during the webinar where participants can learn more about the types of services in which they are most interested.

Human-Centered Design (HCD) is a process and a mindset for addressing complex problems by designing solutions with those who will ultimately use the solution (i.e., end users). Because of its inherent focus on end users or recipients of services, HCD appears to have potential for promoting effective, efficient, and compassionate service delivery that is aligned with the mission of the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services’ Administration for Children and Families (ACF).

In 2018, ACF’s Office of Planning, Research and Evaluation (OPRE) initiated the Human-Centered Design for Human Services (HCD4HS) project to explore the viability of HCD in addressing the complex problems facing public sector human services programs. This project included a review of the knowledge base to define HCD and describe how it has been used and evaluated in the human services context, and a pilot study to evaluate the implementation of HCD, with a focus on assessing its evaluability. This report presents the findings from this pilot study.

Between 2010 and 2021, the Health Profession Opportunity Grants (HPOG) Program funded two rounds of grants (referred to as HPOG 1.0 and HPOG 2.0) for education, training, support services, and employment assistance to prepare Temporary Assistance for Needy Families (TANF) recipients and other adults with low incomes for occupations in the healthcare field that pay well and are expected to either experience labor shortages or be in high demand. This report examines the career progress and wage outcomes of participants in HPOG 2.0. The report compares the value of completing multiple entry-level trainings or obtaining multiple entry-level credentials against completing one entry-level training or obtaining one entry-level credential. Information is included that can help future program operators consider whether the time and cost for participants to take multiple entry-level trainings or obtain multiple credentials will lead to improved employment opportunities.

WorkRise will host a set of webinars from October 18 to October 20, 2022 from 2:00 p.m. to 4:30 p.m. ET as part of a three-day conference entitled, "Charting a Resilient Future for US Workers: Solutions to Navigate an Uncertain Economy." The webinars will highlight the highs and lows that workers and families have faced as a result of seismic shifts in the economy. The COVID-19 pandemic dealt a once-in-a-lifetime economic shock, followed by a robust government response to stabilize the economy. Nearly three years later, a tight labor market has led to historic wage growth and better jobs—particularly for workers earning low wages. Inflation, however, has undermined these gains, and policies to control prices could lead to higher unemployment. Longer-term trends such as income inequality, automation, climate change, and demographic shifts pose uncertainty for the present and future of work.

The conference explores the challenge and promise of the current moment, innovative policies and practices aimed at improving job quality and economic mobility, and creative, cross-sector solutions that are turning risk into resilience so that workers, businesses, and communities can thrive. Each day’s webinar will be anchored around a specific theme – The Challenge and Promise of the Current Moment (October 18); Innovative Practices to Shape the Future of Work (October 19); Turning Threats into Opportunity (October 20) – with presentations from stakeholder networks, including workers, employers, policymakers, practitioners, researchers, and advocates who will share actionable insights and solutions to navigate the road ahead. Workers will also share reflections on their experiences with economic uncertainty and their hopes about the future.

This report provides statistics on food security in U.S. households throughout 2021 based on the Current Population Survey Food Security Supplement data collected in December 2021. Statistics showed that 10.2 percent of households were food insecure at least some time during the year, including 3.8 percent with very low food security. About 56 percent of food-insecure households participated in one or more of the three largest Federal nutrition assistance programs: the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP); the Special Supplemental Nutrition Program for Women, Infants, and Children (WIC); and the National School Lunch Program during the month prior to the 2021 survey.