National RCT of “Year Up” Program Finds Major, Five-Year Earnings Gains for Low-Income, Minority Young Adults

STRAIGHT TALK ON EVIDENCE: “Extremely impressive” are the words an influential newsletter by Arnold Ventures uses to describe new findings from Abt’s long-term evaluation of Year Up—a workforce training program for low-income young adults. The findings show earning gains of 30-40 percent ($7,000-8,000 a year) that persisted at least five years. These heartening results are among the most significant to date reported from a randomized controlled trial. The ongoing study is part of Abt’s Pathways for Advancing Careers and Education (PACE) project.