[Excerpt]

A group of nearly 100 people gathered Thursday to address challenges facing the state’s workforce and what needs to be done as the state continues to recover from the coronavirus pandemic.

The meeting, hosted by AMOS Institute of Public Life, the education and training arm of AMOS [A Mid-Iowa Organizing Strategy], drew members of the region’s faith-based community, business leaders, and state and local government officials.

The meeting focused on Project IOWA, a nonprofit organization that offers support and training to Iowans looking to improve their careers.

Paul Osterman, a professor of human resources at the MIT Sloan School of Management, the keynote speaker of the meeting, said job training programs, such as Project IOWA, have had great success in helping low-wage workers climb the ladder to better-paying jobs.

He said nothing has changed since the pandemic began to spread, “it’s just intensified it,” in reference to the need for services.

Osterman said one challenge that needs to be addressed is helping people move from one job to another, something Project IOWA focuses on.

There isn’t a strong public system to help with that, so the work Project IOWA does is essential to not only train workers, but also provide access to good jobs and creating good jobs.

“And these programs do both of these,” Osterman said. “You provide training, skills and connection to employers, but programs like these also create worker jobs, because there is research that shows that in communities that have effective human capital, skill development systems, employers do better. More jobs are created. It’s better for entrepreneurs. It’s better for employers. It helps new businesses coming to the community when they can see that the community is invested in the skills of its people, and sharing the cost of developing the skills of its people.

“Over time, it actually improves the economic health of the community,” he said.

Change Needed in Job Training, Development in New Pandemic Workforce, Business Record [pdf]

[Excerpts from Community Impact & Austin Monitor]

Travis County commissioners continue to consider a plan to offer electric automaker Tesla millions of dollars in economic incentives to build a factory in eastern Travis County, but with no date yet announced for a decision on the matter. If approved, Tesla could receive nearly $14.7 million in property tax rebates across 10 years with additional rebates in the 10 years following.

At the commissioners' June 30 meeting, Travis County community members again phoned in to voice support and concern regarding the proposed incentives. Several speakers encouraged the county to leverage for greater worker wage and protection commitments.

"We are skeptical. Numerous studies have shown that local governments rarely if ever receive benefits commensurate with what incentives cost, and, despite what they say, businesses rarely if ever give incentives much weight when deciding where to locate," said [Rev.] Michael
Floyd, who spoke on behalf of Central Texas Interfaith....

Floyd...pointed out that even at the average wage cited by Tesla, a family of three would still qualify for Travis County Rental Assistance. Currently, people earning 150 to 250 percent of the federal poverty income guidelines, or $31,580 to $54,300, qualify to receive rental assistance from the county due to an expansion in eligibility requirements resulting from Covid-19.

[Photo Credit: Courtesy Tesla via Community Impact]

Travis County Continues Tesla Deliberations With No Date Set for Vote on Economic Incentives, Community Impact [pdf]

County Development Incentive for Tesla Sees More Support, Austin Monitor [pdf]

[Excerpt]

Last week, the New York Times highlighted a workforce training program in San Antonio called Project QUEST that helps hundreds of people every year move out of poverty and into sustainable employment. A recent analysis of the program was particularly encouraging. Nine years after entering training, participants are still experiencing high rates of employment and earning over $5,000 more annually than a similar group that didn’t participate in the program. Such outcomes are rare in workforce development programs.

The Times article came out just as AEI’s Vocation, Career, and Work research team began discussions with Capital IDEA in Austin, Texas, an organization that uses a model similar to Project QUEST. Capital IDEA has been working with low-income families in Austin for more than 20 years to move workers from low-wage to middle-skill jobs. In 2018, program graduates earned an average starting wage of $22 per hour. A previous analysis of the program has found sustained wage gains at least four years after program completion.

[Photo Credit: RealClear Policy]

Note: Capital IDEA is a long-term workforce development program established by Austin Interfaith.  Project QUEST was established by COPS/Metro in San Antonio.

In Austin, a Public/Private Partnership for Workforce Success, RealClear Policy 

[Excerpt]

The economic odds facing Avigail Rodriguez a few years ago couldn’t have been much worse. An undocumented immigrant and a single mother, she lived in a cramped apartment in a tough neighborhood in San Antonio and earned just $9 an hour working as a nurse’s assistant.

