Employment Strategies for Low-Wage & Hard-to-Employ Workers: Select Project Lessons

Many recipients of Temporary Assistance for Needy Families (TANF) and other low-income individuals find or keep jobs for a while, but far fewer remain steadily employed, advance in the labor market, or earn wages that lift their families out of poverty. To address these issues, a number of initiatives have aimed to help low-wage workers stay employed and move up in the labour market. Several such programs, trying different strategies, were studied as part of a multiyear, multisite evaluation called the Employment Retention and Advancement (ERA) project. This book examines the ERA program which outlines a few strategies that succeeded in improving individuals’ employment retention and earnings as well as strategies that did not. Key findings and lessons are detailed.