Postsecondary education and middle-skills occupational training are viewed as important paths to higher-paying jobs and careers. Lifelong learning pathways geared toward working learners aged 25 and older also seem essential for career advancement and professional growth in the current job market. However, many learners face financial and other…

This brief highlights lessons from the City Colleges of Chicago (CCC) Centers of Excellence model, which has redesigned each of the system's seven campuses as a "college-to-career center" and consolidated academic programs in high-demand industries at particular campuses. The model incorporates features of sectoral training programs,…

Data from the U.S. Census Bureau indicate that in 2016 over four million young people in the United States were "disconnected," meaning they had not been enrolled in school in the previous three months and were not working. Although this number has fallen in the years since the Great Recession (which officially ended in 2009), as the…

Individuals with low incomes often struggle to advance in the labor market, yet at the same time, some employers report difficulty finding workers with the necessary skills. WorkAdvance is a workforce development model that seeks to address the needs of both of these groups through its "dual customer" approach. The model offers training…

WorkAdvance is a sectoral workforce development program designed to meet the needs of workers and employers alike. For unemployed and low-wage working adults, the program provides skills training in targeted sectors that have good-quality job openings with room for advancement within established career pathways. For employers in those sectors,…

Family Rewards was an innovative approach to poverty reduction in the United States that was modeled on the conditional cash transfer (CCT) programs common in lower- and middle-income countries. The program offered cash assistance to low-income families, provided that they met certain conditions related to family health care, children's education,…

Between 2000 and 2003, the Employment Retention and Advancement (ERA) project identified and implemented a diverse set of innovative models designed to promote employment stability and wage or earnings progression among low-income individuals, mostly current or former welfare recipients. The project's goal was to determine which strategies could…