Net Impact and Benefit-Cost Estimates of the Workforce Development System in Washington State

This study estimates the net impacts and private and social benefits and costs of 11 workforce development programs administered in Washington State. Six of the programs serve job-ready adults: Workforce Investment Act (WIA) Title I-B Adult programs, WIA Title I-B Dislocated Worker programs, Community and Technical College Job Preparatory Training, Community and Technical College Worker Retraining, Private Career Schools, and Apprenticeships. Three of the programs serve adults with employment barriers: Community and Technical College Adult Basic Skills Education, IBEST, and Division of Vocational Rehabilitation programs. The other two programs serve youth: WIA Title I-B Youth programs and Secondary Career and Technical Education

Methodology for Adjusting GPRA Workforce Development Program Performance Targets for the Effects of Business Cycles

The U.S. Department of Labor’s Employment and Training Administration issued Training and Employment Guidance Letter (TEGL) 09-08 Change 1 on June 5, 2009. This guidance letter revises the Government Performance and Results Act (GPRA) performance measures for federal workforce development programs to take into account the effect of the recession on participants’ labor market and educational outcomes. As described in the TEGL, the performance targets of the various workforce development programs have been developed for use for the years PY2008 through PY2010. They are intended to be used for PY2009 performance target negotiations and will appear in the President’s Budget Request for FY2010. The performance targets for future program years, adjusted for unemployment rates, are driven by the economic assumptions of the President’s Budget Request for FY2010. The revised performance targets are based on analysis carried out as part of a study conducted for the U.S. Department of Labor by the W. E. Upjohn Institute for Employment Research. This working paper has two purposes. The first is to describe the methodology used to estimate the relationship between unemployment rates and workforce program performance targets. The second is to describe the procedures used to adjust the GPRA performance targets for changes in unemployment rates during the current recession and over the business cycle. The study described in this working paper is the initial phase of an ongoing analysis of the effect of economic conditions on workforce development program outcomes.performance standards, workforce programs, GPRA

Net Impact and Benefit-Cost Estimates of the Workforce Development System in Washington State

This study estimates the net impacts and private and social benefits and costs of 11 workforce development programs administered in Washington State. Six of the programs serve job-ready adults: Workforce Investment Act (WIA) Title I-B Adult programs, WIA Title I-B Dislocated Worker programs, Community and Technical College Job Preparatory Training, Community and Technical College Worker Retraining, Private Career Schools, and Apprenticeships. Three of the programs serve adults with employment barriers: Community and Technical College Adult Basic Skills Education, IBEST, and Division of Vocational Rehabilitation programs. The other two programs serve youth: WIA Title I-B Youth programs and Secondary Career and Technical Education

Net Impact and Benefit-Cost Estimates of the Workforce Development System in Washington State

This study estimates the net impacts and private and social benefits and costs of nine workforce development programs administered in Washington State. Five of the programs serve jobready adults: Community and Technical College Job Preparatory Training, Private Career Schools, Apprenticeships, Job Training and Partnership Act (JTPA) Title III programs, and Community and Technical College Worker Retraining. Two of the programs serve adults with employment barriers: Community and Technical College Adult Basic Skills Education and JTPA Title II-A programs. The other two programs serve youth: JTPA Title II-C programs and Secondary Career and Technical Education. The net impact analyses were conducted using a nonexperimental methodology. Individuals who had encountered the workforce development programs were statistically matched to individuals who had not. Administrative data with information from the universe of program participants and Employment Service registrants (who served as the comparison group pool) supported the analyses. These data included over 10 years of pre-program and outcome information including demographics, employment and earnings information from the Unemployment Insurance wage record system, and transfer income information such as Food Stamps and Temporary Assistance for Needy Families (TANF) recipiency and benefits. A variety of estimation techniques were used to calculate net impacts including comparison of means, regression-adjusted comparison of means, and difference-in-difference comparison of means. We estimated short-term net impacts that examined outcomes for individuals who exited from the education or training programs (or from the Employment Service) in the fiscal year 1999/2000 and longer-term impacts for individuals who exited in the fiscal year 1997/1998. Shortterm employment impacts are positive for seven of the nine programs and negative for the other two. Short-term earnings impacts are insignificant for four of the programs, negative for two, and positive for the remaining three. The longer-term impacts are more sanguine. Employment impacts are positive for all nine programs, and earnings are positive for seven and insignificantly different from zero for the other two. The benefit-cost analyses show that virtually all of the programs have discounted future benefits that far exceed the costs for participants, and that society also receives a positive return on investment

