Association for Public Policy Analysis & Management

The U.S. Department of Labor, Employment and Training Administration funded the first experimental evaluation of the Workforce Investment Act (WIA) Adult and Dislocated Worker programs: the WIA Adult and Dislocated Worker Programs Gold Standard Evaluation. While the Workforce Innovation and Opportunity Act replaced WIA in 2014, the Adult and Dislocated Worker programs remained largely unchanged. The central goal of this evaluation is to produce rigorous, nationally representative estimates of the effectiveness of the programs by conducting an experimental evaluation in randomly selected sites. Random selection of sites ensures that findings are applicable to programs nationwide, rather than an unrepresentative set of volunteer sites. Random assignment of eligible program applicants ensures that impact estimates are unbiased.

The experimental evaluation was implemented in 28 randomly selected local areas (covering over 200 American Job Centers) across the United States between 2011 and 2013. More than 35,000 job seekers who were eligible for services were randomly assigned to one of three study groups: (1) the core group that could receive only core services, which are primarily informational and self-serve services; (2) the core-and-intensive group that could also receive intensive services (primarily one-on-one staff assistance and job counseling), but not training; and (3) the full-WIA group that could receive all services for which customers would be eligible in the absence of the study, including intensive services and training. We examine individuals’ service-receipt, training participation, employment, and earnings outcomes via information from administrative records and follow-up telephone surveys conducted 15 and 30 months after a job seeker enrolled in the study.

 This paper discusses the first publicly-available information from this study on the impacts of the WIA Adult and Dislocated Worker Programs on employment and earnings 30 months after random assignment. A previous paper, presented at the last APPAM fall conference to a standing-room-only audience, presented impacts during the 15 months after random assignment, a period when many individuals were still receiving services. The proposed paper focuses on employment and earnings impacts at a time when most program participants have finished training and other WIA-funded services. We also investigate the variation in impacts for adult and dislocated workers, as well as that across sites with differing strategies in implementing the programs studied, and the benefits and costs of the services.