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Declining Share of Adults Receiving Training under WIA are Low-Income or Disadvantaged. By Abbey Frank and Elisa Minoff, Center for Law and Social Policy. (The Center, Washington, DC) 2005. 8 p.

Full Text at: www.clasp.org/publications/decline_in_wia_training.pdf

[“The share of training recipients who are low-income or have barriers to employment has dropped since WIA was enacted. This paper considers some possible explanations for this decline, and offers recommendations for WIA reauthorization and state and local action to increase the share of training resources directed to adults who are low-income, single parents, or have other barriers to finding and keeping employment.”]

[Request #S62626]

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Missing Inaction: Evidence of Undercounting of Non-Workers in the Current Population Survey. By John Schmidtt and Dean Baker, Center for Economic and Policy Research. (The Center, Washington, DC)2006. 31 p.

Full Text at: www.cepr.net/publications/undercounting_cps_2006_01.pdf

["The report noted that a large and growing portion of the population does not respond to the Current Population Survey, and that the non-responders appear less likely to be employed than people who take the survey. This overstatement is significant because the CPS is the source for the government's most important statistics on the labor market, including the unemployment rate, poverty rate and health-insurance coverage."]

[Request #S62615]

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A New Approach to Low-Wage Workers and Employers. By Jacquelyn Anderson and others, MRDC. (MDRC, Washington, DC) March 2006. 82 p.

Full Text at: www.mdrc.org/publications/424/full.pdf

["Low-income workers, a large segment of the U.S. labor market, make important contributions to the nation's economy. However, many do not keep their jobs -- at a notable cost to their employers -- or do not advance to better positions that would meet labor market demand... This report provides an early picture of the opportunities and challenges that lie ahead... While the report should be of particular interest to workforce and welfare professionals and policymakers, it also speaks to a broad audience with a stake in both meeting labor market demand and raising the income of low-income workers."]

[Request #S62616]

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Welfare Reform: More Informaton Needed to Assess Promising Strategies to Increase Parents' Incomes. By the U.S. Government Accountability Office. GAO-06-108 (The Office, Washington, DC) December 2005. 61 p.

Full Text at: www.gao.gov/new.items/d06108.pdf

["Following major welfare refom in 1996, the number of families receiving cash assistance was cut in half. While many former recipients now rely more on their earnings, they often work at low-wage jobs with limited benefits.... To better understand how to help these individuals and their families attain economic self-sufficiency, GAO is reporting on 1) strategies designed to increase income for TANF recipients through employment; 2) the key factors related to implementing and operating such strategies; and 3) actions the Department of Health and Human Services has taken to facilitate the use of experts to gather infomration about promising strategies."]

[Request #S62617]

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Nanomaterials in the Workplace: Policy and Planning Workshop on Occupational Safety and Health. By James T. Bartis and Eric Landree, RAND. (RAND, Santa Monica, California) 2006. 33 p.

Full Text at: www.rand.org/pubs/conf_proceedings/2006/RAND_CF227.pdf

["Over the past few years, various organizations inside and outside of government have focused attention on the lack of understanding of the human health and environmental consequences of nanomaterials. Workers involved with the manufacture or handling of nanomaterials are viewed as being especially susceptible to receiving high exposures to those materials... Four problem areas are: 1) knowledge gaps related to health risks and worker protections; 2) shortfalls in fundamental scientific knowledge common to broad classes of nanomaterials; 3) funds being allocated to understanding the occupational, health, and environmental risks of emerging nanomaterials are not commensurate with the pace of development of new nanomaterials; and 4) cooperation among federal agencies and between the public and private sectors is essential for progress."]

[Request #S62618]

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Reform or Dismantling? President's Workforce System Proposal Raises Serious Concerns. By Abbey Frank and Evelyn Ganzglass, Center for Law and Social Policy. (The Center, Washington, DC) 2006. 5 p.

