Millions of Americans Need Assistance in Order to Succeed in Employment5.2 million youth are considered disconnected from work and school. Over 700,000 people leave prison and return to communities each year. Over 3.5 million people experience homelessness in any given year. On average 2 million families receive TANF each year. Over 300,000 returning veterans have disabilities that will hinder them in finding and keeping a job. |
Why Do We Need Transitional Jobs?
Cities and states are developing TJ programs as part of their city and statewide plans to address poverty, ensure successful reentry of people returning from incarceration, reduce the receipt of public assistance payments, support housing and supportive housing goals, and ensure that local and state workforce development systems work for all.
Transitional Jobs are effective in helping low-income people with barriers to employment enter the workforce, avoid reincarceration, and reduce receipt of public benefits. The evidence for the effectiveness of Transitional Jobs programs has been built by numerous program evaluations and rigorous random assignment studies.
Transitional Jobs programs strengthen communities through investments in workers. Transitional Jobs programs invest in people by building a productive workforce that contributes to the social and economic livelihood of communities.
Transitional Jobs programs can help employers meet their goals. Transitional Jobs programs focus on helping a potential worker gain hard and soft skills to become a productive, contributing member of the workforce.
Transitional Jobs programs can yield significant cost savings for States. The Fiscal Policy Institute projected that the cost savings for New York state in serving longtime public assistance recipients and the formerly incarcerated through TJ programs together equaled over $106 million over 3 years after subtracting the state’s initial $47 million funding investment in Transitional Jobs programs.