53 | Using Evidence to Guide Employment Assistance Strategies during and after the Pandemic

On the Evidence

March 2021 marks the one-year anniversary of the World Health Organization officially declaring the coronavirus outbreak a pandemic. The disease we’ve come to know as COVID-19 has now infected more than 28 million Americans and led to at least half a million deaths in the United States. COVID-19 has also incurred serious damage to the nation’s economy. In February, the number of unemployed persons was 10 million, up from 5.7 million a year earlier. On this episode of On the Evidence, guests George Putnam, Dana Rotz, and Naihobe Gonzalez discuss the current distressed economy and evidence-based ideas about how to help workers who have been negatively affected by the pandemic. • Putnam, the labor market information director at the Illinois Department of Employment Security, helps the Midwest Collaborative, a consortium of nine states that share current administrative data across sectors and state lines to develop insights to support reemployment and economic recovery efforts. • Rotz is a senior researcher at Mathematica who leads a team at Mathematica that is producing short summaries of research related to pressing employment issues during the pandemic. • Gonzalez is also a senior researcher at Mathematica who coauthored a recent report for the U.S. Department of Education on findings from two experiments that allowed the use of Pell Grants to help displaced workers earn credentials that might quickly improve a person’s job prospects. To find a written transcript of the episode and to learn more about the data and research discussed on this episode, visit mathematica.org/commentary/using-evidence-to-guide-employment-assistance-strategies-during-and-after-the-pandemic. Help us improve the show. Please take our listener survey at tinyurl.com/ontheevidence Upon completion of the survey, you will be given the option to provide an email address that will be entered into a drawing for a chance to win a $50 e-gift card.