Today, Ms. Rodriguez, 26, owns her own home in a safer area, earns nearly three times as much as she did before and has secured legal residency. The key to her turnaround was a training program called Project Quest, whose own ability to beat the odds is no less striking than that of Ms. Rodriguez.Project Quest has succeeded where many similar retraining efforts have failed, taking workers lacking in skills and successfully positioning them for jobs where they can earn double or triple what they did previously.

“This really gives employers a chance to find workers they wouldn’t otherwise have considered,” said Lawrence Katz, a labor economist at Harvard University. “At the same time, it provides opportunities to a rather disadvantaged group of workers, both younger and older.”

....

Project Quest was born 27 years ago in a Hispanic neighborhood in San Antonio where poverty rates are above the citywide average. After the closing of a Levi Strauss factory there, community groups [i.e. COPS/Metro, see comment at right] created Project Quest as a way of preparing workers for better-paying, more highly skilled jobs that were less vulnerable but still in demand.

[Photo Credit: Joanna Kulesza, New York Times]

Job Training Can Save Lives. See How San Antonio Does It., New York Times [pdf]

Business columnist Chris Tomlinson of the Houston Chronicle argues that Project QUEST is the most effective workforce development program in the nation.  Economist Mark Elliot, CEO of the Economic Mobility Corp., had this to say:    

“To see earning differences this large and for this long is unprecedented in the workforce development field.”

In photo above, COPS/Metro leader Sr. Consuelo Tovar fights for local funding of Project QUEST.  [Photo Credit: Kin Man Hui, San Antonio Express-News]  In bottom photos, trainees learn to cradle a newborn and conduct PERRLA evaluations.  [Photo Credit: Jerry Lara, San Antonio Express-News]

San Antonio Program Moves Low-Skilled into Middle Class, Houston Chronicle [pdf]

Nine Year Gains: Project QUEST's Continuing Impact, Economic Mobility Corporation [pdf]

[Excerpt below]

Project QUEST, the nonprofit workforce development organization created more than a quarter-century ago by the COPS/Metro Alliance, has been awarded a $1 million grant that the organization says will allow it to serve more San Antonians with expanded job training programs.

The award comes from the Rockefeller Foundation and Chan Zuckerberg Initiative as part of their Communities Thrive Challenge, which awarded $1 million each to 10 organizations across the nation, working to “help low-income and financially insecure people find and retain well-paid, meaningful work, achieve financial security or build economically vibrant neighborhoods.”

San Antonio’s Project QUEST wins national $1 million grant, San Antonio Express-News [pdf]

Four years after launching living wage campaigns in their respective cities, COPS/Metro and Austin Interfaith leaders celebrated hard won hikes in the lowest wages paid to municipal workers in both San Antonio and Austin. This week, both cities become the first in Texas to set a $15/hour wage floor for city workers. In Austin, this new standard additionally applies to contracted workers, part-time and temporary workers AND to employees of private businesses receiving economic incentives (more in next section).

Leaders also leverage increased city investments in long-term workforce development ($2.4 Million for Capital IDEA and $2.2 Million for Project QUEST) plus affordable housing (San Antonio). Bexar County announced that they, too, would pay their lowest earning employees at least $15/hour. Austin leaders successfully intervened for programs under threat of budget cuts, including PrimeTime after-school programming and parent support specialists in the Austin Independent School District.

Additional background:

Press Statement, COPS/Metro Alliance
Press Statement, Austin Interfaith
San Antonio Ranked Among Nation's Highest-Poverty Cities, Rivard Report
City of San Antonio boosts municipal wages (2015)
City of Austin passes 'Living Budget' and closes labor loophole (2015)

After succeeding in changing how economic incentives are granted in Louisiana, and teaching local municipalities and school districts how much tax exemptions cost the people they serve, Together Baton Rouge (TBR) leaders identified another source of public revenue loss: property tax roll omissions. 

Vigilant leaders of TBR discovered that approximately $400 million in taxable property (at four Baton Rouge facilities owned by ExxonMobil) appears to have been omitted from the preliminary 2018 property assessment rolls provided by the East Baton Rouge Parish Tax Assessor. 

Left uncorrected, this apparent omission of taxable property would result in a one-year loss of approximately $5.9 million in revenue to East Baton Rouge Parish taxing bodies over the next fiscal year, including a loss of $2.7 million to East Baton Rouge Parish public schools in the current fiscal year (a year in which the school district is running a multi-million deficit).

