In 2019, Code for America conducted a nationwide study of enrollment in public benefits programs (including TANF), identifying success rates, pain points, and suggested changes for improving access for citizens and lessening the load on caseworkers. Four years later, an updated Benefits Enrollment Field Guide has been published, chronicling how the last few years have seen a new approach to public benefits programs take root—an approach aimed at making significant improvements to citizens’ enrollment experiences and end-to-end benefits journey —thanks to faster and more accurate responses from agencies leading to better outcomes. This American Public Human Services Association blogpost summarizes the updated guide, featuring the surveyed public programs, the four major roadblocks, and a notable success story in Washington D.C.

COTS Detroit, an organization with a long history of providing support to individuals and families experiencing or overcoming homelessness, achieved a milestone by becoming the first organization in the EMPath Economic Mobility Exchange to receive certification in a research-backed economic mobility coaching method. In this Question-and-Answer resource, the COTS Detroit Senior Director of Strategic Partnerships discusses their mission and the impact of economic mobility coaching on the communities they serve.

One goal of Temporary Assistance for Needy Families (TANF) employment services is to improve equitable and stable employment outcomes for job seekers. However, employment services driven by biased service delivery approaches might exacerbate and reinforce existing disparities within the labor market. This Office of Planning, Research and Evaluation brief provides strategies that staff members can use while working with TANF participants to increase equitable access to employment opportunities. It also describes strategies that TANF program leaders can use to combat biases at an organizational level.

In 2022, the Center for the Study of Social Policy (CSSP) and Project SPARC (Student-Parents Are Reimagining CalWORKs) conducted research to better understand the barriers experienced by parenting students in CalWORKs, California’s cash assistance program for families with children. Parenting students work hard every day to pursue their goals, often juggling work, classes, and caregiving responsibilities. Public systems and programs can provide critical support, but frequently create additional hurdles for parenting students and their families, especially those with low incomes. This CSSP brief highlights findings from the research on parenting students’ experiences transferring to four-year institutions. Inadequate support for families’ basic needs combined with limited support at four-year institutions for parenting students who participate in CalWORKs are significant barriers for parenting students as they further their education.

As of 2021, up to 17.5% of working age American Indians, Alaska Natives, and Native Hawaiians reported they have a disability. However, only 2.2% of Division of Indian and Native American Programs grantee participants reported they have a disability. Low reporting may indicate that participants do not know that they can receive accommodations to help them be more successful during a training program and at their workplace if they disclose that they have a disability. Also, workforce development staff may not realize that they can leverage partners to provide more comprehensive services for participants with disabilities to ensure their success and/or may not know how to broach the topic with customers.

The National Center on Leadership for the Employment and Economic Advancement of People with Disabilities hosted part-two of a two-part series on December 10, 2021 where attendees learned best practices and strategies in building partnerships and leveraging resources across federal, state, and local systems.

Many programs aiming to improve employment outcomes among people with low-incomes rely on relationships with employers to develop job opportunities for participants. The COVID-19 pandemic and resulting recession changed the ways these programs engage with and garner support from employers. This Office of Planning, Research and Evaluation brief describes the experiences of six employment programs participating in the Next Generation of Enhanced Employment Strategies Project and presents key takeaways from their efforts to maintain and develop new connections with employers during the COVID-19 pandemic. Four of the programs serve people with mental illness, one serves Temporary Assistance for Needy Families participants with disabilities or who care for dependents with disabilities, and one serves young adults with disabilities who are transitioning from school to work.

Employment coaching involves trained staff working collaboratively with participants to help them set individualized goals related to employment and providing motivation, support, and feedback as participants work toward those goals. Recently, there has been growing interest among policymakers, practitioners, and researchers in using employment coaching to assist Temporary Assistance for Needy Families (TANF) recipients and other adults with low incomes become economically mobile. This Office of Planning, Research and Evaluation report highlights the evaluation that was designed to assess the implementation and effectiveness of the four programs participating in the Employment Coaching for TANF and Related Populations study. The report answers the following research questions: In what contexts were programs implemented? How did the designs of the programs vary and differ? How was coaching implemented across programs? The programs highlighted in this evaluation are: • Family Development and Self-Sufficiency, which serves TANF recipients and their family members in Iowa. • Goal4 It!TM, which provides employment coaching to TANF recipients in Jefferson County, Colorado in lieu of traditional case management. • LIFT, which is a voluntary coaching program operated in four U.S. cities. • MyGoals for Employment Success, which serves recipients of housing assistance in Baltimore, Maryland, and Houston, Texas.

Watch the Corresponding Video

Early formal work experience provides long-lasting benefits for young adults, from higher wages to less time spent unemployed over their lifetimes. Young people need support and structure to empower them as they embark on their careers. This Urban Institute toolkit was developed with input from an array of organizations serving young people who are uniquely positioned to be allies to youth worker voice, including youth development groups, nonprofits specializing in job training and placement, social enterprises that directly employ and place young workers, as well as workforce organizations that partner with training programs. The toolkit was designed to guide youth-serving organizations on how to listen to and support youth voice within their own organizations, build youth skills to advocate for themselves at work, encourage employer partners to make space for youth voice, and elevate youth worker voice in community and policy conversations.

Economic stability and employment during young adulthood are critical to long-term economic security, and today, many young adults face longer periods of financial insecurity than in the past. Young people affected by the justice system face additional barriers to achieving economic stability and employment with research showing that formerly incarcerated people are almost five times more likely than the public to be unemployed. This report details the findings of a joint project between The National Youth Employment Coalition and Urban Institute to conduct case studies of five sites that launched or implemented a broad-based, cross-system collaborative to promote workforce development and better provide labor market opportunities for justice-involved youth. The case studies include a detailed analysis of each site’s collaborative efforts, key stakeholders, best practices for systems collaboration, an exploration of funding sources, and sustainability efforts.