Increasing Opportunity for the Working Poor in New York City

1

• Increasing Opportunity for the Working Poor in
  New York City
• Presentation for the National Association of
  Workforce Boards
• February 24, 2008

2
Agenda

• Background on the Center for Economic Opportunity
  
• Overview of working poor initiatives
• Areas for collaboration with key stakeholders

3
New Anti-Poverty Agenda

• Commission on Economic Opportunity
• Co-Chairs
• Richard Parsons, Time Warner Inc.
• Geoffrey Canada, Harlem Childrens Zone
• 30 Members from Various Sectors
• Not-for-profit
• Business
• Philanthropic
• Governmental
• Academic
• Group met for 4 months to brainstorm innovative
  ideas, which were then submitted to City Hall for
  consideration

4
New Anti-Poverty Agenda

• Mayor Bloomberg established the Center for
  Economic Opportunity in December 2006
• Implement, monitor, evaluate the Citys
  ambitious new anti-poverty agenda
• Commission Recommendations
• CEO programs fulfill all 31 recommendations
  issued by the Mayors Poverty Commission
• Innovation Fund
• 150 million Innovation Fund supports CEOs
  efforts to pilot new anti-poverty programs
• Requires that each program be evaluated

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Targeted Approach

• Target Populations
• Working Poor
• Young Adults
• Young Children
• Target Communities
• CEO Communities (yellow)
• Opportunity NYC Communities (blue)
• Citywide
• Common Principles
• CEO initiatives represent new ideas, best
  practices, expansions of model programs
• Programs seek to build human capital improve
  access to services

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Strategy Implementation

• Report Released December 2007
• Includes program research design details
• Describes planning implementation stages
• Enhances accountability
• Improves ability to share lessons learned with
  other agencies,
  providers, localities
• www.nyc.gov/ceo
• CEO Collaboration
• Programs developed with input from various
  experts and service
  providers
• Public-private partnerships essential to success
• Outstanding providers for each program
• City Agencies chosen based on ability to manage
• Contracted organizations chosen by RFP process

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Poverty in US and NYC
Source Community Service Society of New York,
CPS Tabulations (New York City) and U.S. Census
Bureau, Historical Poverty Data (national).
8
Poverty in US and NYC
Source American Community Survey, U.S. Census
Bureau, 2005.
9
New Policies to Support Work

• Child Care Tax Credit
• New local Child Care Tax Credit expected to serve
  49,000 families
• Earned Income Tax Credit (EITC)
• Contacted individuals with completed forms to
  increase use of EITC
• Bloomberg Administration proposed new federal
  policy changes

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Working Poor Program Components

• Service Delivery
• Promoting career paths
• Improving access to work supports
• Asset building and financial literacy
• Key Stakeholders
• Center for Economic Opportunity (Mayors Office)
• Workforce Investment Board
• Mayors Office of Adult Education
• TANF Agency (Human Resource Administration- HRA)
• Department of Corrections and Probation
• City University of New York (Community College
  Partners)
• Local Funders Collaborative

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Guiding Principles to Designing New Programs

• Demand-driven workforce development strategies
  have proven most effective for meeting the hiring
  and training needs of businesses and facilitating
  advancement for workers
• Establish business relationships and develop an
  understanding of hiring and training needs.
• Develop well-defined jobseeker/employee service
  strategies that proactively and efficiently
  impart the knowledge and skill necessary for
  productive employment in high-demand jobs.
• Use technology to increase access to services,
  facilitate service delivery, and provide
  essential management data.
• Create a professional environment, create clear
  objectives, establish strong accountability, and
  develop staff capacity to engage new
  challengesfrom creating value propositions for
  business, to re-engineering service delivery, to
  managing change.
• Coordination between complimentary programs can
  increase scale and impact, but only if the
  underlying programs have compatible objectives, a
  capacity for partnering, and good fundamental
  performance

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Core Objectives of Working Poor Programs

• Using a business driven approach, develop the
  skills and preparation opportunities for working
  poor adults that lead to income gains
• Expand the Business Solutions Training Funds (WIA
  customized training grants) program by working
  with employers to train entry level workers in
  basic skills, literacy and work behaviors
• Create retention advancement programming and
  work support service strategies by creating both
  an employer based approach (Work Advancement and
  Support Center) with an initial rollout of
  advancement programming in One-Stop Workforce1
  Career Centers
• Create two Sector Focused Career Centers
• Develop employment and retention programming for
  New York City probationers (Employment Works)
• 2. Coordinate more closely with business,
  community organizations and government agencies
  to create a more cohesive workforce development
  system
• Expand Community Outreach Teams in One-Stop
  Workforce1 Career Centers
• Create a citywide web-based occupational Training
  Provider Directory that reflects employer needs,
  is high quality and offers customers informed
  decision-making
• Draw down Food Stamp Employment and Training
  funding for programs that serve food stamp
  recipients

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Skills Development

• Flexible Customized Training Grant
• Goal
• Expand the successful NYC Business Solutions
  Training Grants to increase flexibility of
  funding to serve entry-level clients through
  access to contextualized literacy classes, ESL,
  work readiness, and skills training
• Target training to stabilize entry level workers,
  upgrade part-time workers, or train new workers
• Guiding Principle
• Stabilizing workers on the first rung of a career
  ladder will improve retention and build a strong
  foundation for advancement
• Implementation Strategy
• Expand training model to include literacy and
  soft skills in order to support occupational
  skills training
• Allow training providers to apply as business
  consortia administrators
• Create pre-application and technical assistance
  mechanisms to increase likelihood of strong
  applications
• Allow for more flexible matched expenses from
  businesses (to support more small businesses to
  apply)

