In$ync

In$ync bridges higher education and employers preparing “good jobs” for young adults who are pursuing training in high tech. Despite a norm that all youth should complete college in order to secure a well-paying job almost as many “good jobs” paying at least $60,000 a year do not require an undergraduate degree, compared to those that do. Using the Los Alamos National Lab and Northern New Mexico College as a case study, In$ync demonstrates how Associate degrees can propel individual upward mobility as well as community development. The model is similar to other ventures, such as the Federation for Advanced Manufacturing Education and Credential Engine.

Arnold Ventures

Arnold Ventures, previously the Laura and John Arnold Foundation, incorporated the Coalition for Evidence-based Policy, begun by Jon Baron, in order to promote research in social programming. At the same time, the Pew Charitable Trust and the MacArthur Foundation used the Washington State Institute for Public Policy’s cost–benefit capacity to encourage states to deploy evidence-based programming. By the 2017, Arnold Ventures was committed to fund any credible randomized controlled trial to enhance services. The evidence movement culminated in the 2018 Evidence-based Policymaking Act, which requires federal agencies to develop an evaluation plan along with statistical and advisory capability in addition to standards to which states and private firms must comply in order to receive federal funds.

American Development Accounts

Because most benefits for poor Americans focus on income, wealth is rarely considered. While inequality due to income has widened, wealth inequality has become a chasm, impeding families from accruing assets necessary for prosperity. American Development Accounts are based on Individual Development Accounts, but with a default opt-in proviso for young workers. Increasing wealth for new entrants to the labor force is essential for the prosperity of their families and their communities.

Abdul Latif Jameel Poverty Action Lab

Established by Esther Duflo and Abhijit Banerjee at MIT, Abdul Latif Jameel Poverty Action Lab (J-PAL) initially focused on randomized controlled trials (RCTs) in developing countries. In 2013, J-PAL pivoted to mount RCTs in North America, evaluating the Oregon Medicaid program and developing an expansive study of the Nurse-Family Partnership in South Carolina. As a means to expand the talent pool of development practitioners, J-PAL developed a MicroMasters for students available worldwide. In order to extend RCTs, J-PAL introduced a Local and State Innovations Initiative, providing funding and technical assistance to encourage organizations serving the poor to mount field experiments.

The Abecedarian Project

Craig Ramey, a psychologist, organized the Abecedarian project in North Carolina to determine the benefits of intensive preschool. Subsequently deployed in eight cities, Abecedarian showed that preschool programs lasting several hours daily can mitigate the disadvantages attendant on poverty. Significantly, Abecedarian serves as a comparison for Head Start, providing justification for reforming that program. Embraced by Nobel laureate, James Heckman, Early Childhood Education became a benchmark for progressive policy reform.

Nurse-Family Partnership

David Olds developed nurse home visiting as an intervention for poor, first-time mothers. As demonstrated by three randomized trials in Elmira, Memphis, and Denver, the Nurse-Family Partnership became the basis for significant federal funding under the Maternal, Infant, and Early Childhood Home Visiting Program. The transition from pilot program to federal legislation included tiered funding, by which programs demonstrated by Randomized Controlled Trials were prioritized over those with less empirical support.

Starving the Beast

The evolution of the Chicago school of economics and public choice theory provided an alternative to Keynesian economics, which had served as the basis for financing the welfare state. Accordingly, Grover Norquist established Americans for Tax Reform to contain taxes, denying the welfare state essential revenues. Despite the success of the antitax movement, unanticipated problems became evident: the expansion of tax expenditures exacerbated inequality and skyrocketed public debt. Behavioral economics emerged as a research-based alternative to conventional economic theory.

Wednesday’s Children

During the Progressive Era, nonprofit organizations were the basis for child welfare, promoting the creation of the Children’s Bureau. Title IV of the Social Security Act established that the government would provide cash benefits and social services for poor children. The absence of rigorous research in child welfare contributed to disproportionality in care, accounting for Jane Crow. Varied funding match rates contributed to elaborate fiscal arrangements between state and federal governments as well as incentives to place children in foster care. Yet, the Perry Preschool project, the Nurse-Family Partnership, and the Abecedarian Project emerged, demonstrating the value of field experiments.

Innovation

Evidence-based policy can serve as a disruptive innovation if it is modified in accord with the circumstances of the typical agency director. Behavioral economics has implications for introducing RCTs in social care, addressing the inertia that typifies community based services. Four recommendations can make RCTs more visible and instrumental in policy reform: (1) deploying innovations to rural areas and small towns and testing them rigorously, (2) altering federal tiered funding so that half of allocations are for programming demonstrated by multiple RCTs, (3) modifying MIT’s MicroMasters for domestic programming, and (4) developing a “randomista” award for researchers making substantial contributions to the evidence-based policy movement. Collaboration between private and public sectors will be essential for expanding the evidence-based policy movement.

Silver Bullets and Other Obstacles

The prospects for reorienting social programs for residents of flyover country diminish as the left wing of the Democratic Party proposes programs that are ruinously expensive and fail to resonate with working-class voters. A key issue of the 2016 presidential election was the influence of cartels that favor professionals over workers without a college degree. Thus, proposals like a universal basic income, Medicare for All, and free public college are likely to alienate blue-collar voters.