Net Impact and Benefit-Cost Estimates of the Workforce Development System in Washington State

This study estimates the net impacts and private and social benefits and costs of 11workforce development programs administered in Washington State. Six of the programs serve job-ready adults: Workforce Investment Act (WIA) Title I-B Adult programs, WIA Title I-B Dislocated Worker programs, Community and Technical College Job Preparatory Training, Community and Technical College Worker Retraining, Private Career Schools, and Apprenticeships. Three of the programs serve adults with employment barriers: Community and Technical College Adult Basic Skills Education, Division of Vocational Rehabilitation programs, and Department of Services for the Blind programs. The other two programs serve youth: WIA Title I-B Youth programs and Secondary Career and Technical Education. The net impact analyses were conducted using a nonexperimental methodology. Individuals who had encountered the workforce development programs were statistically matched to individuals who had not. Administrative data with information from the universe of program participants and Labor Exchange registrants (who served as the comparison group pool) supported the analyses. These data included several years of pre-program and outcome information including demographics, employment and earnings information from the Unemployment Insurance wage record system, and transfer income information such as Food Stamps and Temporary Assistance for Needy Families (TANF) recipiency and benefits. A variety of estimation techniques was used to calculate net impacts including block matching, comparison of means, regression-adjusted comparison of means, and difference-indifference comparison of means. We estimated short-term net impacts that examined outcomes for individuals who exited from the education or training programs (or from the Labor Exchange) in the fiscal year 2003/2004 and longer-term impacts for individuals who exited in the fiscal year 2001/2002. Short-term employment impacts are positive for nine of the 11 programs and negative (although not statistically significant) for the other two. Short-term earnings impacts are also positive for nine of the programs, positive but not statistically significant for one of the programs, and negative for the remaining program. The longer-term impacts are similar and even a little better. Employment impacts are positive for all 11 programs, and earnings impacts are positive for ten of the 11. The benefit-cost analyses show that virtually all of the programs have discounted future benefits that far exceed the costs for participants, and that society also receives a positive return on investment

Alternative Measures of State UI Systems

Comparisons among state unemployment insurance (UI) systems can be misleading. Frequently quoted indicators of benefit generosity, tax cost, and adherence to the experience-rating principle are influenced by the relative economic conditions of states. Such comparisons thereby obscure underlying structural differences in state UI systems. A business considering alternative states in which to locate a production facility should be cautious when interpreting UI information in an economic developer's marketing pitch. This paper offers alternative indicators based on how representative firms, with a well specified unemployment experience, would fare in different states. The authors use a micro-simulation approach to model the experiences of representative workers and firms to compare 28 states and contrast the results with those obtained from more conventional indicators. In closing, the authors consider whether a business location decision would be influenced differently by the alternative measures of state UI systems.unemployment, insurance, state, O'Leary, Tannenwald

The Tax Treatment of Fringe Benefits

Woodbury and Huang use econometric models to investigate how changes in the tax treatment of fringe benefits can be expected to influence the level of benefits and compensation provided by employers, federal revenues, and income inequality.https://research.upjohn.org/up_press/1092/thumbnail.jp

A Methodology for Setting State and Local Regression-Adjusted Performance Targets for Workforce Investment Act Programs

Beginning with PY2009, the U.S. Department of Labor’s Employment and Training Administration (USDOL/ETA) adopted a regression-adjusted approach for setting national targets for several federal workforce development programs, including WIA Adult, Dislocated Worker, and Youth programs. Prior to that time, national targets were based on past performance and the desire to encourage continuous improvement in the workforce programs. The continuous improvement approach typically increased target levels from year to year without a systematic way of accounting for changes in economic conditions or the ability to meet previous targets. The onset of the 2007–2009 recession drew into question this practice, and the Department of Labor and the Office of Management and Budget (OMB) sought to develop a target-setting methodology that would take into account the effect of changes in labor market conditions on program outcomes. The USDOL/ETA also decided to extend the regression-adjusted approach for setting performance targets so that it also could be used for determining state and LWIA targets. Before the change, state targets were set through negotiations between the state and the USDOL, and LWIA targets were set through negotiations between the state and the LWIAs. This document provides an overview of the methodology for the development of state and local PY2011 performance targets for the three Workforce Investment Act (WIA) programs