Increasing Employment Stability and Earnings for Low-Wage Workers: Lessons from the Employment...

"The project points to some strategies that succeeded in improving retention and earnings among low-income single parents and provides some lessons. Key ones include:

• Supporting employment stability is likely to be a more effective strategy than encouraging job stability — that is, staying employed in the same job.
• Earnings supplements, tied to job retention and that help to make low-wage work pay, ideally coupled with job coaching, can promote sustained employment and advancement.
• By themselves, counseling and referrals to services to help people stay employed do not appear to increase employment retention and advancement.

Although the ERA project found that some strategies can improve low-income individuals’ employment and earnings, the improvements were not transformational" (p.v). (Abstractor: Author)

Full publication title: Increasing Employment Stability and Earnings for Low-Wage Workers: Lessons from the Employment Retention and Advancement (ERA) Project

• "Increases in participation in retention and advancement services beyond control group levels were not consistent and often were not large. • ERA did not provide evidence that encouraging stability [in their current job], at least as tried in ERA, is an effective strategy for increasing employment retention or advancement. • ERA did not provide evidence that encouraging unemployed individuals to find a job in their preferred field during job clubs, as opposed to any job, yields greater employment retention or advancement. • Three of the 12 ERA programs generated consistent increases in individuals’ employment retention and advancement. • Supporting employment stability can be an effective strategy. • Earnings supplements to promote employment retention, ideally coupled with job coaching, can promote sustained employment. • ERA did not provide evidence that a strategy centered on encouraging employed TANF recipients to also participate in education and training will yield increases in employment retention and advancement. • By themselves, counseling and referrals to services to help people stay employed do not appear to increase employment retention and advancement" (p.ES,5-7). (Abstractor: Author)

• Last Updated:
• Created:
• Resource Publication Date: 2012
• Author(s): Hamilton, Gayle; Scrivener, Susan
• Organizational Author(s): MDRC
• Funding Source: Administration for Children and Families (ACF), U.S. Department of Health and Human Services
• Resource Availability: Publicly available
• Posted by: Melissa Mack
• Posted in: Workforce System Strategies