From Getting By to Getting Ahead: Navigating Career Advancement for LowWage Workers Work Advancement

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From Getting By to Getting AheadNavigating
Career Advancement for Low-Wage Workers Work
Advancement and Support Center (WASC)
DemonstrationACFs Tenth Annual Welfare
Research and Evaluation ConferenceJune 5,
2007Betsy L. Tessler and David SeithWASC is
funded by the U.S. Departments of Labor,
Agriculture, and Health and Human Services, and
the Ford, Rockefeller, Annie E. Casey, and Joyce
Foundations
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Brief overview of the Work Advancement and
Support Center (WASC) demonstration

• Problem
• Many low-wage workers not earning enough or
  advancing
• Not taking up the work supports for which they
  are eligible
• New approach to helping low-wage workers take
  strategic steps to advance.
• Increase earnings in the long term
• increase wages or hours
• acquire employer-provided benefits
• Increase and stabilize income in the short term
• make the most of available work supports

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Brief overview of WASC (contd)

• Operating in four sites
• Dayton, Ohio
• San Diego, California
• Bridgeport, Connecticut
• Fort Worth, Texas
• Institutional home WIA One-Stops, but requiring
  
• close collaboration between workforce and welfare
  agencies
• integration of staff and services
• Two core, integrated components
• Employment retention and advancement services
• Eased access to financial work supports

Learning sites
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The catch . . .

• Best path toward advancement can be complicated
• As earnings increase, work supports decrease or
  disappear altogether
• Must know the consequences of each advancement
  step before taking it to ensure a positive
  outcome
• Must combine work, training, and work supports in
  an optimal way

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The WASC model

• Integrated teams of workforce and work supports
  eligibility professionals
• Offer intensive career and advancement coaching
  for low-wage workers
• Increase access to and take up of work supports
• Food stamps
• Public health insurance
• Child care subsidies
• Earned Income Tax Credit (EITC)
• Child Tax Credit (CTC)

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Welfare as a work support

• WASC focuses on working people who are not
  current recipients of TANF.
• Nevertheless, TANF can be an important work
  support for some people, especially if they
  experience job loss.
• As a rule, sites are not promoting the take-up of
  TANF
• Coordination problems from having more than one
  coach with different approaches
• Distinguishing WASC from a welfare program
• Keeping emphasis on advancement
• Sites have different approaches to TANF
• One refers when there is job loss, one refers
  when asked

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Advancement tools

• Income Improvement and Advancement Plan (IIAP)
• Helps customers identify advancement goals and
  motivation
• Advancement Goals (check all that apply)
• ? Promotion to _______________________
• ? Earn raise from _____ to _________
• ? Increase in hours from _____to _______
• ? Education skills training ___________________
  ____
• ? Move into ____________job in _________________ca
  reer
• ? Be awarded employer benefits
  _______________________

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Advancement tools (contd)

• Income Improvement and Advancement Plan (IIAP)
  (contd)
• Helps customers identify income stabilization
  goals
• Income Stabilization Goals (check all that
  apply)
• ? Child care and/or transportation assistance 
• ? Assistance with food costs
• ? Health insurance for self and/or family
• ? EITC/Child Tax Credit Child and Dependent Care
  Tax Credit
• ? Child support 

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Advancement tools (contd)

• Work Advancement Calculator
• Quantifies changes in income that would result
  from specific advancement moves
• Takes into consideration decrease in work
  supports and increase in taxes

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Work Advancement Calculator
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The WASC evaluation

• WASC sites
• Diverse with regard to their workforce and
  welfare agency structures, demographics, and
  labor markets
• Should help test the adaptability and feasibility
  of the WASC program model in different contexts
• Target population
• Relatively low income
• Limited prior connection with welfare system
• Reemployed dislocated workers
• Research design
• Random assignment implementation and impact
  studies

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WASCs strategies

• Provide strategic assistance to advance
• Advancement coaching
• Increase work supports take-up
• Clarify eligibility
• Reduce stigma
• Ease access and simplify the process
• Successfully combine advancement and work
  supports
• Coordination of workforce and welfare
  staff/services
• Work Advancement Calculator

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Most low-wage workers have a substantial amount
to gain from work supports
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But as they advance, the same supports that make
work pay begin to phase out
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For nearly all families, work supports phase in
and out with earnings to create 3 advancement
phases
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Jack Taylor works 40 hrs. per week _at_ 7 per
hour.Diane Taylor is looking for a job.
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If Diane works Saturdays (10 hrs. _at_ 6/hr.),
family earnings go up 14, but yield a take-home
rate of -8.
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But a 40 hr./wk. job _at_ 7/hr. would boost
earnings by 64, for a take-home rate of 43.
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Operations lessons WASC Career Coaches can use
this understanding to help customers

• Plan smooth transitions from public to private
  health insurance and childcare coverage.
• Understand which advancement phase he/she is in
  and how to make strategic decisions accordingly.
• Phase 1 Take full advantage of the high
  take-home rates.
• Phase 2 Consider combinations of on the job
  advancement and training.
• Phase 3 Take full advantage of the high
  take-home rate.