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Sectoral Initiatives

• Industry Focused Career Center
• Goal
• Create an industry-focused Career Center that
  meets the skill and employment needs of a growth
  industry by working closely with employers to
  develop pre-vocational, vocational, and
  preparatory training AND commit to hire and
  advance qualified candidates
• Guiding Principle
• Employer engagement is a key determinant in
  pursuing an industry strategy that focuses on
  career pathways for jobseekers and incumbent
  workers
• Implementation Strategy
• Perform labor market scan on key sectors that
  meet criteria of industry growth, ability for
  working poor to advance, and systems change
  opportunities
• Work with Aspen Institute to learn from
  implementation lessons of large scale sector
  programs to craft RFP
• Institute planning process for sectoral planning
  for 2nd Sector Center

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Retention Advancement

• Advancement Work Support Center
• Goal
• Focus on job advancement and increased earnings
  through programming that uses an intensive career
  coaching model which promotes retention,
  advancement and work support uptake
• This model is based on promising practices that
  are supported nationally by private foundations,
  national research policy organizations, and
  One-Stop systems
• Guiding Principle
• Approaching retention in the context of work
  advancement and transitional supports helps to
  bridge the path to self sufficiency
• Implementation Strategy
• Pilot One Stop Career Center based strategy that
  is individual based approach
• Pilot stand-alone Advancement Center that focuses
  on an employer based approach to recruit
  participants

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Ex-Offender Programming

• Criminal Justice Initiative for Probationers
• Goal
• Develop a portfolio of programs focused on court
  involved individuals (probationers) for
  employment, training, and upgrade support
• Manage the portfolio organizations using
  technical assistance, learning community, and
  strategic planning processes
• Guiding Principle
• Successful ex-offender employment programming
  must address the historically low job retention
  rates experienced by this population. These low
  rates are presumably due to low wages, and lack
  of educational/occupational skills that are
  critical for job advancement
• Implementation Strategy
• Determine population target (age, offense, type
  of supervision)
• Develop systems change plan for Department of
  Probation to focus on employment
• Create service delivery plan that focuses on
  retention through case management, work support,
  and educational skills attainment

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Transparency in Training

• Training Provider Coordination
• Goal
• Set citywide standards for training provider
  quality and training curriculum
• Focus city investments in training on areas that
  are informed by employers and that are most
  effective in preparing candidates to succeed in
  employment
• Guiding Principle
• Tools should provide ease of use for customers,
  training providers and agency staff to improve
  transparency and accountability
• Implementation Strategy
• Develop an online training provider application
  to collect information on courses and programs
• Develop directory of training providers that
  staff and jobseekers can use to make informed
  decisions based on performance, curricula,
  location, etc.
• Share training information citywide with
  agencies, staff, and jobseekers

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Community Outreach

• Partnering with Community Based Organizations
• Goal
• Better connect community organizations to One
  Stop Career Center job orders and service
  referrals
• Equip Career Centers with robust Community
  Outreach Teams who will work closely with Career
  Center account executives and local and city
  partner organizations to increase job fulfillment
  and provide more seamless pipelines into the
  Career Center system
• Guiding Principle
• Many local organizations have strong expertise in
  preparing jobseekers for demand occupations and
  can leverage the Career Center network of
  employers for job placement
• Implementation Strategy
• Outreach Teams are intended to develop formal and
  customized relationships with high performing
  local organizations
• Teams will manage outcome data and communicate
  regularly on partnership effectiveness with
  referral organizations

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Leveraging Funds

• Food Stamp Employment and Training Coordination
• Goal
• Increase workforce development training funding
  by applying for federal Food Stamp participants
• Leverage employment initiatives that are funded
  with private and/or local dollars where
  participants are likely to be enrolled or
  eligible for food stamps
• Guiding Principle
• Local and private employment and training funding
  should leverage existing matching programs to
  maximize new funding streams for workforce
  innovation
• Implementation Strategy
• Review state FSET plan to determine any needed
  changes
• Select pilot programs to claim participants for
  reimbursement
• Create plan for administration and mechanics for
  the drawdown of funds
• Expand pilot to other organizations who engage in
  FSET eligible activities

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Areas for Collaboration

• These new Initiatives leverage the existing
  workforce development infrastructure.
• Areas for Collaboration
• Employer Engagement
• Engaging businesses for curriculum design, use of
  system, changing workplace practices
• Sector Center, Worker Advancement Center,
  Customized Training Funds
• Policy Setting/Systems Change
• Promoting accountability (training guide)
• Aligning funding to support sector focus
  (literacy funding and sector center)
• Re-orienting non-workforce programs to partner
  with workforce programs (ex-offender programs)
• Focusing on work support attachment and high wage
  work (all programs)
• Integration of training, economic development and
  workforce development
• Aligning high demand, high growth jobs with
  service delivery strategy (all programs)
• Building career pathway models that are specific
  and achievable
• Resource Development

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• Appendix

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CEO Budget Summary

• All programs are supported by city tax levy
  funds, which are allocated each year (July 1-June
  30)
• Programs are supported in a 2 year pilot phase
  with CEO Innovation Fund commitment
• CEO is investing over 6mm in an independent
  program evaluation to help identify and
  articulate effective pilot programs
• Thereafter, effective programs based on outcomes
  and implementation are expected to be baselined
  into City agency budgets for 5 years

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Overview of Key Accomplishments