Editing Job Corps (section)

== Evaluations ==

In Program Year 2012, approximately 75 percent of Job Corps’ graduates were reportedly placed. Slightly more than 60 percent joined the workforce or enlisted in the military, while 13.5 percent of Job Corps’ graduates enrolled in education programs.<ref>{{cite web |url=http://www.jobcorps.gov/Libraries/pdf/who_job_corps_serves.sflb |title=Archived copy |access-date=2014-06-19 |url-status=dead |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20140420190426/http://jobcorps.gov/Libraries/pdf/who_job_corps_serves.sflb |archive-date=2014-04-20 }}</ref><ref name="questions_2014_10_22_cbsnews">{{cite web|url=http://www.cbsnews.com/news/federal-government-job-corps-program-investigation-raises-questions-about-effectiveness/|title=Federal government Job Corps program investigation raises questions about effectiveness|date=22 October 2014|work=cbsnews.com}}</ref><ref>{{Cite web|url=https://wdr.doleta.gov/research/FullText_Documents/National%20Job%20Corps%20Study%20and%20Longer%20Term%20Follow-Up%20Study%20-%20Final%20Report.pdf|title=Scochet, Burghardt and McConnell, 2006, National Job Corps Study and Longer-Term FollowUp Study}}</ref><ref>{{Cite journal|url=https://pubs.aeaweb.org/doi/10.1257/aer.98.5.1864|title=Does Job Corps Work? Impact Findings from the National Job Corps Study|first1=Peter Z|last1=Schochet|first2=John|last2=Burghardt|first3=Sheena|last3=McConnell|date=November 1, 2008|journal=American Economic Review|volume=98|issue=5|pages=1864–1886|via=CrossRef|doi=10.1257/aer.98.5.1864}}</ref>  However, analysts have suggested that the data fails to reflect that many of the job placements were in low-skill, low-wage jobs that they could have gotten without Job Corps participation, such as fast-food work or the military.<ref name="failng_2018_08_26_nytimes" /><ref name="failure_2009_05_05_heritage_org">Muhlhausen, David: {{unfit|1=[https://web.archive.org/web/20170326205731/http://www.heritage.org/jobs-and-labor/report/job-corps-unfailing-record-failure "Job Corps: An Unfailing Record of Failure,"]}} May 5, 2009, [[The Heritage Foundation]], retrieved June 6, 2024</ref>
===Mathematica===

From 1993 to 2008, [[Princeton University]] affiliate research organization [[Mathematica_Inc.|Mathematica]] produced a series of evaluations and reports on the Job Corps for the agency's parent, the U.S. Department of Labor, and for independent academic journals.<ref name="mathematica_studies">[https://www.mathematica.org/projects/evaluation-of-the-job-corps-program ''Evaluation of the Job Corps Program, 1993-2006''], [[Mathematica]], retrieved June 6, 2024</ref> Their long-term study involved repeated nationwide surveys of over 6,800 Job Corps participants, and a "control group" of over 4,400 comparable non-participants, over a four-year period -- and, in some reports, used the government-held, employer-reported tax records of individual workers for analysis of the survey subjects' economic outcomes.<ref name="mathematica_studies" /><ref name="mathematica_2008_review">Peter Z. Schochet, John Burghardt, and Sheena McConnell ([[Mathematica]]): [https://pubs.aeaweb.org/doi/pdfplus/10.1257/aer.98.5.1864 ''Does Job Corps Work? Impact Findings from the National Job Corps Study,''], Dec 30, 2008, ''[[American Economic Review]],'' vol. 8, no.5;  also [https://www.mathematica.org/projects/evaluation-of-the-job-corps-program  republished by Mathematica], retrieved June 6, 2024</ref><ref name="failure_2009_05_05_heritage_org" />

Their researchers ultimately concluded that "the Job Corps model" shows "promise" -- adding that the program's effect on participating youth "increases [their] educational attainment, reduces [their] criminal activity, and increases [their] earnings for several postprogram years." However, they noted that "tax data" indicated that -- except for "the oldest participants" (young adults in their early 20s) --  most participants' "earnings gains were not sustained" beyond four years after leaving the program.<ref name="mathematica_2008_review" /><ref name="cost_2014_05_19_wapo" />

That said, Mathematica concluded that the Job Corps is "the only federal training program... shown to increase earnings for this [disadvantaged youth] population."<ref name="mathematica_2008_review" /><ref name="cost_2014_05_19_wapo" />

However, the cost of the program, they concluded, exceeds the overall positive economic impact on society (from slightly improved social outcomes, like reduced crime and reduced welfare expenditures).<ref name="mathematica_2008_review" /><ref name="cost_2014_05_19_wapo" /> One of the study's leaders, Mathematica senior fellow Peter Schochet, asserted that the program is "a good deal for... enrollees themselves," but acknowledged that -- "from society's perspective" -- "the [Job Corps] program... does not pay for itself."<ref name="cost_2014_05_19_wapo" />

===Heritage Foundation===
In 2009, during the [[Presidency of Barack Obama|Obama administration]], the conservative [[think-tank]], [[The Heritage Foundation]], described the program's 40-year history as a "record of failure" -- citing specific findings from that Mathematica journal article, including that Job Corps participants were less likely than non-participants to "earn a high school diploma"; not any more likely to complete, or even attend, college; and earnings of Job Corps participants were essentially the same as a "control group" of similar non-participants.<ref name="failure_2009_05_05_heritage_org" />

In their 2009 critique, additionally citing a 2001 Mathematica study, the Heritage Foundation noted that income gains for participants (vs. comparable non-participants) was "never more than $25.20" per week,<ref name="failure_2009_05_05_heritage_org" /> while they cited a 2003 Mathematica study (withheld from the public by the government until 2006) as indicating negative impacts on childless female participants' incomes from 1998 through 2001.<ref name="failure_2009_05_05_heritage_org" /> 

Complaining that Job Corps fails to "substantially raise the wages of participants" -- at a cost of "$25,000 per participant" for an eight-month "average participation period" -- the Heritage Foundation described the agency as "a waste of taxpayers' dollars," and "an ideal candidate" to be on "the budget chopping block."<ref name="failure_2009_05_05_heritage_org" />

===Government Accountability Office===
A report from the Government Accountability Office cited over 13,500 safety incidents at Job Corps centers from 2016 to 2017 -- most of them drug-related or  assaults.<ref name="washingtonmonthly" />

===Trump administration===

In April 2017, the [[First presidency of Donald Trump|Trump administration]]'s Labor Department inspector general concluded that the agency could not show "beneficial training outcomes."<ref name="job_corps_2017_03_30_dol_gov">audit: [https://www.oig.dol.gov/public/reports/oa/2018/04-18-001-03-370.pdf ''JOB CORPS COULD NOT DEMONSTRATE BENEFICIAL JOB TRAINING OUTCOMES,''] March 30, 2018, Report number 04-18-001-03-370, Office of Inspector General, U.S. Department of Labor, retrieved June 7, 2024</ref><ref name="failng_2018_08_26_nytimes" /><ref name="failure_2018_04_22_wsj">Editorial board: [https://www.wsj.com/articles/the-job-corps-failure-1524432262 "The Job Corps Failure,"] April 22, 2018, ''[[Wall Street Journal]],'' retrieved June 6, 2024</ref>