This final report assesses participation and labor market outcomes for public housing residents from the first 24 sites in the scale-up of the Jobs Plus program. The program model was first demonstrated in six sites between 1998 through 2003 and showed evidence of having a positive impact on residents’ earned income. In 2014, HUD began a replication of the Jobs Plus program. As of May, 2023, roughly $145 million in 60 grants has been awarded. This study examines the implementation, effectiveness, and impact of the first three cohorts, comprised of 24 grantees and 31 developments.

Data from the National Directory of New Hires (NDNH) are used to compare changes in residents’ earned income and employment between 2014 and 2020. The study covers the full grant period for all cohorts, and between 3-9 quarters of pre-program data, depending on the cohort. The study timeline mostly predates the COVID-19 pandemic, however, the last two quarters of the grant period for the third cohort grantees coincides with the beginning of economic shocks from the pandemic. Robustness checks show that omitting these quarters did not affect the results.

The two confirmatory outcomes of the study are (1) the difference in the cumulative earnings between the Jobs Plus and comparison groups, and (2) the difference in the average quarterly employment rates between the Jobs Plus and comparison groups. The main findings from this report are that earnings and employment were similar for residents of Jobs Plus and comparison developments.

This report is one in a series of reports on Jobs Plus:

• 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)

More information about HUD’s Jobs Plus program can be found here.