Holding Their Feet to the Fire, Bayou Brief

Letter to Tax Assessor, Together Baton Rouge

Attachments, Together Baton Rouge

West/Southwest Industrial Areas Foundation organizations are pioneering workforce initiatives that bring working people out of poverty level jobs and into living wage careers. By building the political will for investment of public monies in long-term training, local organizations have successfully brought together employers, community college officials and community leaders to create long-term workforce development and education programs for actual jobs in high demand occupations.

Inspired by the success of the oldest of these labor market intermediaries, Project Quest in San Antonio, leaders established an additional nine projects in the West and Southwest US: Capital IDEA in Austin, Texas; Project ARRIBA in El Paso, Texas; VIDA in the Rio Grande Valley of Texas; JobPath in Tucson, Arizona; NOVA in Monroe, Louisiana, Skills-Quest in Dallas, Texas; Capital IDEA-Houston in Houston, Texas; Project IOWA; and Arizona Career Pathways in Phoenix. In 2014, DuPage County United launched its own labor market intermediary, Career Connect Metro West, just outside Chicago.

Collectively, these institutions have trained and placed over 16,000 adults in living wage jobs which pay, on average, $40,000 annually plus benefits and a career path. This number is expected to grow as the West/Southwest IAF expands into Phoenix, Des Moines, Albuquerque and DuPage.

WORKFORCE PROJECTS

Project Quest
Capital IDEA
Project ARRIBA
VIDA
JobPath
NOVA
Capital IDEA-Houston
Skill-Quest
Project IOWA
Arizona Career Pathways
Career Connect Metro West

PRESS

Report: ARRIBA Program That Helps Low-Income Students Through Nursing School Has $893 Million Impact, El Paso Inc.(2021) [pdf]

Job Training Can Change Lives.  See How San Antonio Does It, New York Times (2019) [pdf]

San Antonio Program Moves Low-Skilled Workers Into Middle-Class, Houston Chronicle (2019) 

Texas Job Program Shows Unusually Strong, Lasting Gains, Study Finds, Austin American Statesman [pdf] (2017)

A Capital Idea: We Can’t Think of a More Valuable Initiative, Houston Chronicle (2014)

A Look at How Project ARRIBA Helps Individuals and the Community, KVIA (2014)

Job Training Program Adjusts Amid Funding Cuts, Texas Tribune (2013)

Who Can Fix the “Middle-Skills” Gap?, Harvard Business Review (2012) [pdf]

School for Success, The American Prospect (2012)

Project Quest a Worthwhile Investment for City, San Antonio Express News (2012)

Workforce Training of Parents Boost Children’s Aspirations
Austin American Statesman (2011)

Tucson Tech: $200,000 Grant to Help Train 50 Adults
Arizona Daily Star (2011)

VIDA Success Stories Multiply; Job-Training Organization Moves Forward
Brownsville Herald (2009)

Building a Career Where There Was Just a Dead End
Washington Post (2007)

INDEPENDENT STUDIES

Fourteen Year Gains: Project QUEST's Remarkable Impact, Economic Mobility [pdf] (2024)

The Economic Impact of Project Arriba on El Paso County, Texas, Hunt Institute for Global Competitiveness, University of Texas at El Paso (2021)

Nine Year Gains: Project QUEST's Continuing Impact, Economic Mobility Corporation (2019)

VIDA: Implementation and Early Impact Report, Pathways for Advancing Careers in Education (2018)

Escalating Gains: The Elements of Project QUEST's Success, Economic Mobility Corporation (2018)

Escalating Gains: Project QUEST’S Sectoral Strategy Pays Off, Economic Mobility Corporation (2017) 

Economic Impact of Project ARRIBA on El Paso, Texas
UT El Paso, Institute for Policy and Economic Development (2015)

Economic Impacts of the JobPath Program on Pima County
Applied Economics (2014)

Return on Investment from Capital IDEA: Research Brief, Full Report, 2014 Update
UT Austin, Ray Marshall Center for the Study of Human Resources (2011)

VIDA: Economic Impact Study
UT Pan American, Data & Information Systems Center (2010)

Project Quest: A Case Study of a Sectoral Employment Development Approach, Aspen Institute (2001) [pdf]

Capital IDEA: Generational Impact Study (2011)

Beyond Graduation: Promoting Post-Program Engagement & Advancement
Aspen Institute (2009); On the Road to Success video (2010)

ADDITIONAL MATERIALS

Further reading on workforce development strategies

IEF Labor Market Programs, a memo by MIT economist Paul Osterman (2002)  

Video about the establishment of Project Quest in San Antonio (1994)

Story about the establishment of Project Quest in San Antonio by COPS/Metro