Jobs Plus Evaluation

Overview

Jobs Plus is a place-based program which encourages and supports families in meeting their economic goals. The program model has three core components: (1) Employment Related Services; (2) Financial Incentives; and (3) Community Support for Work. The model is designed to be implemented at saturation-levels so that all residents in a Jobs Plus development benefit from the program, whether they are directly enrolled and receiving services or indirectly by building a culture of work.

The Jobs Plus program model was initially conceived of in the mid-1990s and demonstrated in six public housing agencies (PHAs) from 1998–2003. MDRC evaluated the demonstration, producing two highly impactful reports. The first of these describes the program’s impacts through the 4-year grant period. The second extended the analysis to assess the impacts through an additional 3-year period after the program had ended and showed a sustained increase in earned income — 16 percent higher for residents in Jobs Plus sites relative to the control sites. In 2015, HUD began to scale up the model, awarding annual grants for PHAs to implement the Jobs Plus program. PD&R has sponsored a process study and outcomes evaluations of the recent scale-up of Jobs Plus. Published reports on Jobs Plus include:

• Promoting Work in Public Housing: The Effectiveness of Jobs-Plus (2005)
• Sustained Earnings Gains for Residents in a Public Housing Jobs Program: Seven-Year Findings from the Jobs-Plus Demonstration (2010)
• Scaling Up a Place-Based Employment Program: Highlights From the Jobs Plus Pilot Program Evaluation (2017)
• HUD's Jobs Plus Pilot Program for Public Housing Residents: Ongoing Implementation Experiences (2019)
• HUD Jobs Plus Outcomes Evaluation - Long-term Effects from the Original Jobs Plus Demonstration: Employment and Earnings for Public Housing Residents after 20 Years (2023)
• Participation and Labor Market Impacts for the First 24 Sites to Replicate HUD's Jobs Plus Program: Final Report (2023)