A Nationwide Evaluation of M.D.T.A. Institutional Job Training

This evaluation of MDTA institutional job training is based on interviews with a national probability sample of about 1,200 trainees and 1,060 other persons who were unemployed about the same time the training courses started. While the trainees' personal evaluations of their MDTA courses were obtained in considerable detail, the basic purpose of the research was to learn whether the training had any effect on income and employment during the year or more between the training and the interview. Among those who ever held a full-time job since the training period, the MDTA program had no demonstrable effect on income; completers and nontrainees reported about the same weekly wages on their most recent full-time jobs. But more completers than nontrainees were employed when interviewed (78 versus 55 percent), which is probably the main reason for an observed difference in family income. When numerous other variables are controlled in a multiple regression analysis, the net effect of completing MDTA training is estimated to be about $10 a week in family income when interviewed. The mean amount of full-time employment for trainees and non-trainees combined was 55 percent of the period since training. Controlling for several other variables, the net effect of MDTA training on full-time employment is estimated to be between 13 and 23 percent of the period after training for completers (and between 7 and 19 percent for dropouts). Some of the difference is probably due to motivational or other factors not included in the multiple regression analysis. But it appears that the MDTA program does increase employment, even if it does not lead to better paying jobs.