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Climbing the Economic Ladder and Rising Out of Poverty |
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A central focus of MDRC's research agenda is to identify effective strategies to help low-income youth and adults escape poverty by achieving success in the labor market. MDRC is studying programs that assist the working poor to retain employment and move up to better-paying jobs, improve employment prospects for people with serious obstacles to work, and enable low-income young adults to acquire the skills and credentials that will prepare them for better jobs. Low-wage workers comprise a large segment of the U.S. workforce: A quarter of workers earn $9.46 or less an hour, and fully half earn less than $14.15 an hour. Funded by the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services and the U.S. Department of Labor, MDRC's Employment Retention and Advancement (ERA) project is the most comprehensive effort thus far to discover what approaches help welfare recipients and other low-income people stay steadily employed and advance in their jobs. Yet, high school dropout rates remain stubbornly high --- estimated at 29 percent nationally and even higher for African-American and Hispanic students. And too many students who do manage to graduate aren't prepared either for the labor market or postsecondary education. Career Academies were first developed some 35 years ago with the aim of restructuring large high schools into small learning communities, establishing partnerships with local employers to provide work-based learning opportunities to students, and creating pathways between high school and further education and the workplace. Community colleges, which are more accessible and affordable than other postsecondary institutions, offer low-income people a unique opportunity to improve their prospects in the labor market and in life.
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