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WASC coaching on the ground

• Help customers identify clear, obtainable
  short-term and long-term advancement goals and
  the steps required to achieve them (IIAP)
• Market work supports as a way to increase income
  in the short term while pursuing longer-term
  advancement goals
• Simplify the process of applying for and
  receiving work supports
• Educate customers about the interactions between
  advancement and work supports and prepare them
  for the loss of work supports as earnings
  increase.

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Marketing work supports
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Marketing work supports (contd)

• Taking up the full package of work supports
  available would increase net monthly income by
  518.25, from 532.84 to 1051.09
• More than 6,000 in additional income per year
• Implicit wage is 14.12 per hour

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Customer reactions to work supports information

• Wow!
• Most customers are interested in applying for the
  work supports for which they are eligible
• Most customers are already familiar with food
  stamps, Medicaid and child care assistance
• Many are familiar with or already receiving the
  EITC
• Fewer are familiar with the Child Tax Credit at
  the time they enter the WASC program even fewer
  actually claim this credit
• Medicaid is most popular
• Child care assistance is very popular in one site
  (not other)

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Customer reactions (contd)

• EITC found money
• Hesitations
• Food stamps most closely associated with
  negative welfare stigma
• Is application process worthwhile for small
  benefit amount?
• Take-up varies
• Future research will try to understand who took
  up which work supports and why

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Work supports access and application process

• Process designed for working people
• Can apply outside of a welfare office
• Quicker access to a staff person who can assist
  with eligibility screening and application
• One location, one staff person, no lines
• One set of questions for multiple applications
  (or, in some places, combined applications)
• Flexible hours and locations for meetings
• WIA and Workforce staff are either cross-trained
  or work closely together under one roof helps
  keep focus on advancement

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Coaching towards advancement
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Coaching towards advancement (contd)

• After taxes, transportation, child care expenses,
  and the changes in work support amounts, net
  monthly income would increase by about 343, or
  about 44 percent of the earnings gain of 780.60.
  
• For every extra dollar that Yvonne would earn by
  taking the new job, she would take home 44
  cents.
• The take-home rate is a short-cut to
  demonstrate the interplay between earnings and
  work supports

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Coaching towards advancement (contd)

• Uses for the Work Advancement Calculator
• Demonstrate the value of taking up work supports
• Motivate customers by showing how much a small
  raise, or a small increase in hours, could
  increase their incomes
• Show changes customer can expect from taking a
  specific job offer
• Compare two job scenarios one job with a higher
  wage but fewer hours compared to another with a
  lower wage but more hours
• Show the value of the EITC, and how many hours
  customer needs to work to receive a certain EITC
  refund amount
• Help customers overcome fear of losing work
  supports

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Advancement decisions and behaviors

• Loss of Medicaid for children is biggest fear
• Some customers have chosen not to make moves that
  would result in the loss of Medicaid for their
  children
• Most make the move anyway and look for other ways
  of handling the loss.
• Very few examples of customers cutting back work,
  or failing to take advantage of an advancement
  opportunity, because of the receipt of work
  supports
• Even low take-home rates have not seemed to
  prevent customers from advancing

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Use of the Work Advancement Calculator

• Varies by site, coach, and background of coach
• Some use mostly for eligibility
• Some use more for advancement
• Changes with changing caseload sizes
• More time to use Calculator when caseloads are
  smaller
• Some coaches switched to doing calculator in
  advance of meeting with customer, rather than
  together with customer
• Different levels of computer comfort influence
  use
• Some coaches are not comfortable with computers
  in general and are challenged to use the
  Calculator

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Conclusions

• The take-home rate for a worker who advances
  the amount of each additional dollar earned that
  the person gets to keep is usually less than
  100 percent
• Nevertheless, it nearly always pays to advance,
  as total income still increases with almost every
  advancement move
• For nearly all families, this interplay between
  earnings and work supports creates three distinct
  advancement phases
• First phase Strong advancement incentive, with
  take-home rate more than 100 percent
• Second phase Low take-home rates as work
  supports phase down

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Conclusions (contd)

• Third phase Take-home rate approaches 100
  percent as workers become ineligible for work
  supports
• WASC was designed to provide intensive career
  coaching strategies include
• Bringing welfare and workforce staff together
  under one roof
• Using innovative tools, such as the Income
  Improvement and Advancement Plan and the Work
  Advancement Calculator
• Implementation varies
• The four WASC sites are in different stages of
  their program
• WASC staff vary in their use of available tools
• WASC customers vary in their responses to the
  coaching they receive.