Frequently asked questions

The Pathways to Work Evidence Clearinghouse maintains a list of services that we use to characterize programs and conduct analyses. This list is located on the website within Find Programs that Work, under the filter “Select services the program should provide.” The list nests some of the services underneath other services, to show services that are part of a broader service category. Programs can offer any combination of the services on the list, and any of the services listed may be primary services. As Pathways to Work continues to expand, other services may be added to the list.

Pathways to Work synthesis reports currently combine groups of closely related services from the list to ensure a meaningful number of studies will inform our meta-analyses. Those groups are used as part of analyses to determine what types of services are associated with better outcomes. For example, What Works to Improve Employment and Earning for People with Low Incomes combines education and training services and compares the effectiveness of these services to other types of services, such as work and work-based learning and incentives and sanctions.

The Pathways to Work Evidence Clearinghouse developed a list of services that programs provide. Some services are nested within other services. For example, occupational or sectoral training is nested within education and training, because it represents a type of training. The higher-level category of education and training also includes other types of education and training such as basic skills/bridge programs, integrated education and training, and pre-apprenticeship training. Any service, regardless of whether it is nested within another service, can be the primary service.

Employment and training programs commonly provide light-touch supports—such as money or vouchers for childcare or transportation—to address barriers to participation. Pathways to Work categorizes these kinds of services as “supportive services,” because they are explicitly designed to support employment and training. Pathways to Work also reviews programs that may improve labor market outcomes through strategies other than employment and training services, including by addressing barriers to work through provision of intensive housing, childcare, or legal assistance services. Pathways to Work categorizes these types of services as “housing supports and subsidies,” “childcare and/or early education,” or “legal assistance” services to indicate that the supports are more intensive and occur outside the context of an employment and training program.

An effectiveness rating assesses whether a program is likely to produce favorable results if faithfully replicated with a similar population. Outcome domains with well-supported ratings are those that the evidence suggests are most likely to improve if a program were replicated with a similar population. Outcome domains with supported ratings have some evidence that the program improves them, but the evidence is less conclusive. Outcome domains that receive a rating of not supported have strong or consistent evidence that the program is unlikely to produce favorable effects.

However, because implementation challenges and successes often vary and no two implementations of a program are identical, there is no guarantee that implementing a program with well-supported or supported ratings will necessarily yield similar results.

The Pathways to Work Evidence Clearinghouse reports implementation details for programs with at least one outcome domain that has a well-supported or supported rating across the 10 outcome domains (increasing earnings, increasing employment, or decreasing benefit receipt in the short, long, or very long term, or increasing education and training). We focus on programs with supported outcomes because program providers and policymakers might be interested in learning more about how to implement these programs.

Pathways to Work identifies and reviews relevant studies, including impact, descriptive, and implementation studies, to collect details on how a program was implemented. We summarize information such as the amount of services received, the number of staff delivering services, and costs and benefits.

Studies with low quality ratings demonstrate little evidence that findings are attributable, in part or in full, to the program examined. A low quality rating suggests that there is a high risk of bias. Pathways to Work focuses on providing detailed information for studies rated high or moderate quality because these studies have a lower risk of bias and the programs are more likely to have contributed to the findings. In other words, the Pathways to Work Evidence Clearinghouse focuses on studies that provide the most relevant, useful information for program providers and policymakers.