Transitional Jobs

In Wisconsin and the United States, we are suffering from uncommonly high unemployment. The job gap—the difference between the number of unemployed men and women who need jobs, and the jobs that are available to them—has also risen to unprecedented levels.

To help get people back to work, the Community Advocates Public Policy Institute has worked closely with Milwaukee lawmakers to create transitional jobs: wage-paying jobs that allow low-income, unemployed men and women to do useful work and support themselves and their families. Recent research demonstrates that transitional jobs—in combination with earning supplements, affordable childcare and affordable health care—are key to reducing poverty and increasing employment:

  • Participants in Transitional Jobs programs are more likely to get and keep a job, increase wages over time, and show a decreased reliance on public benefits. An extensive review of TJ program data found high post-Transitional Jobs employment rates for six Transitional Jobs programs—between 81 and 94 percent. In addition, an evaluation of Washington State’s Community Jobs program found that the program had strong positive impacts on employment and earnings.
  • The average participants had eight barriers to employment and were the least work ready of all welfare recipients in the state, yet after the program, 72 percent of participants entered unsubsidized employment and had average income increases of 60 percent during the first two years in the workforce compared to pre-program income.

In Milwaukee alone, several small-scale transitional jobs programs are already in operation.

The Public Policy Institute’s work on transitional jobs has already resulted in two significant pieces of legislation:

  • Transitional Jobs Demonstration Project

    In 2009, Public Policy Institute Director David R. Riemer drafted language for a 2009-11 budget amendment—inserted into the budget by Sen. Spencer Coggs (D-Milwaukee)—which created the Transitional Jobs Demonstration Project authorizing up to 2,500 jobs slots.

    Eligible participants in the Transitional Jobs Project must be between the ages of 18-64 (and parents if between the ages of 21-64); unemployed for over four weeks; ineligible for unemployment insurance benefits and W-2; and have an annual household income of less than 150 percent of the federal poverty level. Unemployed adults would be paid the minimum wage for up to 40 hours of work per week for a maximum of 1,040 hours, or six months. Each job slot could employ several individuals during the life of the project.

    The Coggs amendment also created a new W-2 component that, beginning in 2011, will offer W-2 participants the opportunity to work in wage-paying “subsidized private-sector employment” positions—another version of transitional jobs paying wages that qualify for earnings-based tax credits.

    In July 2010, DCF Sec. Reggie Bicha announced $34 million in federal funding for the Transitional Jobs Demonstration Project, designed to get 4,000 Wisconsin residents back into the workforce. Funding is provided by federal Recovery Act dollars provided to the Temporary Assistance for Needy Families (TANF) Emergency Fund. Watch a July 16 interview about the Transitional Jobs Project with Sec. Bicha on Wisconsin Public Television's Here and Now.
  • Wisconsin Family Jobs Act

    Riemer subsequently worked with Rep. Tamara Grigsby (D-Milwaukee) to draft the Wisconsin Family Jobs Act, which Gov. Jim Doyle signed into law in May 2010. The Act removed the Demonstration Project’s 2,500 job cap. Read analysis on the Wisconsin Family Jobs Act by the National Transitional Jobs Network.

    The Act also increased the wage subsidy for the Department of Children and Families’ (DCF) seldom-used Trial Jobs Program for W-2 enrollees so as to make it more attractive to employers. Under this provision, employers would receive a 100 percent wage subsidy at the minimum wage for the hours worked by an eligible employee hired to work up to
    40 hours per week for a maximum of 1,040 hours, or six months.

Transitional Jobs Collaborative

As a local leader on transitional jobs, the Public Policy Institute helped to found the Milwaukee Transitional Jobs Collaborative, which seeks to obtain state and federal programs and funding to make transitional jobs available to Wisconsin’s unemployed. Other organizations in the collaborative include the Archdiocese of Milwaukee, Good Jobs and Livable Neighborhoods, the Greater Milwaukee Foundation, the Interfaith Conference of Greater Milwaukee, the Milwaukee Area Workforce Investment Board, Milwaukee Community Service Corps, MICAH, Milwaukee Homicide Review Commission, the New Hope Project, Northwest Side Community Development Corporation, Policy Studies Inc., Social Development Commission, Thomas & Associates, UMOS, Milwaukee Urban League, WISDOM and the YWCA.