Full Text at: www.clasp.org/publications/workforce_07budget.doc

["President Bush’s 2007 budget proposal calls for drastic reduction in funding for training and employment services and the consolidation of Workforce Investment Act and Employment Service programs into a single block grant to states. The proposed changes would channel most of the remaining resources into individual training vouchers thus diminishing state and local flexibility to tailor programs to meet the needs of employers and job seekers, especially low-income adults, hard-to-employ individuals, and disadvantaged youth."]

[Request #S62620]

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L.A. Workforce Investment. By Patrick Burns and Daniel Flaming, Economic Roundtable. Prepared for the Los Angeles Economy Project. (The Roundtable, Los Angeles, California) 2006. 16 p.

Full Text at: www.economicrt.org/pub/la_workforce_investment/LA_Workforce_Investment.pdf

["This is a briefing paper on labor market preparedness and workforce training. Findings are drawn from the LA Economy Project: 1) 1 in 4 workers in the city do not earn a living wage; 2) 1 in 6 workers are linguistically isolated; 3) there is a rough northwest/southeast divide in the prosperity of LA's resident workers; and 4) increased levels of targeted job training and skill development are needed."]

[Request #S62621]

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Making Random Assignment Happen: Evidence from the UK Employment Retention and Advancement Demonstration. By Robert Walker, University of Oxford, and others. Research Report. No. 330. (Department for Work and Pensions, Leeds, United Kingdom) 2006.

["The largest random assignment test of a social policy’s effectiveness in Britain to date is being applied in a demonstration of the Employment Retention and Advancement program. The initiative aims to help low-income single parents and the long-term unemployed find jobs and advance in the labor market. This report examines how well random assignment worked and draws lessons for future social policy evaluations." New from MDRC (March 28, 2006).]

Summary. 4 p.:
http://www.mdrc.org/publications/425/summary.pdf

Full Report. 114 p.:
http://www.mdrc.org/publications/425/full.pdf

[Request #S62622]

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Building Institutions from the Region Up: Regional Workforce Development Collaboratives in California. By Karen Chapple, Department of City and Regional Planning, U.C. Berkeley. (Institute of Urban and Regional Development, Berkeley, California) 2005. 97 p.

Full Text at: repositories.cdlib.org/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=1041&context=iurd

["The study of regional workforce development collaboratives in California looks at a new approach to the problem of linking economic and workforce development –- in particular, a theory of change proposed by a group of stakeholders from a variety of sectors (government, foundations, and the workforce development system) in the late 1990s. To meet the multiple goals of increasing economic opportunity, decreasing poverty, and increasing regional economic competitiveness, these experts advocated a new workforce development system that was collaborative in scope, regional in scale, career-oriented in focus, and data intensive in strategy."]

[Request #S62624]

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California's Workforce Development System: Contours and Key Challenges. By Barbara Baran, California Budget Project. (The Project, Sacramento, California) February 2006. 9 p.

Full Text at: www.dchsconferenceonpoverty.org/papers/baran_paper.pdf

["This paper defines workforce development programs as those that wholly or in large part engage in one of the following four activities: labor exchange (matching workers to job openings), job training, adult basic education, or vocational rehabilitation. There are programs for both adults and youth. This paper briefly reviews the principal components of California’s adult workforce development system, details some key policy challenges workforce programs and institutions confront in effectively serving low-skilled, low-wage Californians, and presents recommendations for addressing these challenges."]

[Request #S62625]

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Small Businesses and Workplace Fatality Risk: An Exploratory Analysis. By John Mendeloff and others, RAND. (RAND, Santa Monica, California) 2006. 76 p.

Full Text at: www.rand.org/pubs/technical_reports/2006/RAND_TR371.pdf

[“Research based on government data comes to a conclusion that many may find surprising: small, single-site firms, where an owner may be present and communication is constant, are among the safest places to work... Smaller companies have a special dynamic that works in their favor: close relationships that heighten the responsibility an employer feels toward her employees. Across most industries, single work sites operated by companies with fewer than 50 employees had lower fatality rates than similarly sized sites run by larger employers with up to 999 workers.” Los Angeles Times (May 5, 2006) 1.]

