Can a Participant-Centered Approach to Setting and Pursuing Goals Help Adults with Low Incomes Become Economically Stable? Short-Term Impacts of Four Employment Coaching Programs

Research suggests that the stresses and uncertainty of poverty can be overwhelming, leaving less mental bandwidth for effective development and use of self-regulation skills, including those that are critical in finding and maintaining employment. Examples of self-regulation skills relevant to employment include: the persistence needed to keep at a task despite setbacks; the time management skills that make it possible to consistently show up to work on time; and the emotional understanding and regulation to deal productively with co-workers. Research suggests that coaching can promote self-regulation skills and hence may be a way to help adults with low incomes become economically secure. For this reason, TANF and other employment programs that serve adults with low incomes have been implementing employment coaching.

The purpose of this study is to examine whether coaching is effective in improving participants’ goal pursuit and other self-regulation skills, employment, earnings, self-sufficiency, and other measures of personal and family well-being.

The study found that, at 9 or 12 months (depending on the program) after study enrollment:

• Two of the four coaching programs had statistically significant impacts on goal-setting and attainment skills—a measure of self-regulation skills.
• Although no program had a statistically significant impact on average monthly earnings, Bayesian analysis of self-reported earnings suggests impacts that were small and likely positive for three of the four programs. None of the programs had positive impacts on earnings reported to an Unemployment Insurance (UI) agency, and Bayesian analysis suggests evidence of a small, likely negative effect on those earnings for one program.
• One of the four coaching programs led to a statistically significant reduction in economic hardship (such as inability to pay bills or cutting the size of meals because of the inability to afford enough food).

Between February 2017 and November 2019, about 4,300 adults who were eligible for one of the four employment coaching programs included in the evaluation and who consented to participate in the evaluation were randomly assigned either to (1) a program group that had access to employment coaching, or (2) a control group that did not have access to employment coaching but could receive other services available in the community. In the study of the Goal4 It! program, the control group received traditional TANF case management. In the study of FaDSS, all program and control group members received TANF case management.

The effectiveness of each employment coaching program was assessed based on differences in average outcomes between program and control group members. To estimate the short-term impacts of employment coaching, the study used data from (1) a baseline survey or form administered to study participants at the time of study enrollment, (2) a follow-up survey administered to study participants approximately 9 to 12 months after study enrollment, (3) administrative employment and Unemployment Insurance records from the National Directory of New Hires, and (4) administrative records from state and local agencies on participation in public assistance programs.

Quinn Moore, Tim Kautz, Sheena McConnell, Owen Schochet, and April Wu. Can a Participant-Centered Approach to Setting and Pursuing Goals Help Adults with Low Incomes Become Economically Stable? Short-Term Impacts of Four Employment Coaching Programs. OPRE Report #2023-139. Washington, DC: Office of Planning, Research, and Evaluation, Administration for Children and Families, U.S. Department of Health and Human Services.