Making Work Pay for Public Housing Residents Financial-Incentive Designs at Six Jobs-Plus Demonstration Sites

Abstract

The Jobs-Plus Community Revitalization Initiative for Public Housing Families, which is a national demonstration project in six cities, is testing ways to increase employment among pubic housing residents by combining changes in rent rules and other financial work incentives with employment and training services and social supports for work. The incentives being tested at each Jobs-Plus site were examined to identify how they can increase residents' net incomes and influence their decisions about work. The study documented that Jobs-Plus builds upon recent changes in welfare rules and the Earned Income Tax Credit by introducing flat or fixed rent steps, rents based on a lower percentage of income, lowering ceiling rents, rent credits, and escrow accounts. The importance of communicating all available financial supports for work to Jobs-Plus clients was emphasized. Across all housing developments and for a range of family circumstances, the Jobs-Plus rent rules gave residents more incentive to not only accept employment but also to choose full-time over part-time jobs and advance into higher-wage jobs than they had under the traditional rules. Jobs-Plus may have encouraged Reproductions supplied by EDRS are the best that can be made from the original document. some residents, particularly second earners in two-parent families, to reduce their work hours. (Contains 36 notes, 25 references, 11 tables, and 10 figures.) (MN) Reproductions supplied by EDRS are the best that can be made from the original document. Making Work Pay for Public Housing Residents: FinancialIncentive Designs at Six JobsPlus Demonstration Sites Cynthia Miller James A. Riccio PERMISSION TO REPRODUCE AND DISSEMINATE THIS MATERIAL HAS BEEN GRANTED BY TO THE EDUCATIONAL RESOURCES INFORMATION CENTER (ERIC) 1 U.S. DEPARTMENT OF EDUCATION Office of Educational Research and Improvement EDUCATIONAL RESOURCES INFORMATION CENTER (ERIC) (th,This document has been reproduced as received from the person or organization originating it. 13 Minor changes have been made to improve reproduction quality. Points of view or opinions stated in this document do not necessarily represent official OERI position or policy. MDRC Manpower Demonstration Research Corporation January 2002 2 BESTCOpy AVAILABLE Jobs-Plus Funding Partners U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development U.S. Department of Health and Human Services U.S. Department of Labor The Rockefeller Foundation The Joyce Foundation The James Irvine Foundation Surdna Foundation, Inc. Northwest Area Foundation The Annie E. Casey Foundation The Stuart Foundation BP Washington Mutual Foundation Dissemination of MDRC publications is also supported by the following foundations that help finance MDRC's public policy outreach and expanding efforts to communicate the results and implications of our work to policymakers, practitioners, and others: the Alcoa, Ambrose Monell, Ford, George Gund, Grable, New York Times Company, Starr, and Surdna Foundations; The Atlantic Philanthropies; and the Open Society Institute. The findings and conclusions presented in this report do not necessarily represent the official positions or policies of the funders. For information about MDRC and copies of our publications, see our Web site: www.mdrc.org. MDRC® is a registered trademark of the Manpower Demonstration Research Corporation. Copyright © 2002 by the Manpower Demonstration Research Corporation. All rights reserved. Overview . Public housing rules that set rents as a fixed percentage of residents' incomes have long been thought to discourage residents from working. The Jobs-Plus Community Revitalization Initiative for Public Housing Families, a national demonstration project operating in six cities, is testing ways to increase employment among public housing residents by combining changes in rent rules and other financial work incentives with employment and training services and social supports for work. With its reliance on rent-based work incentives, Jobs-Plus anticipated some of the key provisions of the Quality Housing and Work Responsibility Act of 1998. This report describes the kinds of incentives being tested in each of the Job-Plus sites and explains how these strategies can increase residents' net incomes and influence their decisions about work.

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