[Request #S62627]

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America’s Youth at 18: School Enrollment and Employment Transitions Between Ages 17 and 18. By the Bureau of Labor Statistics, U.S. Department of Labor. (The Department, Washington, DC) 2006. 10 p.

Full Text at: www.bls.gov/news.release/pdf/nlsyth.pdf

[“When it comes to transitioning to adulthood, young women appear to fare better than young men on several academic measures. The study found that teen girls were less likely than boys to drop out of high school, more likely to finish high school on time and more likely to enroll in college. Males were considerably more likely to still be in high school at age 18 than were females.” Youth Today (April 2006) 23.]

[Request #S62628]

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GENERAL GOVERNMENT

EMERGENCY PREPAREDNESS

Continuity of Operations: Selected Agencies Could Improve Planning for Use of Alternative Facilities and Telework During Disruptions. By the U.S. Government Accountability Office. GAO-06-713 (The Office, Washington, DC) May 2006. 71 p.

Full Text at: www.gao.gov/new.items/d06713.pdf

["Few agencies have prepared to use telework effectively during an emergency. Teleworking would be particularly helpful in ensuring that agencies continue their essential services during a pandemic which could send absentee rates as high as 40 percent and last for weeks or months. During this time, federal employees may be ill, caring for ill family members or distancing themselves out of fear of infection. Hurricane Katrina last year demonstrated that teleworking is a critical alternative for federal workers. Each agency is supposed to include telework in its continuity of operations preparations." Government Computer News (May 15, 2006) 1.]

[Request #S62629]

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Performance Management in State and Local Government. By the Nelson A. Rockefeller Institute of Government. (The Institute, Albany, New York) 2005. 87 p.

Full Text at: www.rockinst.org/weinberg/pdf/PerformanceManagementReport.pdf

["In 2005, the Rockefeller Institute held a public policy forum on the state and local role in performance management in New York State.... This introduction is organized bottom-up, beginning with the local level and then discussing the state and federal levels."]

[Request #S62630]

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Federal Management Regulation: Guidelines for Alternative Workplace Arrangements. By the United States Office of Governmentwide Policy, General Services Agency. IN: Federal Register. vol. 71, no. 52. (March 17, 2006) pp. 13845-13848

Full Text at: edocket.access.gpo.gov/2006/pdf/E6-3942.pdf

["GSA’s Office of Governmentwide Policy offers definitions of telework and other alternative workplace arrangements agencies should consider so they can be in compliance with teleworking laws. It also officially states that agencies must consider telework as a potential alternative to acquiring more office space or other facilities. While most agencies already have telework guidelines in place, this bulletin is significant because it is the first governmentwide policy statement on the issue from GSA." Government Computer News, March 17, 2006 online.]

[Request #S62631]

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HEALTH

INSURANCE

Shifting Ground: Changes in Employer-Sponsored Health Insurance. By the State Health Access Data Assistance Center, University of Minnesota School of Public Health. Prepared for the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation. (The Foundation, Princeton, New Jersey) 2006. 45 p.

Full Text at: www.rwjf.org/newsroom/CTUWFinalResearchReport2006.pdf

["California workers are increasingly turning down health insurance offered by their employers, according to this study. About 82 percent of California workers accepted their employer's coverage in 2003, down from 87 percent in 1998. Nationally, the percentage of workers who accepted their employers' plans dropped to 80 from 85 percent during that same period.... More workers are declining employer-backed plans largely because they are required to contribute more money for their coverage. This shift affects not only the health of workers but also the vitality of the companies that employ them." San Francisco Chronicle (May 5, 2006) 1.]

[Request #S62632]

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HUMAN SERVICES

TEMPORARY ASSISTANCE FOR NEEDY FAMILIES

Transitional Jobs: Helping TANF Recipients with Barriers to Employment Succeed in the Labor Market. By Allegra Baider and Abbey Frank, Center for Law and Social Policy. (The Center, Washington, DC) May 23, 2006. 10 p.

