The Green Jobs and Health Care Impact Evaluation: Findings from the Impact Study of Four Training Programs for Unemployed and Disadvantaged Workers
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The Green Jobs and Health Care Impact Evaluation: Findings from the Impact Study of Four Training Programs for Unemployed and Disadvantaged Workers

Published: May 30, 2016
Publisher: Washington, DC: U.S. Department of Labor, Employment and Training Administration
Human Services Employment Training and Re-employment Data Analytics Research and Evaluation Surveys and Data Collection Evaluation Design Policy Analysis
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Authors

Karin Martinson

Julie Williams

Karen Needels

Laura Peck

Shawn Moulton

Nora Paxton

Annalisa Mastri

Elizabeth Copson

Hiren Nisar

Alison Comfort

Melanie Brown-Lyons

Key Findings

Key Findings:

  • All grantees’ programs featured a series of training courses that could be taken in sequence to foster career development. However, most participants attended training for short periods of time, ranging from 2.4 months to 3.3 months on average, with few participants attending longer than 6 months.
  • The programs has positive impacts on participation in education and training activities, particularly vocational training; receipt of training-related support services, particularly financial assistance, career counseling, and job placement assistance; and receipt of vocational credentials.
  • One of the four programs, administered by the Kern Community College District, had a positive and statistically significant impact on participants’ earnings in the fifth and sixth calendar quarters after random assignment, while the other three sites did not.
  • There was no evidence of statistically significant impacts at any site on other measures of financial and economic stability, such as household income and public benefit receipt.

The study, conducted in conjunction with Abt Associates, the prime contractor, estimated impacts on program participants and examined the implementation experiences of four sites that offered unemployed and other disadvantaged individuals training and support services that were funded through American Recovery and Reinvestment Act of 2009 grants. The four sites were: (1) the American Indian Opportunities Industrialization Center in Minnesota, (2) North Central Texas College, (3) Grand Rapids Community College in Michigan, and (4) the Kern Community College District in California. The first two focused on training in the health care fields, while the latter two focused on training for green jobs.

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