Full Text at: www.clasp.org/publications/transitional_jobs_06.pdf

["Quantitative and qualitative research suggests that transitional jobs programs have the potential to help individuals with barriers to employment successfully transition into the labor market. Since many of the families who continue to receive cash assistance under TANF have significant barriers, states seeking an effective approach to serving this population while simultaneously meeting stricter participation requirements mandated by the DRA, should consider creating and/or expanding wage-paying transitional jobs programs. Transitional jobs programs provide clients with the skills and experience they need to succeed in their journey toward economic independence.'"]

[Request #S62633]

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California's Response to Recent TANF Changes Should Preserve the Strengths of the CalWORKs Program. By Scott Graves, California Budget Project. Budget Brief. (The Project, Sacramento, California) May 2006. 6 p.

Full Text at: www.cbp.org/2006/0605_bb_calworks.pdf

["The reauthorization of the TANF block grant provides California an opportunity to build on the strong foundation of the CalWORKs Program, which was created with bipartisan support in 1997. Prior to considering proposals to modify CalWORKs, policymakers should identify the program’s key strengths and ensure that any proposed changes preserve or enhance those strengths, including a strong work incentive, a broad range of work-related activities, child care and other supportive services, a safety net for children, and flexibility for counties within a framework of state standards."]

[Request #S62634]

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Strategies for Increasing Participation in TANF Education and Training Activities. By Evelyn Ganzglass, Center for Law and Social Policy. (The Center, Washington, DC) April 17, 2006. 16 p.

Full Text at: en.groundspring.org/EmailNow/pub.php?module=URLTracker&cmd=track&j=72856139&u=669564

["The Temporary Assistance for Needy Families provisions in the fiscal year 2006 federal budget will require most states to substantially increase the number of TANF recipients participating in work-related activities. This paper aims to help state policymakers, program administrators, and others identify approaches to meeting federal participation rates while also improving programs' ability to help families enter and maintain sustainable employment. It also examines rates of participation in education and training, and recommends strategies to expand access to these activities within the new TANF policy context."]

[Request #S62636]

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TRANSPORTATION

COMMUTERS & COMMUTING

Energy Savings Boost Companies Onto List of Best Workplaces for Commuters: Press Release. By the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency. (The Agency, Washington, DC) October 19, 2005. 3 p.

Full Text at: yosemite.epa.gov/opa/admpress.nsf/d9bf8d9315e942578525701c005e573c/6dc8c2a79cf0687d8525709f0043574c!OpenDocument

["Silicon Valley, home to some of the Bay Area's most punishing commutes, boasts seven companies that rank among the nation's top 20 best workplaces for commuters.... The Best Workplace for Commuters rankings recognize the companies for their efforts in reducing fuel consumption, vehicle emissions and traffic congestion.... To qualify for the rankings, the companies had to offer significant commuting programs, including transit subsidies, shuttle services, carpool incentives, flexible working conditions and access to an emergency ride home service." San Francisco Chronicle (October 19, 2005) 1.]

[Request #S62637]

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[This section links to items in Studies in the News since the last Employment, Training, Vocational Education and Welfare to Work Supplement.]

EMPLOYMENT

"Employment, Education, and Human Services." IN: Studies in the News, Issue 06-05 (January 2006) - 06-25 (June 2006).

[Includes: "Welfare reform bonuses for states;" "Undocumented workers entitled to workers' compensation;" "Few replacements for retiring public managers;" "Treatment denials for injured workers;" "Perils faced by forest workers;" "Minimum wage economics;" "Decline of United Farmworkers Union;" "Day-labor industry workplace violations;" "Court upholds race-bias suit against San Francisco;" "Trade adjustment assistance needed;" "Minimum wage facts;" "Bridge worker safety;" "Improper activities by state employees;" "Reducing the illegal alien population;" "Financial preparedness for retirement;" "Increased skills for low-wage workers;" and others.]

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